Mindanao Peace Process in a State of Limbo

06/10/2011| IslamWeb

When newly-elected Philippine President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III addressed the Filipinos in his inaugural speech in June 2010, he announced that his regime was committed to resolve the conflict in Mindanao.

Indeed, in his subsequent maiden speech before the joint session of the two Houses of the new Philippine Congress as well as pronouncements to the media and members of the diplomatic community, Aquino repeatedly stressed what appeared to be his priority policy to end the long-running war in the Bangsamoro homeland under his watch. For this purpose, he said, peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), now the mainstream liberation organization of the Bangsamoro people in their struggle for self-rule, will resume immediately after the end of Ramadan in October 2010.

To put the present situation in proper perspective, a brief rundown of past events is necessary at this point.

In retrospect, peace negotiations between the MILF and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) under then incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, which had been going on for nine years interspersed with two major wars and numerous skirmishes on the ground, were temporarily suspended in April 2010 due to the Philippine presidential elections in May. Arroyo, whose bid for re-election was forbidden under the Philippine constitution, attempted a last-ditch effort to strike a significant deal with the MILF on the negotiating table favorable to the Philippine state hoping that this would be her lasting legacy before leaving office. Her tumultuous reign, characterized by appalling corruption in government, brazen election fraud, and atrocious human rights violations made her the most unpopular president after Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippine dictator who ruled the Philippine state through martial law for almost two decades. However, due to lack of time and the Arroyo regime’s erratic treatment of the peace negotiations as well as obdurate hesitance to address the core issues that lie at the heart of the Moro Question such as the Moro ancestral domain, nothing substantial had been reached between the parties in conflict. Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the peace negotiating panels of the Arroyo regime and the MILF had to merely satisfy themselves with the issuance of a joint statement pledging both their respective principals, i.e. GRP and MILF, to the continuance of the peace negotiations under a new post-election Philippine leadership.

Despite the fragility of the ceasefire truce between the MILF and the Arroyo-led GRP, the peace process had established several significant milestones that set the direction of negotiations toward a definite path and clear goal: Bangsamoro self-rule. These significant direction-setting milestones were put in place by the MILF-GRP Tripoli Agreement on Peace inked by the MILF and GRP in Tripoli, Libya in June 2001. 

To recall, it was under the presidency of Arroyo that the peace process was elevated to the diplomatic stage in 2001 when she, then newly-installed as president after her predecessor, Joseph E. Estrada, was unseated by a popular military-civilian revolt, requested the Governments of Libya under the leadership of Muammar Qaddafi and Malaysia then under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed to facilitate the resumption of the peace talks between the MILF and the GRP. It was Malaysia, however, that ultimately became the regular host of and facilitator to the peace negotiation. It should be further recalled that local peace negotiations were already going on then between the MILF and GRP which started in 1997 until these were abruptly suspended when Estrada unleashed a vicious and bloody all-out war of aggression against the MILF in 2000. More than one million Bangsamoro Muslims were displaced by that war.

The entry of Malaysia, a member-state of both the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) as well as ASEAN like the Philippines, into the peace process opened the door wider for international community involvement in the effort to resolve the Moro Question. This internationalization of the Moro Question, dubbed as the diplomatic stage, which allowed Muslim member-states of the OIC, which have been invariably engaged in the quest for peace in Mindanao and Sulu since the 70s,  not only to continue with their involvement in the peace process but also enabled other non-Muslim state actors to participate in this effort.

Considering the wider impact of the conflict in Mindanao and Sulu on the geo-political security and stability of Southeast Asia, there is a multilateral consensus that its resolution through a peaceful political settlement is the best option, which is what the MILF envisaged when it entered peace negotiations with the GRP.

As a result of the negotiations, the International Monitoring Team (IMT), a Malaysian-led international team composed of Malaysia, Brunei, Libya, Japan, and late-comer Norway, was formed in 2004 and was deployed in the same year to monitor the ceasefire on the ground and act as a deterrent to prevent ceasefire violations by both parties. Other formations followed to beef up the peace process and ensure its success.

Towards near the end of Arroyo’s term, a component of the IMT, the Civilian Protection Component (CPC) composed of selected local and international NGOs experienced in conflict resolution and grass-root activities was established to complement the peace-monitoring role of the main IMT. This was in the aftermath of the 2008 war as a result of the MILF-GRP Memorandum on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) debacle that saw the displacement of over 600,000 Moro civilians. Interestingly enough, it was the MILF that proposed for the creation of the CPC on the negotiating table. The role of the CPC is to protect civilian communities, Filipino and Moro, in case of an outbreak of violence on a wide scale as what happened in the previous all-out wars in 2000 and 2003 and the limited but nonetheless destructive war in 2008.

Also, the International Contact Group (ICG) was convened, again proposed by the MILF, to act as ‘contact’ between the MILF and the GRP in the event a serious impasse or deadlock in the negotiations occurs and threatens the very life of the peace process. The ICG is composed of the governments of the United Kingdom, Turkey, Japan, and renowned international NGOs.Goong back to the current situation, President Aquino, after he made that official pronouncement that peace talks with the MILF would resume after Ramadan, never followed up on what he committed to. To put it succinctly, he reneged on his earlier vow.

