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.