RP govt and MILF resume peace talks

RP govt and MILF resume peace talks

MANILA (Reuter): Philippine government negotiators and
hard-line Islamic guerrillas resumed peace talks yesterday aimed
at nailing down an elusive peace on southern Mindanao island, as
their forces battled in nearby hills.

At least 30 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels and
two soldiers have died in fighting in the past week in the
island's Zamboanga del Norte province, and an army commander said
his troops were pressing their attack on the rebels' mountain
lair.

"The offensive will go on until we clear the area," Col.
Glicerio Sua told reporters, referring to an MILF camp in the
mountain town of Sirawai, which government forces have been
shelling since Saturday.

As the army advanced, exploratory talks between government
negotiators and an MILF panel resumed about 200 km to the east in
Cotabato city.

Heading into the talks, MILF chief negotiator Ghazali Jaafar
said the continuing military operations cast doubt on the
government's sincerity in the peace talks.

"Our talks on how to forge a cease-fire are still stagnating.
Some people say it is an illusion.

"To make things worse, these soldiers engage our forces in
gun battles and later go to the media to accuse us of
provocation," Jaafar told reporters before the start of the
closed-door talks.

The MILF, with a fighting force estimated by the military at
between 6,000 and 8,000, is the larger of two rebel splinter
groups still waging a guerrilla war despite a peace accord signed
in September between Manila and the Moro National Liberation
Front (MNLF), largest of the island's Moslem guerrilla groups.

President Fidel Ramos is seeking a separate deal with the
MILF, which continues to fight for an Islamic state in a region
regarded by the country's five million Moslems as their ancestral
homeland.

The Philippines is predominantly Catholic.

Eight months after Ramos and MNLF chief Nur Misuari embraced
each other at the signing of the peace accord in Manila, hopes
among Moslems and Christians that peace and economic development
would come to the war-ravaged area appear to have been premature.

Fighting with breakaway rebel groups continues, kidnap-for-
ransom gangs terrorize Mindanao cities and infrastructure remains
a mess, businesspeople said.

"Peace has remained very elusive," Wilfredo San Luis, vice
president of the Zamboanga chamber of commerce, told Reuters.

"We are very cautions in all aspects. Many people are still
reluctant to invest ... Businessmen are afraid of getting
kidnapped or receiving extortion letters," he said.

President Ramos, who has promised a US$2.1 billion development
program for poor areas in Mindanao, ordered a fast-tracking of
projects after meeting MNLF leaders in Manila yesterday.

Presidential executive secretary Ruben Torres blamed
bureaucratic red tape for project delays.

A Moslem professor at the University of the Philippines said
the peace deal with Misuari produced high expectations among
Moslems "but despite government promises, they see nothing".