MILF, Manila sign details of peace pact

MILF, Manila sign details of peace pact

Agencies, Seri Kembangan

Philippine government negotiators and Moro guerrilla leaders
signed an agreement in Seri Kembangan, Malaysia on Thursday aimed
at safeguarding a cease-fire threatened by weeks of renewed
hostilities in the country's restive south.

The pact, which details the functions and powers of joint
monitoring teams, was signed minutes after the Philippines
government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) began
fresh talks on ending three decades of separatist violence in
Mindanao province.

Jesus Dureza, the chief government negotiator, told reporters
that the accord empowers the monitoring teams to take "pro-active
action" to prevent further violations of a truce reached with the
MILF two months ago.

According to documents signed on Thursday, Manila and the MILF
will each contribute an equal number of members to a committee to
supervise the cessation of hostilities, and to smaller localized
monitoring teams. These groups will start their work once the
negotiators return to the Philippines this weekend.

At the opening ceremony of the peace talks on Thursday, Murad
Ebrahim, the MILF chief negotiator, urged Malaysia, Indonesia and
Libya to send an independent monitoring team to the southern
Philippines on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC).

"With the alarming developments now going on in other parts of
the world, particularly the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan, our
mission and task to arrive at a comprehensive political
resolution of the conflict in the (southern Philippines) should
now indeed be the primordial concern of all parties," Ebrahim
said.

The OIC should immediately send a cease-fire monitoring team
to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, the MILF said on
Wednesday.

"Please urgently put a monitoring team on the ground. OIC's
presence will ensure the success of the peace talks," Ebrahim
told AFP.

Dureza said both sides have accused each other of repeatedly
violating the cease-fire, but that the truce was generally still
holding.

"There were some events that happened ... there has been no
escalation of these events and so we look forward to further
strengthening the cease-fire," he said.

The current round of talks, being held on the Kuala Lumpur's
outskirts, now turns to the rehabilitation and development of the
impoverished southern Philippines, and the possible return of
Muslim ancestral territorial rights.

Both sides have expressed optimism that an agreement on these
aspects could be reached by Saturday, when the talks are expected
to finish.

The government and the MILF signed a cease-fire accord in
Malaysia two months ago in an effort to end the conflict, which
has killed more than 120,000 people.

The talks are unconnected with the hunt for another Moro
guerrilla group in the southern Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf,
which has links with Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile accused of
plotting the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ruled out peace talks
with the Abu Sayyaf, which claims to want independent state but
has been dismissed by the government as mere bandits. The group,
thought to number 1,000 fighters, has kidnapped dozens of
foreigners and Filipinos in recent years and raised millions of
dollars in ransom.

Meanwhile, Vice President Teifisto Guingona said in Shanghai,
China on Thursday that the Philippines could eliminate the threat
from Abu Sayyaf rebels within the next three to six months.

In an interview with Reuters, Guingona also said Manila wanted
technical help to fight Abu Sayyaf rebels but wanted to finish
the job itself to avoid escalating tensions in an already tense
region.