MANILA — Islamic rebels in the southern Philippines have rejected a government offer of “genuine autonomy” for Filipino Muslims, saying Tuesday that it “does not address the real issues” that have fueled the separatist rebellion in the country’s south over the past 40 years.
The government’s chief negotiator, Marvic Leonen, speaking at a televised news briefing in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, where peace talks were cut short on Tuesday after resuming on Monday, said the negotiators for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front would recommend the rejection to the front’s central committee. He said, however, that the talks had not collapsed.
“They had expected something more than our proposal,” Mr. Leonen said, pointing out that the government’s 20-page draft did not include any reference to the “substate” for Muslims that was in the front’s own draft proposal issued in February.
Although the front is no longer seeking a separate state for Muslims, a minority in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, its leaders say they should have something better than the present Muslim autonomous region in Mindanao, which President Benigno S. Aquino III has described as a “failure.”
The government has cited constitutional limitations in objecting to the establishment of a substate, which the front has defined as a territory that would have considerable local authority over security and natural resources.
Although the government did not disclose details of its new proposal to the rebels, Mr. Leonen said Tuesday that the government’s offer would not only end the strife in Mindanao but would also “improve and uplift the lives of the people who have long suffered from the brutality of decades-long armed conflict.”
The draft emphasizes the need to deliver basic social services and effective governance as a prerequisite for economic development.
The front’s vice chairman, Ghadzali Jaafar, told ABS-CBN television on Tuesday that the peace process did not address “the real issues.”
“We want to first address the political issue,” Mr. Jaafar said. “This is a political problem, not an economic problem. We are not talking here about economic reforms, which are nothing if they are not given a political solution.”
The government said earlier that its proposal would offer the rebels “genuine autonomy” in exchange for the laying down of their arms. Both sides have been negotiating since 1997.
In a document outlining the goals of its counterproposal to the front, the government said it presented “the possibility of a more empowered, more workable and thus more genuine autonomy” for Filipino Muslims, also called Moros.
But before that happens, the government hinted that the front must first disarm and demobilize its forces, thought to number about 12,000, and disperse throughout several provinces in Mindanao, the main region in the south where most Muslims live.
The government said its proposal would begin to achieve what it calls “restorative justice,” an apparent allusion to the Moros’ complaints of discrimination and dispossession through the decades.
The Moro rebellion began in the 1960s, and an estimated 150,000 people have died in the conflict. At one point, during fighting in 2008, more than 700,000 residents, mostly Moros, were displaced from their homes.
The Moros’ discontent has also spawned strains of Islamic extremism, including the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, which is said to have links to Al Qaeda and to the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah.
The government said in the document that “unlike past administrations, this government is poised to use its massive resources and its theme of good governance for this undertaking.”
However, it suggested that Mr. Aquino is constrained in what he can offer the front, which has been demanding that the president begin the process of amending the Philippine Constitution to accommodate a substate.
The front said its proposal would afford the people of any future Moro state “a modest share” of what remains of the lands, wealth and resources of Mindanao, which it says rightly belongs to the Moro people who were “unconquered” by Spanish and American colonizers.
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By: Carlos H. Conde
Source: The New York Times, Aug. 23, 2011
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