Manila to resume peace talks with MILF; names UP dean as chief negotiator

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 15, 2010) – Manila announced Thursday that it would pursue peace talks with the country’s largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and named a university dean to head the government peace panel.

President Benigno Aquino III has appointed lawyer Marvic Leonen, of the state-run University of the Philippines, to head the peace talks with the MILF. Leonen - who had previously opposed the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain that Manila and the MILF had initially signed in the past - said the negotiations would anchor on the provisions of the Constitution.

Presidential peace adviser Teresita Deles said the talks may resume in the coming months.

But the MILF, which is fighting for self-determination, said it would only resume negotiation if the new Aquino government honors all previous agreements Manila had signed with the rebel group.

“Our stand is clear. The peace talks should continue from where we stopped,” said MILF deputy chief Mohagher Iqbal, who previously headed the Front’s peace panel.

Previous peace talks between the Arroyo government and the MILF ended abruptly in Malaysia – which facilitated the peace talks - early this year without new agreement that would put an end to decades of bloody fighting in the restive region of Mindanao.

Peace negotiators exchanged drafts on the comprehensive compact agreement, but the MILF said Manila had offer nothing new that would lead to a political settlement of the fighting in Mindanao.

Iqbal said Manila was offering the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao instead of what was previously agreed upon in the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain.

Former President Gloria Arroyo opened peace talks with the MILF in 2001 and the negotiations nearly collapsed seven years later after both sides failed to sign any agreement on the most contentious issue — ancestral domain – which refers to the rebel demand for territory that will constitute a Muslim homeland.

The failed agreement triggered deadly rebel attacks in 2007 in Mindanao after the Supreme Court stopped the formal signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain.

Politicians and lawmakers, many of them wealthy landowners in Mindanao, opposed the ancestral domain deal and filed their petitions to the High Court and asked Manila to make public the rest of the agreement. They claimed the accord was made without public consultations.

The MILF said it will not renegotiate the ancestral domain agreement. "It is already a done deal; we have already initialed the memorandum of agreement on the ancestral domain. We will not revisit or renegotiate the agreement," Iqbal said.

But despite the ancestral domain deal, there is still a 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.

Ancestral domain is the single most important issue in the peace negotiations before the rebel group can reach a political settlement with the Philippine government.

It covers the whole of the Muslim autonomous region – Sulu, Tawi-Tawi-, Basilan, Maguindanao and Lanao, including Marawi City. And 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, off Mindanao.

Last year, Tawi-Tawi Representative Nur Jaafar filed House Bill 4963 proposing to divide the Muslim autonomous region into two – the South Western Autonomous Region and the Central Mindanao Autonomous Region – and that a plebiscite will be held in every village in the provinces of Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay and the cities of Isabela, Pagadian, Dipolog, Dapitan and Zamboanga.

And also in the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sarangani and the cities of Cotabato, Marawi, Iligan, Kidapawan, General Santos, Koronadal and Tacurong.

Despite the abrupt ending of the peace talks, Malaysia deployed a group of international cease-fire observers in the Mindanao – home to about 4 million Muslims - to monitor the implementation of the truce between the Philippines and the MILF. (Mindanao Examiner)