'Focus first on return of displaced villagers'

COTABATO CITY -- Various sectors urged the peace panels of the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) yesterday to first focus on the immediate return of villagers displaced by recent hostilities between state and rebel forces in Maguindanao and North Cotabato.

"What good will it give the people to see the two panels hold formal talks while the (villagers) are suffering in evacuation centers? Both sides should do something about this because it was due to the clashes between the military and the MILF that they abandoned their homes," said Datu Michael Sinsuat, mayor of Upi, Maguindanao and president of the province's 20-member mayors' league.

This developed as military authorities brushed aside allegations that the Armed Forces is poised to conduct renewed offensives against the MILF with the deployment of more Army troops to Maguindanao.

Maj. Salih Indanan, spokesman of the military's Southern Command, said that although fighting in Central Mindanao has ceased since three weeks ago, government troops have remained on alert amid bombing threats.

Government and MILF negotiators, in a two-day meeting here this week, merely agreed to reimpose the ceasefire and redefine the nine-point agenda for the talks as proposed by the rebel group, and renewed each other's commitment to pursue the peace talks.

Both sides also agreed to hold a committee-level meeting here on Monday and another round of formal talks thereafter to discuss how to go about the nine-point agenda, which the MILF submitted to the government panel in 1997.

Dr. Tahir Sulaik, chief of the integrated provincial health office in Maguindanao, said that since the two panels have not "put in black and white" the reimposition of the ceasefire, evacuees still refuse to return to their strife-torn villages.

The local folk are apparently apprehensive that trouble might erupt anew as state and rebel forces continue to face a showdown in many areas, ready to shoot at each other at the slightest provocation.

"That should have been the topic or issue both sides discussed in the recent two-day talks," an irate Sulaik said.

"The assurance that there will be no more fighting must come from the two panels," seconded Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, mayor of Shariff Aguak, scene of fierce Army-MILF clashes in Maguindanao. - With Roel Pareño