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Philippine government presents peace proposal to Muslim rebels |
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June 2, 2000
Peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front resumed Tuesday, a month after the rebels withdrew from the negotiations to protest a military offensive against their camps in the southern Philippines.
The two sides failed to issue a joint communique as planned after two days of talks because of disagreements over when they will return to the negotiating table, rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said.
The government negotiators ruled out an independent Islamic state, which the MILF has been fighting for since the 1970s. Instead, they presented the MILF panel with a proposed political package consisting largely of a congressional bill that could expand an existing Muslim autonomous region in the southern Mindanao region.
"We gave it to them this morning. They are now studying it," said Edgardo Batenga, a former army general and head of the government panel. "Kindly remember that we have a time frame to follow. Time is very important here." During the talks, Batenga insisted on completing the negotiations by June 30, a deadline set by President Joseph Estrada.
Batenga said he proposed that the negotiators meet again by next Wednesday. "The MILF will not agree to that," Kabalu said. "This is not a joke. ... It cannot be done that way. They want to dictate the outcome of the negotiation. On our part we want a negotiated solution, otherwise the problems will come out again."
Asked whether the rebels were just stalling for time in hopes of being granted observer status at a meeting of the influential Organization of Islamic Conference later this month, Kabalu said it would have no effect on the talks.
"That will just be moral support and political pressure, but substantially, with or without them, what means much more is how you contain the situation on the ground," he said.
Kabalu said they were surprised that what the government submitted was merely the proposed amendment to a law that created the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The amendment has already been passed by the Philippine House of Representatives.
"After all this time, this is all they gave," he said. The House bill and a Senate version would have to be reconciled before it is signed into law by the president.
The current autonomous region covers four Mindanao provinces, which are among the poorest in the country. The proposed new law will call for a plebiscite to ask residents in 10 other southern provinces whether they want to join the autonomous region. Most are unlikely to join because they are dominated by Christian majorities resulting from migration to the region in recent decades.
The governor of the autonomous region is Nur Misuari, leader of the Moro National Liberation Front, a former rebel group which signed a peace accord with the government in 1996, accepting autonomy rather than independence.
The MILF, which splintered from the MNLF in 1978, rejected that accord. The peace talks resumed a day after the military overran Camp Bushra, the MILF's second largest camp and its training center.
Military spokesman Col. Rafael Romero said two soldiers and 48 rebels were killed during the seizure of the camp. The government negotiating panel refused to discuss a proposal by the rebels for a cease-fire.
In Manila, representatives of a peace group seeking a 40-day truce were also turned down by Estrada.
"We will continue to implement the strategy of negotiations from a position of strength," Dinky Soliman, a member of the group, quoted the president as saying.
The group wants to give civilians time to retrieve belongings from homes they were forced to abandon, receive medical attention and harvest crops.
The Office of Civil Defense said more than 237,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. The MILF is the larger of two rebel groups fighting for an independent state for the Philippines' Muslim minority. A smaller group, the Abu Sayyaf, is holding 21 mostly foreign hostages on the southern island of Jolo.
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