Arroyo is seen as an obstacle to peace in southern Philippines

By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia Correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 (IslamOnline.net) – Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad showed his frustration in dealing with Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when he sent his deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to have lunch with the lady President to avert her becoming “an obstacle to the peace process in Mindanao,” IslamOnline.net was told Wednesday, July 9.

It appears the talks were centered on the stumbling blocks on the road to peace, including the lifting of warrant of arrests and the commitment of Manila to stick to the strict conditions ahead of talks in Kuala Lumpur soon.

It is also clear that it was agreed that a Malaysian team of 25 personnel from the police and military would form the proposed ceasefire monitoring team that would be set in place once a truce was declared between the government and the Muslim rebels.

The Philippines announced it inched closer to peace in Mindanao Wednesday after the visit by Malaysia’s Badawi who flew to Manila and had lunch with Arroyo according to the request by the Filipino President and talked over the peace treaty with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

A source among the Bangsamoro people in Malaysia, close to the peace initiative said to IOL that “the talks were part of the initiative to have peace forged between the warring factions and that Badawi also presented the MILF’s peace plan to Arroyo”.

Though this was not confirmed, Filipino officials said Manila will do all it could to lift the warrant of arrests and bounties that are pending on the heads of top rebel negotiators, including MILF chief Salamat Hashim.

Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople who attended the meeting said Wednesday it was purely a social lunch over a serious and rather drawn-out issue concerning the resumption of peace talks with the MILF, reported the Inquirer newspaper in Manila.

Ople stressed that Badawi would succeed Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in October. By that time, the talks will have gotten off the ground, if legal kinks were ironed out.

The security situation in the southern Muslim area is highly tense

Manila and the MILF forged an initial pact last month to start talks in Kuala Lumpur but the process has been blocked by the Philippine government's reluctance to lift arrest warrants, said the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The MILF said the lifting of the warrants was not the main impediment to peace, but was rather part of the security measures for the leaders of the Muslim group seeking independence.

Mahathir insisted that the lifting of the warrants and bounties was essential as part of "confidence building measures to bring the two together," a source privy to the talks told AFP whereas IOL was informed that the Malaysian premier also insisted that there will be no talks if conditions imposed by Malaysia were not met.

Malaysia’s tough stance on the talks and the conditions prior to these talks indicates that Putra Jaya, the official residence of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, is confident the rebels want to have peace in the region.

Arroyo informed Badawi that the government would not oppose petitions that would be filed by MILF lawyers to suspend the warrants of arrests.

"And all that the government can do is to encourage and prompt the MILF legal adviser to initiate these proceedings," Ople said, quoting the President as reported by the Inquirer newspaper.

"The President feels there is merit in the idea of suspending the warrants if this is needed to protect the national interest especially the interest of the country," Ople said.

The 12,500-strong MILF has been waging a 25-year rebellion for the establishment of an independent Islamic state in the southern third of this mostly Roman Catholic country.

High-level talks were suspended early this year when Arroyo accused the MILF of harboring terrorists responsible for a spate of attacks in the south, including the bombings of an airport and a wharf in the city of Davao that left 38 dead.