Philippine’s President Arroyo Dissolves “Peace Panel” Over Bungled Negotiations with MILF

Good for her.  Now, get busy working on that 18,000 hole golf course I’ve been looking forward to for so long.

Palace dissolves GRP panel
3 Sep 08 – The Manila Times
Esperon lost credibility–lawmakers

In a major shift in policy, President Gloria Arroyo announced on Wednesday that she was dissolving the government peace panel seeking to end in particular a festering Muslim rebellion in southern Mindanao.

The announcement came a day after The Manila Times reported that a top Roman Catholic bishop had called on Hermogenes Esperon Jr., the presidential adviser on the peace process, and members of the government peace panel to resign over their alleged bungling of negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front [MILF].

On Wednesday, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said that from now on, any negotiations with the separatist MILF and other rebel groups would only proceed if they disarmed and moved out of their camps.

“Consequently, the President has ordered that the government peace panel for talks with the [MILF] be dissolved to align all the peace initiatives in accordance with this directive,” Ermita told reporters.

The government had also been negotiating peace with local Maoist communists. In 1996, Manila signed a peace agreement with another Muslim secessionist group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which recently claimed that the agreement largely had been unenforced.

About 5 percent of Filipinos are Muslim, making them the largest minority in mainly Roman Catholic Philippines, whose military has been battling the rebels in Mindanao region for the last three weeks.

Rebels brace for attack

Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF’s chief peace negotiator, said Mrs. Arroyo’s move to dissolve the government peace panel indicated that the government was preparing to intensify its military attacks to include the entire rebel force, not just the two commanders who led deadly attacks last month on mostly Christian communities in Mindanao.

“I don’t want to imagine that happening, but the MILF is prepared for any offensive,” Iqbal told Agence France-Presse. “We have to invoke our right to self-defense.”

Iqbal said the MILF leadership has not been officially informed of the President’s decision through Malaysia, which has been brokering the peace talks.

In a separate statement, Mrs. Arroyo said her government would no longer sign a controversial draft agreement that would have given the MILF autonomy over its own Muslim homeland.

“In the light of the recent violent incidents committed by lawless violent groups, the government will no longer sign the agreement,” she added, apparently referring to the attacks on four provinces in the South.

The attacks led by rebel commanders Umbra Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar or Bravo caused the death of more than 100 soldiers, rebels and civilians and displaced nearly half-a-million residents.

Iqbal’s repeated refusals to turn in Kato and Bravo, House Speaker Prospero Nograles said also on Wednesday, showed the MILF’s “insincerity” on the peace talks.

“There will be no peace gained through violence, no peace agreement can and will be reached through intimidation or the barrel of a gun,” the President said.

The Supreme Court on August 4 issued an injunction against the homeland deal after it triggered widespread street protests in Christian towns in Mindanao who supposedly were not consulted on the agreement on ancestral domain.

Saying they were angered by the temporary restraining order from the High Tribunal, Kato and Bravo mounted the attacks.

The raids left nearly 50 civilians and soldiers dead, while subsequent military offensives were reported to have killed more than 100 MILF rebels and led to the capture of more than a dozen rebel camps.

Local consultations

According to Mrs. Arroyo, the peace process would only move forward after the government widens its consultations to include local executives in areas to be covered by the homeland deal under the so-called Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.

Also on Wednesday, she said offensives would continue against the MILF but that troops were directed to respect Muslim civilians during Ramadan.

The President ordered relief agencies to also step up their efforts to bring food and aid to the affected areas amid a looming humanitarian crisis.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council said more than 470,000 people “are directly affected and needing assistance of any form.”

“They either lost their houses, displaced and/or lost their livelihoods,” the council said in a report, as it appealed for private donors to send in food and other supplies.

Lost credibility

Esperon should now go with the decision of Mrs. Arroyo to dissolve the government peace panel, Senators Rodolfo Biazon and Francis Escudero said also on Wednesday.

Biazon, a former military chief like Esperon, said that under Esperon’s watch, the “credibility” of the government peace panel as well as that of the President had been lost.

He asked Malacañang to explain “what the national policy [is] regarding the peace process” and whether it is being merely “junked or reformatted.”

Escudero said the dissolution of the government panel should be matched with the sacking of Esperon and all those responsible for the “bungling” of the homeland deal.

Sen. Richard Gordon said the government must reconstitute its peace panel with dispatch to minimize collateral damage to civilians. He added that the new peace panel should be composed of legal luminaries so that any agreement entered into with the rebels would conform with the Constitution.

Continue talks

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd said the peace talks must continue only after the government had deployed enough number of policemen and soldiers in Mindanao “so civilians would not go to the extent of arming themselves.”

He added that before pursuing the peace talks again, the government must first be assured that it is talking with MILF people who could really deliver.

Roxas and two other opposition senators, Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada and Aquilino Pimentel Jr., expressed disbelief that the President did not really know the contents of the homeland deal.

Pimentel, in a separate statement, said Mrs. Arroyo’s plan to tap the Senate’s help in the Mindanao peace process “indicated her willingness to rectify the government’s mistakes in past negotiations.”

He called it as “unfortunate” that the President came to recognize the Senate’s role in the peace process only after the agreement on ancestral domain had been “overwhelmingly repudiated” by lawmakers and local government officials.

Copies of the memorandum of agreement supposedly were sent to the Senate only after the document drew flak from many sectors.

Pimentel, though, said senators could assist in negotiations only in an advisory capacity. “It would be inappropriate on our part to get involved in the negotiations themselves. We are not allowed to do that.”

Lawmakers Rep. Maria Isabelle Climaco of Zamboanga City and Rozzano Rufino Biazon of Mun-tinlupa City said the dissolution of the government panel was a step in the right direction.

But Biazon also pushed for the resignation of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales for the “national embarrassment” that Gonzales had helped cause.

Rep. Mujiv Hataman of Anak Mindanao party-list said the President’s move only set back the peace process.
–AFP, Efren L. Danao, Sammy Martin And Jomar Canlas

Explore posts in the same categories: Philippines, politics