RP sets vote for expansion of Muslim self-rule
RP sets vote for expansion of Muslim self-rule
MANILA (Agencies): Millions of residents in the southern Mindanao region of the Philippines will vote on Aug. 15 on whether to join areas under Muslim self-rule, President Gloria Arroyo said on Friday.
The plebiscite covering 10 provinces not already under the four-province Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is part of the terms of a 1996 peace agreement that ended the separatist campaign of Muslim rebels under the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The proposed ARMM expansion is seen to accommodate a second separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which signed a truce with the Manila government last week preparatory to an expected political settlement.
Arroyo told a news conference the vote would dovetail with the "final phase of the peace accord" with the MILF.
She told visiting Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid prior to the news conference that "whatever agreements (Manila) will have with the MILF, it will be within the same framework as the MNLF," an official who attended the meeting told reporters.
Arroyo said this means there will be "no overlapping of agreements" or the creation of a second autonomous Muslim region in Mindanao, said the official, who asked not to be named. Indonesia helped broker the MNLF agreement.
Mindanao, a resources-rich area that is twice the size of Belgium and is populated by 18 million people, has been wracked by three decades of Muslim rebellion. Muslims make up less than a fourth of the region's population and live in the poorer areas.
Only four majority-Muslim provinces elected to join the ARMM in a plebiscite held shortly before the peace agreement with the MNLF. Christian settlers make up the majority in most of the other provinces there.
Arroyo said Philippine government negotiators who held talks with the MILF in Tripoli, Libya last week committed to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) a "firm timetable" for the peace process.
This includes "a plebiscite on August 15 and a regional election on Nov. 26 for the ARMM."
The MNLF founder, Nur Misuari, is the current governor of ARMM, which enjoys a measure of self-rule. "As the peace process moves forward, I am optimistic that Mindanao will become the focus of development assistance from some of the countries belonging to the OIC," Arroyo said.
The peace "will help us realize earlier than planned the development of Mindanao, which even now is number one in my list of priorities for investment growth."
Arroyo said the talks with the MILF "will move to Kuala Lumpur, and later perhaps to Jakarta in accordance with the shifting venue arrangement that was mutually decided" by the government and the MILF.
Wahid told Arroyo on Friday that Jakarta's offer to host the next round of the talks "still stands," officials who attended the bilateral meeting said.
The Indonesian leader told reporters Arroyo expressed her appreciation for Jakarta's help in mediating the peace talks, and restated an offer of Pantar Barat, an island off Jakarta, "for the purpose of accepting (MILF leader) Salamat Hashim if he decides to become a refugee."
Hashim has not publicly indicated he would want to live abroad.
Meanwhile, military leaders trying to capture a band of extremists and free their hostages, said on Friday troops had killed four rebels from other groups this week - and not any of the kidnappers as previously claimed.
"They were in the way," said Lt. Col. Danilo Servando, spokesman for the military's Southern Command, who had to correct previous claims the military made about its successes in tracking and engaging the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers.
Even though troops were shooting at the wrong rebels and their initial reports from the field were incorrect, Servando defended their actions as appropriate under the circumstances.
The soldiers believed they had been fighting with the Abu Sayyaf while in fact they were shooting at members of other groups that have agreed to cease-fires, Servando said.
Arroyo said she has asked the United States to help her crush the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas by providing surveillance expertise and equipment. Arroyo said the U.S. response "has been quite positive" but she provided no details.
Other Philippine officials had said previously the government was seeking U.S. assistance in solving the crisis, now in its second month.
"The government is not willing to be held hostage by such terrorist groups as the Abu Sayyaf," Arroyo told a business conference in Manila. "They are scum and we will get them."