International Monitoring Team begins new work Feb. 28

by Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/27 February) – The Malaysian contingent of the International Monitoring Team (IMT) is arriving on Sunday afternoon (Feb. 28) in Cotabato City, the fifth batch of international personnel monitoring the implementation, among others, the ceasefire between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The new team from Malaysia, led by Maj. Gen. Datuk Baharom Bin Hamzah of the Malaysian Armed Forces, the new IMT Head of Mission (HOM), will arrive at 5:45 p.m. on Sunday at the Awang airport in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao (more popularly referred to as Cotabato airport) from Labuan in Malaysia.
Malaysia, which has been facilitating the peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF, heads the IMT.

The IMT Head Of Mission will be accompanied by 20 Malaysian military personnel who will join the 20 others already in the Philippines – 10 military personnel from Brunei and eight from Libya, and Japan’s two development workers, Tomonori Kikuchi and Yusuke Mori – in IMT-5 or IMT Batch 5.

The team’s deployment comes 15 months after the IMT, renewed annually since 2004, left Mindanao on November 30, 2008, following the collapse of the talks after the aborted signing of the peace panels’ Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) on August 5, 2008.

It also comes barely two weeks after an eight-man Advance Team headed by Lt. Gen. Datuk Raja Mohammed Affendi bin Raja Mohamed, Chief of Staff of the Malaysian Armed Forces Headquarters, and the then incoming HOM, visited Mindanao to look into the team sites.

Shortly upon arrival in Cotabato City, the IMT will meet with the press at 6:30 p.m. at the Estosan Hotel. At 7:30, the government peace panel led by Ambassador Rafael Seguis will host a reception for the IMT at the hotel’s grand ballroom.

The reception will also be attended by members of the government’s and MILF’s Coordinating Committees on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH). MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal has been invited to the reception, a press statement from the government peace panel said.

Also invited to attend are officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

IMT-5 will not only monitor the security aspect as IMT 1 to 4 did, but also reconstruction and rehabilitation, socio-economic development, and will now include the Civilian Protection Component (CPC).

The IMT is to be composed of a total of 60 members. With the arrival of the Malaysians on Sunday, there will be 40 of them from Malaysia, Brunei, Libya and Japan. The 20 other slots will be divided among the CPC and two other countries invited to join the IMT.

The Mindanao People’s Caucus (MPC) and the Non-violent Peace Force are members of the CPC. Other organizations seeking recognition as part of IMT’s CPC are the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS), Saligan Mindanao, Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) and two others. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)