MILF: Hopes of Peace Diminishing by the Day

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 15, May 18-24, 2008

For Mohagher Iqbal, chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Negotiating Panel, Malaysia’s pullout from the International Monitoring Team (IMT) in the peace talks with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) means that the negotiations are “shaky on the ground.”

The IMT – which is composed of delegates from Malaysia, Brunei and Libya – was deployed to several areas in Mindanao in 2004. Malaysia, which facilitates the GRP-MILF peace negotiations, had the biggest contingent in the 60-member IMT.

An initial group of 29 Malaysian delegates left Mindanao on May 10. The remaining 12 are set to follow by August.

Malaysian facilitator Othman Abdul Razak was reported as saying on May 3 that the GRP-MILF peace negotiations “will not move forward” if the GRP kept insisting that the talks be conducted in accordance with “constitutional processes.”

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who is part of the government’s national security cluster, has admitted that the Malaysian team’s pullout is an “obstacle” that would have a “psychological impact” on the peace negotiations, even as he stressed that “all is not lost here.” This, even as he told reporters of the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the MILF’s demands “could lead to secession.”

“We cannot balkanize the Philippines,” the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Gonzalez as saying in a May 5 report. “We cannot allow an East Timor or an Aceh situation.

The government’s attitude in the peace negotiations was criticized by a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Mindanao.

“I don’t know about the government,” said Bp. Dinualdo Gutierrez in an interview over Catholic Church-run Radio Veritas earlier this month. “It seems their political will is questionable.”

Meanwhile, the British government has recently offered to send experts who were involved in the peace talks in Northern Ireland to help in the GRP-MILF negotiations. “The MILF and the Philippine government said they’d welcome someone who could talk about what happened in Northern Ireland because there are similarities,” said British Ambassador Peter Beckingham.

In this interview with Bulatlat, Iqbal expresses his observations on these developments. Following is the full text of the interview:

What can you say about Razak’s statement blaming the Philippine government for the stalling of the peace negotiations?

He is speaking the truth. A good referee, as in boxing, always takes the side of those who are in the right. He will always reprimand those who punch below the belt.

The GRP has been delaying the talks, the latest of which is the composition of a team of lawyers to review the legality or constitutionality of the agreed draft memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain, which the GRP and MILF peace negotiators have managed to settle when Datuk Othman shuttled between Manila and Darapanan, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao on Feb. 19-22, 2008.