Clinton Urges Mindanao Peace

"The conditions for peace are ripe. People really want to see it. I hope no one misses this opportunity," Clinton said. (Reuters)

"The conditions for peace are ripe,” Clinton told a nationally televised public forum, reported the Manila Bulletin.

“People really want to see it. I hope no one misses this opportunity."

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has been struggling for an independent state in the mineral-rich southern region of Mindanao for some three decades now.

More than 120,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in the late 1960s.

Mindanao, the birthplace of Islam in the Philippines, is home to more than 5 million Muslims.

MILF urged Clinton, who arrived Thursday on a two-day visit to bolster defense cooperation with the Philippine government, to pressure Manila to help resolve the conflict in the Muslim south.

"Clinton can influence and convince the government for the early solution of the Mindanao conflict,” MILF vice chair for political affairs Ghadzali Jaafar told Xinhua news agency.

“When it happen, it will lead to peace and it would be advantage to al of us."

MILF, the country's largest Muslim group, helped release kidnapped Irish priest Michael Sinnot on Thursday, an effort praised by the government as a confidence-building measure.

Support

Clinton urged the Philippine government to seize on the current moment to achieve peace in the Muslim south.

"So strike while the iron is hot. When people are in the mood and willing to make peace,” she said.

“Do not sleep, do not rest until we finally get there," she said, stressing the US support for helping peace talks between Manila and MIFL.

Clinton said she believed Philippine President Gloria Arroyo was fully prepared to make what she said “difficult decisions” to achieve peace with MILF.

"What I have often found is that it is easier to make these difficult decisions when you are on the way out of office. Because you know what is at stake and you are willing to brave the political fires," she said.

Filipinos will go to general elections next year to elect a new president for the country.

Manila suspended last year peace talks with MILF and junked an 11-year peace process to solve the conflict in the south.

The move came after the Supreme Court froze a peace deal that would have created a Muslim homeland in the south over protests from Christian groups.

In recent months, both the government and MILF have said that peace talks could resume soon, but this has not eventuated.