Ramadan came and went and no resumption of talks took place despite the announcement by the MILF that it was prepared to resume negotiations “from where it stopped” during the incumbency of former President Arroyo.

Instead, amid a new controversy stirred up by a speech of the new GRP Peace Panel Chairman regarding the constitutionality of any peace agreement between the MILF and the GRP, the GRP retreated from what it proposed earlier, which was to amend the Philippine constitution to accommodate any such political peace agreement with the MILF. The objective of constitutional amendment is to prevent the repetition of what befell the MOA-AD which was declared ‘unconstitutional’ by the Philippine Supreme Court. The resulting opposition to this proposal from several quarters of Filipino society, notably from those in government themselves, had driven the Aquino regime to equivocate on the issue of constitutional amendment contradicting in effect what its chief negotiator had earlier expressed in public. This has thus consigned any political agreement, even before it can be consensually forged on the negotiating table, to the same fate as the 2008 MOA-AD.

The Aquino regime’s current internal turf ‘war’ with the Philippine Supreme Court, which is the same highest judicial body that declared the MOA-AD ‘unconstitutional’, makes it all the more unlikely for any constitutional amendment from taking place.     

That said, another surprising development had emerged that created a dent on the peace process. A confidential government decision formulated in August 2010 came to the fore. And this was in the form of a note verbale by the GRP to all foreign embassies in Manila, foreign institutions and international non-government organizations engaged in humanitarian activities in Mindanao and Sulu (‘conflict-affected areas’) requiring them to seek clearance and permission first with the GRP’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) before they can resume their humanitarian activities and/or engage the MILF on all matters relevant to the peace process.

This was viewed by the MILF and even by neutral observers in the peace process as an attempt by the Aquino regime to ‘domesticate’ the already internationalized peace process. The purpose is obvious: to isolate the MILF and the Bangsamoro struggle from the international community just as what ‘Israel’ is doing to Hamas and the Palestinian struggle. This suspicion is not without basis. The previous regime also attempted such a ploy, especially after the all-out war over the MOA-AD in 2008. But the regime at that time, saddled by shortage of funds due to corruption and the profligacy of its officials, abandoned it because it could not sustain the feeding of the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in the refugee camps; so it needed humanitarian assistance which only the international community could provide.

The dire implications of ‘domesticating’ the peace process were perhaps realized eventually by the Aquino regime, which is similarly smarting from a national budget deficit and unmitigated dysfunctional system of governance, and so consequently it did not strictly enforce the note verbale as it intended to at first. The international community, now familiar with the inconsistencies of the GRP, will for certain not take this gambit kindly that would not only obstruct the peaceful settlement of the conflict but create a humanitarian crisis with respect to war refugees, 250,000 of whom (according to the UN’s World Food Program), as of mid-2010, are yet to be resettled and rehabilitated properly. In any event, this first sign indicating that the Aquino regime is backtracking from what the peace process has accomplished over the years is not lost on the MILF.

To aggravate matters, on September 22, 2010, a senior member of the MILF Central Committee was arrested at the Davao City International Airport by operatives of the Criminal Investigation Division Group (CIDG) of the Philippine National Police (PNP). The arrested MILF CC member, Edward Guerra, is the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the MILF’s highest policy-making body, and he was on his way to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the UN Council of Human Rights. It is Guerra’s Foreign Affairs Committee that technically the MILF Peace Negotiating Panel falls under taking into account the fact that peace negotiations are conducted in foreign venues.

Guerra, who has a heart ailment, was shanghaied by government police operatives to Manila, held at the maximum security facilities at Fort Bonifacio, and was subsequently tortured. This was a gross violation not only of the standing immunity understanding between the GRP and the MILF with respect to MILF leaders, negotiators and members in the light of the peace process, but a provocative and flagrant violation of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement itself. This was also an inhuman act that ignored the human rights of Guerra.

What seems to many people as an act of ‘treachery’ is that Guerra’s arrest fell within the time that Aquino’s call for the resumption of talks with the MILF was very much still in place.

Still, not contented with provoking the MILF with the arrest of Guerra, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), in tandem with the PNP, arrested and similarly tortured other unsuspecting members of the MILF who were confident of the existing truce. Not only that, the GRP also rounded up non-MILF Moro peace activists and civilians and detained them on trumped-up charges.

Curiously, while the GRP was cracking down on MILF members, Moro activists and civilians, Aquino was announcing to the public that he was granting full presidential amnesty to incarcerated Filipino 'rebel' officers and soldiers who figured in previous coups to topple the government.

