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MILF
Welcomes U.N. Offer To Help In Peace Talks
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MILF
fighters queue up during an amnesty awarding ceremony in Zamboanga
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Rexcel
Sorza, IOL Philippines Correspondent
ILOILO
CITY, Philippines, September 29 (IslamOnline.net) – The Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) welcomed the peace initiative offered by
United Nations (U.N.) Secretary-General Kofi Annan to assist the
Philippine government and the MILF forge a lasting peace accord.
Annan’s
offer “is a welcome development for a peaceful solution to the
Bangsamoro problem,” MILF vice chairman for political affairs
Ghazali Jaafar said in an official statement posted in the MILF
website Monday, September 29.
Jaafar,
who headed the MILF negotiating panel during the early start of the
GRP-MILF peace talks in 1997, stressed that the offer of the U.N. to
assist in the negotiation has renewed hope for the implementation and
observance of all the peace initiatives agreed by the Philippine
government and the MILF.
He
said the peace talks, which would formally resume next month, “are
in progress under the auspices of the Government of Malaysia that had
forged a number of procedural peace agreements and ceasefire accords
for cessation of hostilities. “But their implementation remains to
be seen.”
Annan
has offered to help the Philippine government reach a lasting peace
accord with the MILF during President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s
visit to New York where she addressed the 58th U.N. General Assembly
Thursday, September 25. They had met Wednesday.
In
an official statement released Friday in Manila, Arroyo said Annan
welcomed the latest development on the peace process and told her to
inform him on what help the U.N. could provide for the resumption of
the peace talks.
"We
are very grateful for the U.N. Secretary-General's offer to help in
whatever way we think he should help with regard to our peace
talks," she said in a statement released by the presidential
palace in Manila on Friday, September 26.
She
was further quoted as saying, "We're immersed in spirit and deed
in the collective security of mankind and I appreciate the
Secretary-General's leadership in this regard and I conveyed it to
him.”
Annan’s
offer of help came just before Arroyo got a reaffirmation from
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad about his country's role as
host and third country mediator of the peace talks that are set to be
held in Kuala Lumpur next month.
The
peace negotiations were marred by periodic warfare between the
government troops led by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and
the MILF’s military arm Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF).
The
clashes has claimed many lives and displaced thousands. Various groups
peg at 100,000 t0 100,000 the number of persons killed or injured in
the armed confrontations between the MILF and the AFP in the last two
decades.
Both
parties have recently expressed confidence that this time they would
be able to ink a lasting peace accord.
The
MILF has been fighting for the Bangsamoro homeland, or a portion of
the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, because it belongs to them
as it was only annexed to the Philippine territory by the Spanish and
American colonizers.
U.N.
Referendum
Meanwhile,
the Bangsamoro civil society, led by the Bangsamoro People’s
Consultative Assembly (BPCA), welcomed the U.N. offer to help.
Prof.
Abhoud Syed Mansur Lingga, chair of the 2.5 million people’s
assembly, said the U.N. peace initiative is a significant step forward
for a peaceful transition in our quest for the return of our usurped
freedom and independence.
The
BCPA has been batting for a U.N.-led Referendum for Independence as
the most peaceful, democratic, and civilized way of solving the three
decades old armed conflicts and the age-old Bangsamoro problem.
“In
fact the mediation of the U.N. in the armed conflicts is long
overdue,” said Lingga, who led the series of grand rallies in the
provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur and the cities of Cotabato
and Marawi in recent years calling for a grant of independence as the
only solution to the Bangsamoro problem.
“Third
party mediation is a vital component for a comprehensive political
settlement of decades-old armed conflicts,” said Lingga in a
statement dated September 27.
“The
movement for Referendum has gained momentum today among the Bangsamoro
civil as alternative to wars and bloodsheds,” he stressed in
welcoming Annan’s statement.
Mohagher
Iqbal, MILF chief information officer, said the leadership of the MILF
under new chairman Al Haj Murad is expected to come out soon with an
official statement to this new development in the peace process.
The
MILF said it welcomes any assistant from both the local and
international communities for a peaceful solution to the armed
conflicts and the Bangsamoro problem.
“This
is our policy-guideline to those who may wish to help solve the
problem for peaceful means,” he said.
At
present in the forefront of third-party mediation are the governments
of Malaysia, Libya and Indonesia.
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