As Malaysia Begins Pullout from Peace Monitoring Team: MILF Rejects GRP Proposal to Tap Bishops, Elders in Peace Talks

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has rejected a proposal by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to tap the services of the Bishop-Ulama Conference (BUC) in monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire between the government and the Moro revolutionary group.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 14, May 11-17, 2008

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has rejected a proposal by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to tap the services of the Bishop-Ulama Conference (BUC) in monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire between the government and the Moro revolutionary group.

In a statement posted on the website www.luwaran.com, Khaled Musa, deputy chairman of the MILF Committee on Information, said the government’s proposal was “cheap” and “a let-down to men of faith like the bishops and the ­ulamas.”

“Making them sweat and sacrifice to maintain peace and order like policemen after the government intentionally (defiled) the peace process is absurd,” Musa also said.

Musa cited the experience of Fr. Eliseo Mercado Jr., who served as a truce observer from 1997 to 2000.

“(But) he ended up castigating the government for willfully making a mockery of the ceasefire and the peace process,” Musa said. “Now, the Malaysians are about to go.”

Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza announced the government’s intention to tap the BUC as ceasefire monitor in the GRP-MILF peace negotiations as Malaysian delegates prepared to pull out, starting May 10, from the International Monitoring Team (IMT) which is tasked to observe and monitor the cessation of hostilities between the two parties to the negotiations as well as the implementation of socio-economic projects related to the talks.

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.

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.”

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.”


Ancestral domain

Last December, the GRP-MILF peace negotiations reached a deadlock over the ancestral domain issue.

The ancestral domain issue, which was first discussed only in 2004 or some eight years after the talks started, has turned out to be the most contentious issue in the GRP-MILF peace negotiations.

The MILF last year was proposing a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) that would be based on an ancestral domain claim of the Bangsa Moro over Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan.

The GRP had insisted that areas to be covered by the BJE other than the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) should be subjected to a plebiscite. This repeatedly led to an impasse in the peace negotiations with the group.

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