Yet, despite this new wave of government repression unleashed on its members and on Moro activists and civilians, the MILF remained undeterred from resuming peace talks with the Aquino regime. It remained open to the earlier announced invitation by President Aquino for talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which is the venue of previous negotiations.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian government facilitator, realizing that the recent acts of the GRP are jeopardizing the continuity of the peace negotiations, called for a back-channel pre-resumption of talks between the peace panels of the MILF and the GRP so problems could be sorted out amicably before the official negotiations begin. The GRP, however, spurned this invitation with its silence.

As this was happening, the Aquino regime resorted to one other tact not to resume the peace talks. This time, using the media as its platform, the Aquino regime began questioning and disparaging the credentials as well as the person of the Malaysian Chief Facilitator to the Talks, Dato Othman bin Razak, who has been assigned as such by three successive Malaysian Prime Ministers since 2003. Earlier, President Aquino himself officially reaffirmed Malaysia as the facilitator for the purpose of continuity in the peace process.

It is Dato Othman’s institutional memory as well as familiarity with the dynamics of the peace negotiation that the continuity of the peace process hinges on. But in a sudden twist, now the GRP is questioning the Malaysian Chief Facilitator himself who has been renewed in his post by the  Prime Minister, Najib Tun Abdul Razzak.

The issue of Malaysian Chief Facilitator could have easily been resolved if the GRP resorted to the established procedures and protocols of the peace process. The choice of Malaysian Chief Facilitator falls within the ambit of discretion of the Malaysian Prime Minister whose office is directly handling the facilitation. If the GRP has qualms about Dato Othman’s role, President Aquino himself should have raised this issue with the Prime Minister so that the latter could take appropriate action if the GRP’s concern is indeed valid and meritorious. And another way which meets the requirement of procedure and protocols is for the GRP Peace Negotiating Panel to raise this issue in a formal session with the MILF Peace Negotiating Panel on the negotiating table. This means negotiation has to be resumed first.

But as it turned out, the GRP has resorted to means outside and in violation of the established procedures and protocols of the peace process by bringing to the media its vociferous opposition to the continued facilitation role of Dato Othman. Worse, by its refusal to resume talks and by disparaging the person of the Chief Malaysian facilitator in public, the GRP, in essence, is questioning the very role of Malaysia in the peace process.    

To the MILF and the Bangsamoro public, this move by the GRP could only be motivated by three reasons: one, replace neutral Malaysia with another country favorable to the GRP as facilitator; two, nullify all signed agreements between the MILF and the GRP and start the negotiations anew; and three, cancel the peace negotiations and the peace agreements and revert to the military option to resolve the Moro Question patterned on the ‘Sri Lankan Formula’.

From all indications, the third option seems to be looming ahead as the one preferred by the Aquino regime whose ranks are riddled with rabidly anti-Muslim and anti-Moro politicians and vested-interest groups.  

At any rate, the MILF, in a resolution passed by its Central Committee, had made an urgent request to the Malaysian Prime Minister to retain Dato Othman bin Razak as Chief Facilitator. In a positive response to the MILF’s request on one hand, and as a rebuke to the GRP’s media demolition blitz against Dato Othman on the other, Prime Minister Najib had officially reappointed Dato Othman as Chief facilitator. It is not unlikely that the Malaysian Prime Minister viewed the GRP’s unbecoming behavior as an insult to his office and Malaysia.

It is against this backdrop that the resumption of the peace talks has reached a deadlock, an impasse, even before it could commence.

In the meantime, the imbroglio taking place in the diplomatic arena would impact on the Bangsamoro people – the stakeholders, so to speak - on the ground. This impact would gather more force as the GRP pours in more combat troops and war materiel into the Moro provinces and areas, and arresting more MILF members, thus, reinforcing that belief that the GRP is preparing for a new war in Mindanao.

The high hopes that people have had that the peace negotiations would finally bring peace and justice are plummeting at top speed and about to hit rock bottom. Extreme frustration over the peace process and at the GRP’s ‘insincerity’ and ‘treachery’ is snowballing. Rallies and demonstrations, such as those which took place in Cotabato attended by 30 thousand demonstrators and in Marawi City  22 involving 40 thousand people calling on the MILF to withdraw from the negotiations with the GRP and revert to independence, are growing and taking place even in Manila, the Philippine capital.

This has added to the tension that has now extended to the fighting forces of the MILF presently facing the specter of war what with the saturation of the Moro areas with Philippine combat troops. The MILF commanders who figured in the defense of a MILF base have expressed their complete disillusionment with the peace negotiations and are convinced that the insincerity of the GRP makes it inevitable for war to break out anew. This mindset is fast spreading to all other mujahideen commanders of the MILF.

In conclusion, as to whether peace talks would resume or that war on a large scale breaks out is still anybody’s guess. The signs of war are there, and even the international community and peace organizations are of the opinion that Mindanao and Sulu are on the brink of another war that can only be prevented if peace negotiations resume.

But with the peace process now in limbo, this appears to be wishful thinking as of the moment.

PHOTO CAPTION

In this file photo, Philippine Army's armored vehicle is seen patrolling an area near abandoned Muslim building in Zamboanga City, on the southern island of Mindanao.