Tag Archives: Peace Process

GRP, MILF clash in drafts (1): The Agreed Guidelines

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By Patricio P. Diaz/MindaNews

(The series is an analysis of the draft peace pacts exchanged between the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace panels on January 27, 2010 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The MILF did not show up for discussion the next day claiming the GRP [Government of the Republic of the Philippines] presented nothing new, that it offered “enhanced autonomy” again, an offer rejected in 2000 and 2003.

The two panels met again on March 4 in Kuala Lumpur for a Q and A session on the MILF’s draft Declaration of Principles on Interim Governance Arrangements, an 11-page extract from its proposed Comprehensive Compact. The GRP peace panel vowed to submit its counter-proposal but as of March 18, panel chair Rafael Seguis told MindaNews he has not submitted it because “I have to clear with the National Security Cabinet Group.”

Dialogue Mindanaw, a series of consultations organized by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), is supposed to “engage the people by informing them about the issues being discussed in the GRP-MILF peace talks, and by securing their honest feedback on these issues”

OPAPP Secretary Annabelle Abaya announced before Mindanao’s state university presidents who attended a peacebuilding conference in Penang, Malaysia in January that the Dialogue Mindanaw consultations will be specific as to the issues the government and MILF peace panels will be discussing at the negotiating table.

“The idea is to get back to the people on the issues they (panels) are discussing. What do they want?“ Abaya said.

But issues like “state-sub-state relationship” which was allegedly part of the proposal of the MILF in late January, has not been discussed in the consultations.

MindaNews’ Patricio P. Diaz got hold of copies of the draft peace agreements exchanged on January 27 from sources who asked not to be named.

This series is intended to help the readers understand the drafts and the issues being resolved now. Prof. Rudy Rodil has also written a separate commentary — MindaNews editor) Continue reading →

Is there life for the Peace Process after Arroyo?

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By Maulana Bobby Alonto

As the Armed Forces of the Philippines intensifies its aerial and ground bombardment of Moro communities in Mindanao and starving of Moro refugees with military food blockades to collect the multi-million peso rewards on the heads of MILF commanders Ameril Ombra Kato and Abdurrahman ‘Bravo’ Macapaar, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been repeatedly announcing to the public the ‘new peace strategy’ of her regime in confronting the conflict in Mindanao. The President, says her spokesmen, has changed the rules of the game. No longer will she be holding peace talks with armed groups but directly with the communities. Also, any dealings with the MILF shall be in the context of DDR: demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (rehabilitation, as her spokesmen erringly put it).

From these pronouncements, it is clear that the Arroyo regime has abandoned the Mindanao peace process. After the aborted August 5 MOA-AD signing ceremony in Malaysia, the nationwide anti-Moro and anti-Muslim campaign, and the consequent fighting in Central Mindanao, Jesus Dureza, the presidential mouthpiece, informed all and sundry that the regime would no longer sign the MOA-AD “in its present form or in any other form”. Arroyo even followed this up by disbanding the government peace panel. Continue reading →

Thank you, Supreme Court of the Philippines

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By: Atty. Fatimah Bin Guerra

Thank you, Honorable Chief Justice and Associate Justices for showing us how justice works in this country.  Thank you for issuing the TRO on the MOA-AD, for showing to the Filipino people how fast you can actually act upon cases filed by powerful politicians like Emmanuel Piñol and Celso Lobregat.  Indeed, the speediness at which you have acted on this case was extraordinary and phenomenal.  In 3 months time, you have struck down a document which took more than 10 years of painstaking negotiations to accomplish.

Thank you, too, for helping MILF base Commanders Ameril Ombra Kato and Bravo recruit more fighters and supporters.  Your decision vindicated what they have always believed from the very beginning — that this government will never be sincere in talking peace with the Bangsamoro people.  Now we are faced with the world’s longest running armed conflict that sees no resolution in sight.  Thank you for condemning Mindanao as the next Afghanistan or Darfur in Asia. Continue reading →

Compromising for peace: an interview with Indonesian Vice Pres Jusuf Kalla

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Sharing with you the interview with Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla who was incharge of the negotiations with GAM. This was copylift at http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/aceh/compromising.php – reconfiguring politics: the Indonesia – Aceh peace process.

I wonder if the Filipino Politicians and Leaders can also do this? Can they give peace a chance and solve the Mindanao root conflict and the Bangsamoro problem? If this Philippine Government don’t give MOA-AD a chance maybe we will just go back to our old call for re-Indpendence of the Bangsamoro people.

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Accord: How did you approach the problem of finding a negotiated settlement to the Aceh conflict?

Jusuf Kalla: I had been involved in Aceh since 2003. In early 2004 I visited Europe to try to meet GAM leader Malik Mahmud, but did not make direct contact. It was only after the December 2004 tsunami that I really had success. In January 2005, I set up a meeting with GAM with the help of a number of European ambassadors. Two weeks later, with the authority of the President, the first meeting with GAM took place. Continue reading →

The MOA is NOT dead

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By: Engr. Don Mustapha Arbison Loong

 
The MOA-AD is “dead”. This became the headline in newspapers when the Supreme Court (SC) declared the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) as unconstitutional last October 14, 2008. The “death” of the MOA-AD had divided and polarized the country like never before in recent history. 

The debate on the MOA awakened dormant religious prejudice and discrimination between Muslims and Christians. While the people who were Anti-MOA celebrated, some Moros felt that they had lost something. Some other Moro sectors felt like an “anti-dote” to the Moro problem was deliberately withheld from them. Disillusioned MILF rebels renewed hostilities with the government forces. Suddenly, the dreaded “ilagas” emerge and revived past Muslim-Christian community conflicts. There is so much blissful celebration and emotional retaliation by each side respectively, yet only a few really know the issues involved that was “killed” by the Supreme Court decision.   Continue reading →