Moro rebels resume peace talks with RP

Moro rebels resume peace talks with RP

SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines (AFP): Moro guerrillas yesterday resumed preliminary peace talks with the government here and agreed to a common agenda for proposed formal negotiations, a lawyer who represents the insurgents in the talks said.

Technical committees from the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) met to discuss a cease-fire and to set the agenda for formal negotiations, lawyer Lanang Ali told reporters.

The two sides agreed that the formal talks would attempt "to solve the Bangsamoro problem," Ali said.

Manila is seeking a political settlement with the MILF, which has been fighting the government forces in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao over the past 20 years. The military says the movement, which is fighting for a separate Moslem state, has about 10,000 fighters.

The MILF is an offshoot of the Moro National Liberation Front, which signed a peace treaty with President Fidel Ramos last year to end a 24-years war for secession on behalf of the large Moslem minority in the south.

The MILF was not part of the agreement.

Technical committees from both sides last met in this southern town last month.

The two sides also agreed yesterday to form a body that would monitor a proposed cease-fire -- to be composed of nominees from a lawyers' association, the Philippine Protestant Lawyers' League, and representatives from the Notre Dame University Peace Center, a Mindanao-based think tank, Ali said.

The government panel in yesterday's talks was led by a retired army general Fortunato Abat.

Chief rebel negotiator Ghazali Jaafar told reporters the MILF listed nine issues of top priority -- including ancestral domain, landless and displaced Moslems, the destruction of property and the rights of war victims, and other human rights issues.