New Malaysian peace monitors to arrive this week

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - A new batch of Malaysian ceasefire monitors will replace their outgoing compatriots on Wednesday after a year-long deployment in flashpoint areas in Mindanao.

The peacekeeping works of the Malaysian members of the International Monitoring Team-8 shall be assumed by observers comprising the 9th IMT, whose tour of duty will start on March 12.

Besides Malaysian military and police officers, the IMT is also comprised of soldiers from Brunei, Indonesia, Libya, and non-uniformed conflict resolution and rehabilitation experts from Japan, Norway, and the European Union.

The IMT has been helping observe since 2003 the implementation in Southern Mindanao of the 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The Maguindanao provincial peace and order council (PPOC), chaired by Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, assured to support the peacekeeping duties of the incoming batch of ceasefire monitors from Malaysia.

Malaysia has been helping push the now 17-year GPH-MILF peace talks forward as “third party facilitator” since 2003.

“The provincial government of Maguindanao will extensively support the peacekeeping functions of the IMT-9,” Mangudadatu said in an emailed statement.

Mangudadatu said the IMT’s presence in the province helps normalize the situation in the area, scene of fierce clashes between MILF and government forces in 2000, in 2003 and, subsequently, in 2008.

Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, who is chairman of the ARMM’s inter-agency regional peace and order council, said all line agencies under his office will also support the operations of the IMT-9.

Hataman said he has also instructed the ARMM regional police command to extend the same support to the ceasefire observers.

The MILF’s chief negotiator, Muhaquer Iqbal, said they are grateful to Malaysia for its continuing observation of the enforcement of the ceasefire accord through its contingent in the multinational IMT.