10,000 say, 'No to endless negotiation, yes to Bangsamoro sub-state

10,000 say, 'No to endless negotiation, yes to Bangsamoro sub-state'
26-Apr-11, 9:54 PM | Romy Elusfa, special to InterAksyon.com
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COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Thousands of residents of central Mindanao turned out Tuesday to call for the completion of what they called “endless (peace) negotiations” between government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and demanded the creation of a Bangsamoro sub-state.

An estimated 10,000 people lined the route of a caravan that left this city and went through major towns in the provinces of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato in what organizers called a “ceremonial send-off” for government and MILF negotiators who are meeting April27-28 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for exploratory talks.

Streamers along the caravan’s route said: “No to endless negotiations,” and, “We are for the creation of a Bangsamoro sub-state.”

The demands echoed sentiments earlier expressed to Mindanao peace advocates by Ustadz Amiril Umbra Kato, an MILF commander who broke away to form the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighter (BIFF) to protest the “long years of negotiation which have not produced any concrete result.”

Bobby Benito, executive director of the Bangsamoro Council for Just Peace, which organized the caravan with the Mindanao Alliance for Peace, said in an interview that “this is an indication of the Bangsamoro people’s support (for) the peace talks and a manifestation of our agreement with the legitimate demands that the MILF has forwarded to the government.”

Carlo Abdulmalik Cleofe, advocacy officer of the Mindanao Peoples Caucus, echoed this, saying: “This (caravan) shows that the Bangsamoro people (are) really behind the negotiation and the agenda of the MILF.”

Supporters of the Mindanao peace negotiations in Davao City were set to put up a 200-meter “Human Chain for Peace” along Quimpo Boulevard, also on Tuesday.

Rexall Kaalim, senior staff of the MPC, which organized the Human Chain for Peace, said, “These actions are intended not just to show massive support on the peace talks but also to demand concrete results from the negotiations.”

He said civil society organizations are urging both government and MILF peace panels to seal a negotiated political settlement to the decades-old Mindanao conflict “in the next twelve months.”

Kato’s tirade against the slow pace of peace negotiations was made at a meeting with officers of Bantay Ceasefire, the ceasefire monitoring arm of the MPC, which met him in the hinterlands of Maguindanao shortly before the Holy Week.

The MPC report on the meeting with Kato, which it submitted to the peace negotiating panels of the government and the MILF, quoted the BIFF commander as saying: “I am not against the negotiations, against ako sa walang hangganan na negosasyon (I am against the endless negotiations).”

The report quoted Kato as saying: “Sige lang exploratory, ang tagal-tagal na, pero hindi pa rin nila alam kung ano ang pag-uusapan (They keep on holding exploratory talks, it’s been so long, yet they still don’t know what to talk about).”

Kato also criticized the Malaysian facilitator of the peace talks, Datuk Othman bin Abdu' Razak.

“If you are the facilitator, you should know what the problem is,” he was quoted as saying. “The facilitator personally witnessed that the government did not comply with the commitment in the MOA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain), but it did not do anything because it is one with government. They are just fooling the Bangsamoro people.”

The MOA-AD would have paved the way for the creation of a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity. However, on the eve of its signing in August 2008, it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

This was followed by renewed fighting in central Mindanao that, at its height, displaced up to 7000,000 people.

Kato was one of the MILF commanders then who were accused of triggering the violence by attacking a number of communities.

Earlier, government negotiators also expressed displeasure with Othman and asked that he be replaced, a demand the MILF opposed. This caused a delay in the resumption of the talks.