New head of international truce monitors takes over

COTABATO CITY — The outgoing Malaysian chief of the international monitoring team helping oversee the ceasefire between the military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) relinquished yesterday his post to a compatriot in an emotional ceremony where they both expressed their optimism on a peaceful resolution to the Mindanao secessionist problem.

Malaysian Gen. Pahlawan Soheimi, who returns to his country on Sept. 15 after heading the 60-man monitoring team for a year, said he is certain that his successor, Gen. Khan Ismail, will vigorously help further the Mindanao peace process.

Soheimi told reporters that he admire the perseverance of both the MILF and the Armed Forces in living up to the ceasefire, which, in effect, ushered in fragile peace in many supposedly hostile areas.

Peace talks between the government and the MILF started on Jan. 7, 1997, but gained momentum only three years ago with the participation of Malaysia as a "third-party mediator."

The monitoring team, which began helping oversee the ceasefire in Mindanao in 2004, is composed of police and military officers from Malaysia, Brunei and Libya.

The Japanese government, through its embassy in Manila, will soon augment the monitoring team with an expert on the rehabilitation of impoverished communities in conflict-stricken areas.

Ismail, who arrived in the country late last month, said he is confident that the government and MILF panels will soon forge a final peace pact.

"I do not see any obstacle to the attainment of a peace agreement between the two sides," said Ismail, who hails from Malaysia’s Johore region.

Ismail is three years senior than Soheimi in the Malaysian military service. He underwent foreign training in civil-military relations and public administration.

He said the third contingent of foreign ceasefire monitors, which he leads, has one physician who would perform humanitarian missions, on a case-to-case basis, in areas covered by the cessation of hostilities.

The team’s humanitarian activities in the South was pioneered by Malaysian Maj. Gen. Dato Zulkifeli, who headed the first ceasefire monitoring contingent and who is now an Army division commander in Malaysia following his yearlong duty in Mindanao.