Only Filipinos can solve Mindanao conflict, says Ramos-Horta

DAVAO CITY – Timor-Leste President and Nobel Peace Laureate Jose Ramos-Horta reminded the government that only Filipinos can solve the conflict in Mindanao and not the intervention of foreign mediators.

Ramos-Horta said Filipinos should not pin their hopes on mediators in the peace negotiations.

He explained that not even the intervention of Malaysia, Indonesia or the United Nations in the peace process would help, unless the protagonists are committed to finding a just and lasting resolution to the conflict.

“No one can find peace for Filipinos but Filipinos themselves. No one else can help you but you Filipinos yourselves,” he said.

Ramos-Horta arrived here on Tuesday afternoon to kick off the 2009 ASEAN Bridges series on Dialogue: Toward a Culture of Peace, particularly with the theme, “Is long-lasting peace an attainable dream?” at the Ateneo de Davao University.

“Long-lasting peace would then remain in our dreams, in our speeches if only those who are principally involved in a conflict are not sincerely committed to peace. It would help if the main actors would take a step backward and try to think and analyze and understand how the conflict began,” Ramos-Horta said.

He stressed that foreign mediators in a peace negotiation only help in filing reports and recording developments in a peace process but they are not the only solution to the problem.

Meanwhile, two British experts in the peace process urged the government to pursue its peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation (MILF) and the National Democratic Front, too.

“The peace process is always thorny and tricky, but must be pursued without let-up until a final agreement is forged,” Jonathan Powell and Gerry Kelly, who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland, said during a briefing. 

The MILF, however, said yesterday it does not expect peace talks with the government to resume unless the military ends its offensive in Mindanao.

The MILF leadership, however, welcomed the sending of a new team of negotiators to Malaysia next week as a positive step, rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said.

“This is the dilemma, they say they want to resume the talks, but the development on the ground is different,” he said.

“The military should follow the command of the civilian government, and one of our conditions is for them to silence their guns to create an environment conducive to talks,” he said.

The government’s chief peace negotiator, Rafael Seguis, on Wednesday said he would fly to Kuala Lumpur next week to inform the Malaysian government that Manila was ready to sit down with the MILF again for “exploratory talks.”

Peace talks have been suspended since August last year when the MILF launched deadly raids across Mindanao after the Supreme Court ruled that a proposed agreement giving them control over an autonomous region was unconstitutional.   – With Jose Rodel Clapano