'Make or break' point in GPH-MILF peace talks

Camp Darapanan, laid out amid the dusty, muddy plains of Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, may not impress a visitor as the central headquarters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces.

A narrow dirt road — hemmed in by fields of rice, corn, and banana — runs through the camp. Its lightly-built structures are no different from those in the neighboring barangays, save for the military outposts at various points.

It’s this simplicity, this ordinariness that struck me deeply. Camp Darapanan depicts the state of the Bangsamoro: a people engaged in a protracted struggle for self-determination; however, they remain “submerged in poverty and victims of economic disparity (who) become refugees in their own homeland.”

That, in fact, was how MILF Central Committee Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim described the state of his people and their struggle in two speeches at the three-day Bangsamoro Leaders’ Assembly held in Darapanan last July 7-9. 

Although the MILF has achieved significant gains towards building self-reliance, Murad noted, “there is need to develop the Bangsamoro economy to make our people self-reliant and less dependent on external assistance,” while preparing them for nation-building through “democratic political institutions.” 

I went to Darapanan to observe that assembly, invited by Mohagher Iqbal, head of the MILF peace negotiating panel. I also wanted to see the place, and to meet again a friend with whom I had extensive discussions in 1987, Ghazali Jaafar, the MILF’s 1st vice chairman.

It was the second time that the MILF assembled Bangsamoro leaders (not necessarily MILF members) down to barangay level for formal consultation since 1997, when the peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF began. 

The leaders’ assembly was meant to achieve broad-based unity over how to resolve long-festering problems and, specifically, consensus on the proposed course of action in the 15-year on-off peace negotiations. Murad was happy with the results.

The GPH-MILF peace talks are “at the threshold of ‘make or break,’” Murad disclosed. The negotiations had hardly moved from where the Arroyo government had left them in June 2010. The only concrete achievement, he said, was the signing last April 24 of the “Ten Point Decision Points on Principle,” a guide for crafting a comprehensive political agreement.

Yet at their last meeting in June, the two panels got stymied over the so-called road map — the characteristics of the political entity that will enable the Bangsamoro “to govern themselves and enjoy their own way of life according to their belief, culture and historical background.”

The MILF proposes a “state-substate asymmetrical arrangement” where governmental powers are divided between the central and state or substate governments, where “each level… has sovereignty in some areas and shares powers in other areas.” Moreover, the MILF wants the status of the self-government entity to be “constitutionally entrenched,” not to be altered by a unilateral decision of the central government.

On the other hand, the GPH offers the existing ARMM, which the MILF has consistently rejected since 2000 as “merely an administrative unit of government.”

The April 24 document, Murad pointed out, clearly states that the ARMM “will be abolished and a new Moro political entity will be created.” The GPH, he added, has explicitly agreed that the ARMM is “never a solution to the Moro Question and the armed conflict in Mindanao.” But it becomes “an obstacle or antidote to fast-tracking the negotiation every time the government offers this to the MILF.”

Murad stressed that the proposed substate embodies the MILF’s bottom-line — after withdrawing from the negotiating table the option to secede, upon the Malaysian government’s advice.

 “But we make it doubly clear,” he hastened to add, “that the MILF is not giving up the right to self-determination of our people. This is a collective right of the people that no one, not even the MILF, has the right to foreclose.”

The root cause of the problem, the MILF head explained, is that the Philippine government’s concept of the Moro Question, from Marcos to P-Noy, has been reduced to the problems of poverty, economic imbalance, ineffective governance, lack of education, negative social behavior, among others.

That explains why, he added, “all along, the perceived solution by the government is basically integration and counter-insurgency. This is clearly manifested even in the so-called 3-for-1

formula of the present GPH administration, which the MILF rejected outright.” He elaborated:

“The (GPH) seems not inclined to resolve the armed conflict but to manage (it) to a level that it can continuously rule the Bangsamoro people and exploit the resources of the Bangsamoro homeland. I hope this is not true in the case of the current administration…”

Murad reposes much hope in the international community’s support towards resolving the armed conflict through a negotiated political settlement, citing Malaysia’s “patient” facilitation of the peace talks and the involvement of the International Contact Group and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

“Despite the slow progress,” Murad concluded, “the MILF will continue the talks with the Philippine Government as long as it is necessary. It is only when negotiations fail that we will consider other options that may be available.”

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