MANILA,
April 2, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The Philippine
government is seeking a peace agreement with Muslims in the southern
third of the country to face a decades-old Maoist rebellion, Defense
Secretary Avelino Cruz said Friday, April 2.
He
told reporters that a peace deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF) would free up troops and resources to face the Maoist
People's Army, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
top brass described the Communist rebel group as “the greatest
internal security threat to the country now.”
The
revised strategy should allow the armed forces to bring the 36-year
rebellion under control within six to 10 years, Cruz said.
Manila
and the MILF agreed last month to resume their oft-postponed
negotiations on April 16 in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in a
bid to end three decades of intermittent fighting that killed and
displaced thousands in the southern Mindanao Island.
The
MILF has been fighting to reclaim Mindanao, tipped to be the richest
in natural resources among the three islands of the country, for some
three decades now.
An
international team from Malaysia, Brunei and Libya was sent by the
Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) last year to observe the
ceasefire reached by both parties.
Economic
Prosperity
The
defense minister said that if able to neutralize the People's Army,
Manila would dramatically improve economic growth in the country by
improving agricultural productivity and opening up rebel-influenced
areas to tourism and foreign investment.
The
military's plan, Cruz continued, is to “update and fine-tune the
campaign” against the People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist
Party of the Philippines.
He
blamed the revived Communist threat on Washington's withdrawal of
military aid, initiated after Manila refused to extend the leases on
two huge military bases beyond 1992.
Military
officials said they thought they would have to spend about 90 billion
pesos ($1.6 billion) over the next 12 years on military equipment to
finance the construction of civilian infrastructure and to create jobs
in areas influenced by the insurgency.
“We
need mobility - trucks, transport helicopters and transport ships -
given the widely dispersed nature of insurgent forces,” Chief of
Staff Rear Admiral Ariston de los Reyes told the same news conference.
He
added that although the ranks of the People's Army are down to about
8,000, “we should not be satisfied with the decline” because of
the drag the fighting put on the economy.
