Ramos hopeful of peace settlement with Moslems

Ramos hopeful of peace settlement with Moslems

MANILA (Reuters): President Fidel Ramos said yesterday on the
eve of talks with Moro rebels that his government was optimistic
of reaching a peace agreement ending a 23-year revolt for Moslem
self-rule in the southern Philippines.

Ramos, in a statement released by the presidential palace,
said the Philippines was determined "to bring the peace talks to
a successful conclusion" after more than two years of
negotiations.

Government negotiators led by Ambassador Manuel Yan are to
hold a third round of talks with the Moro National Liberation
Front (MNLF) starting today in Jakarta. Indonesia is mediating
the negotiations.

The Philippines on Saturday placed its army and police on
alert on southern Mindanao island to forestall any attacks by
breakaway guerrilla groups not taking part in the negotiations,
officials said.

"We approach the (Jakarta) talks...with optimism that peace,
and, eventually, sustained development for all will finally reign
in Mindanao," Ramos said.

He said the two sides had reached agreement on more than 100
points on the agenda, or on more than 95 percent of issues, and
only the mechanics of setting up an autonomous Moslem regional
government and integrating MNLF forces into the army and police
were unresolved.

With the goodwill built on both sides since they first met in
1992, "the talks cannot but lead to an eventual solution of the
rifts that have beleaguered the southern Philippines for
centuries," Ramos said.

He said Japan, the European Union and members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had pledged aid to
rehabilitate Mindanao once a peace settlement was reached.

Speaking also yesterday at the opening of an international
workshop on peace, Ramos said he would not allow Moslem extremist
groups to derail the negotiations.

"Violence -- often the easy recourse of a small minority in
society -- has its own dynamics that can sometimes overwhelm the
larger society and control peoples' lives. This we will not allow
in the Philippines."

The workshop, attended by peace activists from nine countries,
will discuss efforts by governments to resolve internal conflicts
around the world.

The army and police alert in Mindanao, 800 km (500 miles)
south of Manila, was spurred by intelligence reports that the
breakaway Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) had built up arms
and troops in the southern islands.

Police said security forces were on the alert for attacks by
MILF and extremist forces, like the Abu Sayyaf group, in the
cities of Davao, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga.
More than 50,000 people died at the height of the Moslem uprising
in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, an international forum on peace also opened in the
Philippine capital yesterday with calls for an end to internal
conflicts racking 40 countries around the world.

"More than the newest and most amazing technological marvel,
humanity needs and wants peace," Ramos said in a keynote speech,
echoing the call of other speakers for an end to rebellions and
violence around the world.

"What a damning irony it would be if the 21st century merely
provided us with new and more efficient tools to pursue the same
old conflicts leading to mass destruction," he said.

A conference paper said 50 armed conflicts were currently
racking more than 40 countries and that the number of peace-
keeping troops deployed by the United Nations in various hot
spots had jumped to 75,000 from 10,000 in 1985.

"The cost of peace-keeping has jumped tenfold over the same
period to US$3 billion annually," said the paper submitted by
Mohamed Sahnoun, special peace adviser to the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), one
of the conference organizers.

"Overall development assistance, on the other hand, has fallen
by about 10 percent," it said.

About 500 delegates are attending the meeting with
participants from Palestine, Israel, Croatia, South Africa,
Nicaragua, Angola, the Russian Federation, Colombia and the
Philippines among those presenting papers.