MILF peace talks unlikely to resume this month

COTABATO CITY — Formal talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are unlikely to resume this month, a member of the MILF’s peace panel said yesterday.

Datu Jun Mantawil, chief secretariat of the MILF’s peace panel, said due to time constraints, the two panels cannot possibly meet this month in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There has been tension between the GRP and MILF panels since the Sept. 6-7 formal talks in Kuala Lumpur, where both sides failed to reach a consensus on the issue of ancestral domain.

The MILF wants to fuse into the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and about a thousand other parcels of lands outside of ARMM without a plebiscite.

The government panel cannot concede to the MILF’s demand without first administering a plebiscite as it is a constitutional requirement. Mantawil said the GRP and MILF panels are likely to meet in January 2007 but did not elaborate.

"Definitely, there is no resumption of the talks this month because there is limited time for the (two) parties to prepare for it," Mantawil was quoted by the MILF’s news website, luwaran.com, as saying.

Members of the GRP and MILF panels held a "backchannel dialogue" in Kuala Lumpur last week, where both sides discussed the possibility of resuming the formal talks.

Mantawil clarified, however, that last week’s meeting of the GRP and MILF panels was only a "brainstorming session" where the sides discussed how to go about resolving the ancestral domain issue in the negotiations.

Peace talks between the government and the MILF started Jan. 7, 1997, but gained momentum only about four years ago with the participation of Malaysia as third party mediator.