Manila Gives In To MILF Demand, Signs Deal On Muslim Homeland In Troubled South

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 27, 2008) – Philippine peace negotiators late Sunday rushed to make a deal with Muslim rebels and promised them ancestral homeland hours before President Gloria Arroyo is to deliver her State of the Nation Address.

Government negotiators and Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels have agreed on the issue of ancestral domain and formal signing has been set next month, said Mohagher Iqbal, chief MILF peace negotiator.

“We have already initialed the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain at ten p.m. tonight. There will be formal signing on August. The document is secured from further discussion,” Iqbal told the Mindanao Examiner by phone from Kuala Lumpur where the peace talks were held.

Rebel leaders have accused the Arroyo government of reneging on previous agreements on the Muslim ancestral domain that led to the failure of the peace talks in Malaysia, which is mediating in the negotiations.

Government peace negotiators led by Rodolfo Garcia tried to change an earlier deal on the ancestral domain that led to the collapse of the talks on Friday, Iqbal said.

President Gloria Arroyo’s peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon flew Sunday to Malaysia to restart the stalled talks and eventually agreeing to the rebel demand for a separate homeland.

The MILF also wanted the August 11 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) postponed until after the peace agreement is signed. The five-province ARMM is included in the ancestral domain, including some areas in Zamboanga Peninsula, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani provinces in Mindanao where there are large communities of Muslims and indigenous tribes. And also Palawan Island in central Philippines.

The formal signing of the agreement on the ancestral domain was originally set on August 5. Arroyo has supported the proposal to postpone the ARMM polls for the peace talks to succeed. Arroyo is also expected to include the MILF peace talks in her State of the Nation Address on Monday morning.

Iqbal said the formal signing would be held in Malaysia with Esperon, Garcia and Secretary Norberto Gonzales, Arroyo’s security adviser.

Esperon said there is need to amend the Constitution to allow plebiscite on areas under the ancestral domain that would make up the so-called Bangsamoro Juridical Entity and give Muslims their own homeland.

The MILF previously said it will not sign any peace deal with the Arroyo government unless its demand for self-determination is granted. Last year, peace talks were also stalled after government negotiators reneged on the same deal.

Arroyo opened peace talks with the MILF in 2001 after deposing President Joseph Estrada in a bloodless revolution. But despite the peace talks, sporadic fighting between rebels and soldiers still continue in Mindanao with both sides accusing each other of violating a fragile truce accord.

The MILF is fighting for the establishment of a strict Islamic state in Mindanao, whose more than 18 million populations include about 4 million Muslims.

The Arroyo government previously offered the MILF the whole of the Muslim autonomous region, which is composed of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi which are among the poorest in the country torn by strife and clan wars since its creation in 1989. The MILF flatly rejected the offer and insisted on self-determination.

But peace negotiators earlier this month signed an agreement in Kuala Lumpur that will empower the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity to build, develop and maintain its own institutions, inclusive of civil service, electoral, financial and banking, education, legislation, legal, economic, police and internal security force, judicial system and correctional institutions necessary for developing a progressive Muslim society. (Mindanao Examiner)