Peace-building in Mindanao

Saeed A. Daof, the Philippine participant in the Eastern Mennonite University-Summer Peace-building Institute, said after the six-week session he is more convinced about wanting to help in the peace process when he returns to Manila. He says he supports the pronouncement and position of Philippine Chief Negotiator Eduardo Ermita about the need to rescind the arrest orders for MILF Chairman Salamat Hashim, MILF Negotiator Al Haj Murad and Political Affairs Vice Chairman Ghazali Jaafar in order to pave the way for the early resumption of the GRP-MILF peace talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "As I have said in my recently published open letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, she will be remembered as a good President if and when she is able to conclude and sign a peace agreement with the MILF during her incumbency, and she should therefore strengthen the clout and effectiveness of her peace negotiating team."

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Dr. Howard Zehrh, co-director of the Conflict Transformation Program, said in an e-mail communication with this columnist, that people who teach in the program say the participants are "colleagues masquerading as students because they have so much experience and wisdom; we feel like we learn as much as we teach. These courses aren‚t mere academic exercises; instead they are oriented toward practice. We see that our goal is to equip and support Œreflective practitioners‚ in the work of justice and peace-building. We are also excited that similar institutes inspired by our graduates have started in places such as the Philippines and the African country of Zambia."

So it is that the flame that will keep burning in the hearts of SPI participants is the hope that peace is realizable, and that they have roles to play in its realization. As peace maker Vaclav Havel puts it: "Either we have hope or we don‚t; it‚s a dimension of the soul. It‚s an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It is the ability to work for something because it‚s good not because it stands a chance to succeed."

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Among SPI graduates who have contributed to building peace institutes in their countries is Gamiel Alim (SPI 1998) of Cotabato who became one of the facilitators in the Mindanao Peace Institute which was founded in 2000 as a joint project of the Catholic Relief Services, the Mennonite Central Committee-Philippines and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development.

The MPI, based in Davao City, has brought together 450 people from 17 countries rife with conflict and division, including Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Croatia, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Kosovo, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and the Philippines. The participants and facilitators represented local and international humanitarian organizations, local NGOs, youth groups, church-based organizations,

People’s organizations, local and international networks, corporate foundations, academic institutions, women‚s groups, and socio-civic groups. Faculty and facilitators included Europeans and Americans and Filipinos with extensive knowledge of conflict resolution and peace initiatives.

The MPI’s vision is "peaceful and must communities in the Asia Pacific," and its mission, to "educate and empower communities, institutions and individuals and justice and peace-builders and as catalysts for social transformation throughout Asia and the Pacific."

This year’s three-week institute offered courses in conflict transformation, fundamentals of peace-building, understanding local capacities for nonviolence, mediation, negotiation and dialogue, approaches to social change, designing community-based peace-building initiatives, and religion as a source of conflict and resource for peace.

The third week, which is this week, has been devoted to field work, which exposes the participants to community-based programs. A model community being visited, according to Gamiel, is a result of MPI efforts – the establishment of a "zone of peace," which is a barangay whose Muslim and Christian inhabitants have learned to accept each other, work on livelihood programs together, and not allow outside forces to create conflict in the community.

A plan of the MPI program is engaging in actual dialogue with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, but since they are in hiding as they are wanted by the Philippine government, meetings with people who have had contacts with the rebel group have been arranged instead.

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