OIC ready to join international group for Mindanao peace process

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said the peace efforts have received a big boost with the readiness of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to join the international contact group that the secessionist group has agreed to set up with the government.

In its website (www.luwaran.net), the MILF said the OIC, a pan-Islamic bloc of more than 50 Muslim states, including wealthy oil-exporting countries in the Middle East and Africa, has relayed to its central committee its willingness to joint the international contact group (ICG) that will be composed of foreign organizations and international donors helping the Mindanao peace process.

The setting up of the ICG was stipulated in a joint statement signed last month in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by government chief negotiator Rafael Seguis and his MILF counterpart, Muhaquer Iqbal, after a two-day exploratory dialogue aimed at putting the peace talks back on track.

“This is good news. Peace-building in Mindanao is now becoming a show window of international cooperation in propagating peace and development in the area,” said Msgr. Jose Colin Bagaforo, Cotabato’s auxiliary bishop.

MILF chief Al-Haj Murad said an OIC official informed him in an overseas call of the group’s willingness to join the ICG. He did not name the official.

Local leaders in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao welcomed the OIC’s commitment.

“We welcome this positive development. All of the political leaders in the ARMM, from our regional governor down to the five provincial governors and more than 100 mayors, fully support the national government’s separate peace overture with the MILF and the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front),” said Oscar Sampulna, regional executive secretary.

Murad said the OIC, which helped broker the Sept. 2, 1996 final peace pact between the government and the MNLF, has been supportive of the peace negotiations between the MILF and the government.

Murad said the OIC assured the MILF of its desire to help in the Mindanao peace process during his meeting last May with its secretary-general, Ekmeleddin Ishanuglo, and Muslim minorities affairs director, Talal Bin Abdulrahman Daous.

The OIC’s planned participation in the ICG will be the group’s first-ever direct official involvement in the peace efforts between the MILF and the government.

The OIC only recognizes the MNLF as the sole representative of the so-called “Bangsamoro people,” and has been allowing the group, since the 1970s, to participate in the yearly ministerial meeting of its 57 member-states.