Ramos upbeat on peace talks with Moslem rebels
Ramos upbeat on peace talks with Moslem rebels
MANILA (AFP): President Fidel Ramos said yesterday he was upbeat on the progress of peace talks with Moslem rebels to end over 20 years of strife in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.
Ramos said he based his assessment on the results of three days of committee-level discussions which ended Tuesday in southern Zamboanga city for the establishment of an autonomous Islamic government in the south.
Exiled Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) chairman Nur Misuari and chief government negotiator, retired Gen. Manuel Yan, participated in the meeting.
During the discussions, which are a prelude to a third round of formal talks in Jakarta this June, both parties "were able to forge a consensus" on 32 issues in the areas of the economy and education, Ramos said.
This is in addition to 37 other points agreed on during an earlier round of talks in Jakarta last September.
"This progressive trend shows a clear determination on both sides to continually hurdle the obstacles to peace and find a path to durable and comprehensive settlement which may be, hopefully, forged this year," Ramos said.
He also noted that the MNLF has condemned the activities of the extremist Islamic group, Abu Sayyaf, which has been blamed for a spate of kidnappings, massacres and bomb attacks on Christian targets in the south.
More than 50,000 people died when the MNLF waged a bloody war for a separate Islamic state in Mindanao -- home of this largely Roman Catholic country's Moslem minority -- in the early 1970s.
Large-scale fighting stopped after a Libyan-brokered cease- fire was signed in 1976. But small unit clashes raged after the MNLF accused then president Ferdinand Marcos of failing to implement the accord, which gives autonomy to 13 Moslem-populated Mindanao provinces.
MNLF and Philippine negotiators on Tuesday admitted having reached an agreement "in principle" to integrate an estimated 15,000 MNLF guerrillas into the armed forces, their former enemies.
Yan, however, said in a radio interview yesterday that the mechanics of incorporation will be discussed in further meetings by a committee handling defense and security forces for the proposed autonomous region.
The "implementing structure" of an autonomous government has yet to be fleshed out, such as how officials of such a political unit are to be elected, Yan added.
Philippine officials and the MNLF have said they hope that the June talks in Jakarta would be the last, during which a final agreement would be signed. The peace process is being supervised by the Organization of Islamic Conference.
Ramos, a retired military chief who took power in 1992, is also talking peace with rightist military rebels and has invited communist guerrillas also to negotiate.