Govt seeks longer stay for foreign watchers in talks with MILF

Moving closer to a resumption of peace talks with Muslim separatist rebels in Mindanao, the Philippine government has requested that the Malaysian-led international peace monitors extend their watch for another three months. Unless it is given a new mandate, the International Monitoring Team (IMT) that oversees peace negotiations between the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will end its tour of duty on December 9 and its 39 members will depart Mindanao for their respective countries. However, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos Deles said on Wednesday that the Department of Foreign Affairs has sent notes verbale to the country-members of the IMT, whose mandate expires on Dec. 9. “We believe that the MILF will support the request for the three-month extension of the IMT’s term," said Deles. “Reciprocity and a stable environment on the ground make the environment conducive to resuming the talks, which we expect to start very soon," she said. MILF’s earlier stand Two weeks earlier, the MILF had expressed its own wish to extend the IMT’s tour. In an article on its website, the MILF said that while the IMT was deployed only last Feb. 28, the signing of its annual mandate took place on Dec. 9 last year. “If the reckoning starts on the day the mandate was signed, then the IMT will leave on or before Dec. 9 — less than a month from now. But if the counting will start from the day they arrived, then they will still be in Mindanao for more than three months," the rebel group said in an article posted on Luwaran.com on Nov. 15. Since the international team was formed to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the MILF and to encourage the peace process, it has been credited for significantly reducing clashes between the military and Muslim rebels in the country’s south. An added role is for the IMT to oversee the Civilian Protection Component of the peace talks that was launched on Oct.18 in Cotabato City. The IMT’s one-year mandate is covered by the Terms of Reference signed by the two parties in Kuala Lumpur on December 9, 2009. Fifth contingent The current IMT, headed by Maj. Gen. Datuk Baharom bin Hamzah, is the fifth contingent sent to the country since 2004 by the governments of Malaysia, Libya, Brunei and Japan. Norway and the European Union recently accepted the invitation to join the IMT, extended by both the Philippine government and the MILF. (See: MindaNews: Malaysian-led monitoring team in Mindanao ends tour of duty) IMT-5 is comprised of 39 delegates. The team’s security component is made up of 20 members from Malaysia, 15 from Brunei and three from Libya. Two representatives from Japan monitor the socio-economic development agreement, while the EU serves as the lead monitor of the humanitarian, rehabilitation and development agreement. Of the 39 members, 33 are military officers while the remaining six are civilians. Resurgence of violence In the article posted on its site on Nov. 15, the MILF warned that the expiration of the IMT’s term next week may lead to a resurgence of armed conflict in Mindanao. With the fate of the IMT hanging “heavily in the balance," the resumption of talks remains uncertain, and “a resurgence of fighting is feared by many quarters," the MILF said. According to the Muslim rebels, the deployment of the IMT in Mindanao has reduced the fighting between the MILF and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to “zero level." From January to October this year, the IMT has recorded only three armed encounters — a far cry from 110 during the same period in 2009. Deadlock The Philippine government and the MILF, however, remain deadlocked over the insistence of the administration of President Benigno Aquino III to oust the current Malaysian facilitator of the peace talks, Datuk Othman Bin Abdul Razak. (See: MILF to govt: No peace talks without facilitator) The government has accused Razak of being biased in favor of the MILF. The MILF, however, has blamed the impasse on the government panel’s moves to oust Razak and to craft new terms of reference (TOR). MILF peace panel secretariat chairman Jun Mantawil has insisted however that the facilitating country, Malaysia, makes the call over the choice of facilitator of the talks. Mantawil said in the MILF website that if government negotiators or presidential peace adviser Deles wanted a replacement, this could not be done “through the media." Instead, he said, the President would have to take it up with Malaysian Prime Minister Dato Sri Najib Mohammad bin Razak. Despite resistance from the MILF, the government has stood pat on its decision to seek the removal of Razak and urged Malaysia to find a replacement “acceptable to both sides." Separatist Muslim rebels had rejected any informal talks with the Philippine government without the participation of a Malaysian facilitator. Muslim insurgency The MILF is the largest group fighting for self-rule in Mindanao. It started as a breakaway group from the older Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which had entered into the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and other later agreements with the Philippine government. A final peace pact is expected to end the protracted war in Mindanao that has claimed at least 120,000 lives, displaced at least 300,000, brought massive destruction to property, and crippled the region’s economy. Peace talks between the government and the MILF bogged down in 2008 after the Supreme Court outlawed in August 2008 an expanded Muslim homeland agreement that would enlarge the MILF’s area of control. After more than a year of impasse, back-door negotiations led to a revival of formal negotiations in December 2009 under the government of former Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Bad faith Meanwhile, the MILF accused the government of “bad faith" in pursuing peace talks and of not observing the ceasefire, signed by both parties on July 18, 1997. The ceasefire, which collapsed in 2000, was reestablished in 2001 after the former President Joseph Estrada’s all-out war against the MILF, the group said in a statement on its site. “The government through the military, police, and intelligence operatives is reducing the peace process and the ceasefire to nothing and [rendering this] useless, as they continue to conduct raids, searches, and arrests on MILF areas and personalities," Khaled Musa, deputy chairman of the MILF committee on information said. “This is treachery and a mockery of the peace process and the ceasefire," Musa said, reacting to a recent raid and arrest of four MILF members in a remote village of Maitum, Sarangani on November 28. Arrested in that latest raid were Ryan Binago, Amerson Ismael, Edward Ramos and Abdul Sokor Binago alias Kumander Dido Binago, who admitted members of the MILF. The suspects, members of the 12th brigade of the MILF’s 105th base command based in the coastal town of Palimbang in Sultan Kudarat, were initially charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives before the Sarangani Provincial Prosecution Office in Alabel town.—DM/JV, GMANews.TV