Indonesia wields influence in Moro conflict resolution
Indonesia wields influence in Moro conflict resolution
By Dino Patti Djalal
The following article is based on a paper presented at the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific preventive diplomacy workshop in Bangkok on Feb. 28, 1999. This is the first of two articles.
BANGKOK: Depending on how one defines "preventive diplomacy", the Indonesian experience in the Moro conflict in the southern Philippines is probably better described as conflict resolution exercise than one of preventive diplomacy.
By the time Indonesia facilitated the negotiations, the conflict between the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) had already been brewing for over 20 years, and claimed tens of thousands of lives, not to mention the economic hardship and social damages it caused on both sides.
In many ways, however, Indonesia's role had a preventive character in that it sought to prevent the conflict from stagnating indefinitely or from deteriorating even further, claiming more lives and creating more suffering to the people of the Philippines.
The efforts to build peace in the southern Philippines is more like fixing a broken car than buying a new one. The body frame and the engine are there, but additional parts and some fine-tuning are needed to make it run.
The GRP and the MNLF had actually already reached an agreement in 1976 in Tripoli, Libya, where they agreed to "the establishment of autonomy in the southern Philippines within the realm of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of the Philippines."
Subsequently, however, the fate of this agreement was left in great doubt as many important issues remained unresolved, i.e. regarding the "transitional implementing mechanism". Two plebiscites on autonomy (under president Marcos in April 1977, and under president Cory Aquino in November 1989) held by the GRP in the southern Philippines were rejected by the MNLF as contravening the "letter and spirit" of the Tripoli Agreement.
In 1980, president Ferdinand Marcos declared that the Moro question was a matter of internal affairs for the Philippines. Thus, by the early 1990s, from the viewpoint of preventive diplomacy, the question of the day was whether it was possible to reengage the GRP and MNLF in talks toward political settlement based on the Tripoli Agreement.
Indonesia was a latecomer in the Moro affair. Jakarta of course knew of the festering problem, but regarded it as the internal problem of the Philippines and there was no sense in Indonesia, unrequested by the disputants, knocking on her neighbor's door to propose settling her problems.
Indonesia became involved in the Moro affair through its participation in the Organization of Islamic States (OIC). The OIC had become caught up in the Moro issue since 1972, and subsequently granted "observer status" to the MNLF. In 1993, Indonesia was elected chairman of the Ministerial Committee of the Six, the OIC committee which was tasked with dealing with the Moro affair. It is in this capacity that Indonesia was given the mandate to deal, on behalf of the OIC, with the Moro issue.
Indonesia's chairmanship in the Committee of Six meant that for the first time in two decades a Southeast Asian country, an ASEAN member and a friendly neighbor of the Philippines was presiding that OIC committee, and this certainly gave some comfort to the GRP who had been worried that the OIC was leaning rather close to the MNLF.
As a first step in preventive diplomacy, Indonesia facilitated the convening of informal exploratory talks (April 1993) between the MNLF and the GRP in Cipanas. This informal meeting was like dipping one's toe before taking a dive into the waters, a frequently used technique in Indonesian diplomacy. It provided opportunity for the disputants to break the ice and to explore possibilities to renew negotiations.
The results of the informal talks in Cipanas were promising. The GRP and MNLF agreed to proceed to "formal peace talks" to discuss those issue-areas contained in the Tripoli Agreement which were not yet finalized, and to focus on the difficult question of "transitional implementing mechanism and structure".
Thus, the Moro negotiations were now set in motion on a concrete track and on clear terms, namely that the two sides were committed to implementing the Tripoli Agreement "in letter and spirit", that the final peace settlement would be an autonomy within the context of Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that the negotiating process would continue to involve the OIC.
No one of course had the illusion that future negotiations would be an easy ride, but at least the GRP and MNLF were clearly adhering to the same signposts.
The writer works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is a member of the executive board of the Indonesian Council on World Affairs. The views expressed here are strictly personal.