Talks Break Down in KL; MILF Rejects Gov’t Draft on Ancestral Domains

By Carlos H. Conde
PinoyPress

MANILA — Negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front suffered a serious setback over the weekend after the separatists accused Manila of unilaterally changing the essence of the draft for a key agreement — a move that pushed the decade-old negotiations back to square one, officials of the MILF said.

The MILF’s negotiating panel refused to meet with government negotiators for their scheduled meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday. “We decided not to meet them because the draft they prepared was objectionable,” said Michael Mastura, a negotiator for MILF. “The government reneged on earlier agreements.”

Mohagher Iqbal, chairman of the MILF peace panel, said the government’s action was “like changing the rules in the middle of the game.” He said restarting the talks, which Malaysia has been facilitating since 2001, “is now entirely up to the government.”

Rodolfo Garcia, chief government negotiator, confirmed the impasse. “There has been differences in the proposed text on concepts of territory and resources, including elements of governance,” he told The Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur.

Ancestral domain has been a sensitive issue since last year and the failure by both sides to resolve it has dimmed the chances of a peace agreement anytime soon. Both sides earlier said they were hoping to sign an agreement by January but Garcia said “realistically, given this present situation, it might be difficult to reach the target.”

Officials said the breakdown of the talks this weekend is one of the most serious since talks began in 1997. According to Mastura, the government-prepared draft did away with some “substantive elements” both panels had agreed upon since 2005.

“In the guise of editing the draft for styling purposes, they deleted references to ownership of ancestral domains,” Mastura said in a phone interview from Kuala Lumpur. “But to us, ancestral domains is the meat and bones of the negotiations. By removing the ownership aspect of it from the draft, the government ignored a consensus point that had earlier been deliberated, agreed upon and signed by both sides.”

Two such “consensus points” were contained in a joint statement both panels signed in Malaysia in February 2006. In it, they said they reached a “joint determination of the scope of the Bangsamoro homeland based on the technical maps and data submitted by both sides” and that the “Bangsamoro people,” a term used by the rebel group to refer to Filipino Muslims, have the “right to utilize and develop their ancestral domain and ancestral lands.”

Mastura said that “all of this were crafted, deliberated by two parties and were mutually agreed upon and signed. It was final. All we had to do was turn it into a memorandum of agreement. In turning it into an agreement, Garcia and company did not reflect faithfully those crafted, agreed and signed texts.”

Mastura said the government also inserted references to the Philippine Constitution in its draft. “We are not pleased with it. We do not recognize the Philippine Constitution. The consensus points never referred to the Constitution,” he said.