2nd tripartite conference starts today in Istanbul

COTABATO CITY – Delegates of the Moro National Liberation Front, Malacañang and the Organization of Islamic Conference will start today with the second tripartite meeting in Istanbul, Turkey to discuss solutions to perceived kinks in the Sept. 2, 1996 GRP-MNLF truce.

The government’s delegation, led by Deputy Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Hadji Nabil Tan and Speaker Paisalin Tago of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, left for Istanbul the other night, optimistic of considerable breakthroughs in the three-way effort of addressing misunderstandings on the implementation of the 11-year-old peace accord.

Key MNLF sources said their founding chairman, Nur Misuari, again failed to secure permission from the judiciary to attend the meeting, which will focus on the initial accomplishments of the five joint working groups (JWGs) tasked to examine the peace agreement based on five parameters:  Sharia, education, political representation of Moro communities, economic development and natural resources.

The modalities for the review of the GRP-MNLF truce, through the five JWGs, composed of three representatives each from the front and the government, among them key officials of ARMM, was agreed upon by both sides, before the OIC’s secretary-general, Ekmeliddin Ishanuglo, during the Nov. 12-14 first tripartite meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The OIC, a pan-Islamic block of more than 50 Muslim countries, including oil-rich Arab nations, helped broker the GRP-MNLF peace agreement.

Misuari, who has been detained since 2002 for leading a failed mutiny of his loyal followers in Jolo, Sulu in November 2001, will be represented in the second tripartite meeting by his legal counsel and spokesman, human rights lawyer Randolph Parcasio.

ARMM Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan was supposed to lead the team to represent the autonomous region in the Istanbul meeting, but asked to be excused due to pressing concerns he has to personally address, among them the strongly-opposed conduct of several RP-US joint military humanitarian projects, starting Feb. 18, in Lanao del Sur and Marawi City.

Political and religious leaders have accused the US Embassy of ignoring them by planning with the projects without first consulting the residents in the two Maranaw-dominated areas, where ancestors of local clans waged a bloody jihad against the Spaniards and Americans, and, subsequently, the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

“I’m convinced the GRP and MNLF can achieve tangible accomplishments in the three-day second tripartite meeting in Istanbul,” Ampatuan said in a text message.

Ampatuan said both Malacañang and the MNLF have manifested willingness to peacefully resolve the misunderstandings on the implementation of the peace pact.

Apart from Tago, who is the ARMM’s third highest elected official, the autonomous region is also represented in the Istanbul meeting by Ampatuan’s executive secretary, lawyer Oscar Sampulna and the regional planning chief, Diamadel Dumagay.