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.