OIC Sec-Gen Welcomes GRP-MILF Ceasefire

Davao City, Philippines - The Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has joined various sectors in welcoming the July 23 suspension of offensive military operations (SOMO) by the Philippine government and the July 25 suspension of military actions (SOMA) by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

In a three-paragraph press statement dated July 26, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, OIC Sec-Gen, said he hopes negotiations between the two parties “would resume from the point where earlier peace efforts culminated in an effort to preserve and build upon what has been achieved in this respect.”

He called on both parties to “deploy all necessary efforts in a bid to realize security, peace, and development in Southern Philippines” and expressed the OIC`s “readiness and willingness to make all-out efforts to assist the two parties in moving forward towards achieving peace.”

“It is worth recalling that the foreign ministers of the OIC Member States expressed during their meeting held in May 2009 in Damascus, Syria, their concern over the deterioration of the situation in Southern Philippines due to military operations and called upon the two parties to resume negotiations and carry off earlier achievements,” the press statement read.

In Datu Piang, Maguindanao, which houses the most number of evacuees in Maguindanao and North Cotabato, the sound of guns and mortar firing has stopped, but internally displaced persons (IDPs) are still awaiting word for their return back to their respective villages.

Musib Uy Tan, secretary to the mayor, said they will still discuss the IDPs` return home.

“Tahimik na po since the SOMO declaration,” (It`s been quiet since the SOMO declaration), said Fr. Eduardo Vasquez, parish priest of predominantly Moro Datu Piang.

Vasquez quoted Bailyn, an IDP and volunteer at the clinic in Datu Piang, as saying, “tahimik na masyado ditto Pads” (it`s been very quiet here, Father).

Some 250,000 IDPs in Maguindanao and North Cotabato are eagerly awaiting to return home now that the two parties have suspended military operations.

Ishanoglu`s adviser, Ambassador Sayed Elmasry, also Special Envoy for Peace Process in Southern Philippines, was among the VIPs who arrived in Putrajaya, Malaysia on August 4, 2008 for the supposed formal signing the next day, of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), the third and last of three agenda items in the talks – relief and rehabilitation, security, and ancestral domain – between the Philippine government and the MILF.

The MOA-AD was initialed in Malaysia on July 27, 2008. But between July 27 and August 4, the OIC had requested and both the Philippine government and MILF peace panels agreed, that Elmasry be made one of the signatories in the formal signing, under the heading “endorsed by.”

The MOA-AD was initialed by then government peace panel chair Rodolfo Garcia, MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal. It was witnessed by Malaysian facilitator, Datuk Othman bin Abd Razak, who is Special Adviser to the Prime Minister and then Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hermogenes Esperon, Jr.

Garcia, Iqbal and Razak were supposed to sign the MOA-AD a week later, on August 5, but the Philippine Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the executive department, through the peace panel, from signing the MOA-AD.

Elmasry was supposed to have endorsed the document that would have also been signed by the Philippines` Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Alberto Romulo, Malaysia`s Dato` Seri Utama Dr. Rais bin Yatim as witnesses.

The OIC has been assisting in the peace process in Mindanao since the early 1970s. It helped forge the Tripoli Agreement between the Philippine Government and  the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) chaired by Nur MIsuari in 1976 and gave the MNLF an observer status in the pan-Islamic body, in 1977.

The MNLF after the breakdown of the Tripoli Agreement, broke down, with then Vice Chair Salamat Hashim leading a breakway group he initially called “New MNLF” and later renamed to what is now the MILF.

The Philippine government inked a “final” peace agreement with the MNLF on September 2, 1996 but 10 years later, complaints from both sides on the implementation of the peace pact prompted the OIC to send a fact-finding mission to Mindanao, headed by Elmasry, in May 2006.

At that time, optimism was in the air in the GRP-MILF talks and a peace agreement was expected to be signed before the year ended. The talks, however, broke down in early September 2006.

But Elmasry in May 2006, said, “they should reunite again and work hard,” referring to both MNLF and MILF.

“The position of the OIC is to work for conciliation between them. That is also the position of the government of the Philippines,” El-Masry said.

“The best, if not the only course of action. that should be taken,”  is for the MNLF and MILF to “reunite again and work hard,”  he said.

Both groups are working for the same constituency: the Bangsamoro.

An agreement between the MILF and MNLF in March 2001, has resulted to the sending of representatives to the OIC meetings by the MILF, along with the MNLF. Carolyn O. Arguillas

Source: http://www.mindanews.com
Photo: http://www.muslimmindanao.ph

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