KUALA LUMPUR, September 5
Government chief peace negotiator Marvic Leonen today urged his
counterparts in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that they
resolve the “remaining contentious points” in their ongoing peace talks
in Malaysia and so they can finally bring home a viable “framework
agreement” for a peaceful Mindanao.
Speaking at the opening of the 31st round of Formal Exploratory Talks
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Wednesday, Leonen underscored the optimism of
the government that the remaining issues in the peace process will
finally be resolved.
“In this round of talks, the government proposes to discuss the
remaining contentious points that will go into our framework agreement,”
Leonen said. “Although at first we may seem to take different positions
on these issues, we know that both our negotiating panels have the
capability and the willingness to be able to sufficiently exhaust our
reasons in dialogue.”
“We thus propose that in this round, we take as our objective that we
take home to our principals a completed product, a consensus draft,
even a very rough draft with some options of a framework agreement for
their serious consideration,” Leonen explained.
“We have set for ourselves a timetable that we hope to be able to
achieve. We think this timetable will allow all of us to be able to take
advantage of the propitious political environment that we are in, to
definitively deliver our mutual political commitments to each other,” he
added.
The four-day peace negotiations between the Philippine government and
the MILF resumed today in this Malaysian capital amidst optimism
expressed by both parties in recent weeks to be able to come up with a
peace agreement soon.
“We seek that all guns be silenced permanently. And by all guns, we
mean all guns. That it is these guns that will become a memory and that
our disagreements, our disappointments and perhaps even our anger will
never be again channeled to cause deaths in violent confrontation,”
Leonen said. “We seek that our differences be settled in peaceful and
deliberative fashion with the government at any level, which follows
laws that have earned the respect of its constituents.”
Leonen cited the need to “make haste so that we can usher in the
agreement that will set up the platforms so that we can not only build
more trust and confidence amongst our constituents but catalyze the kind
of societies that our peoples deserve.”
In his own opening statement, MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal
echoed the positive note expressed by Leonen on the outcome of the peace
talks.
“Today, the GPH-MILF peace negotiations are passing through a
defining moment, a critical phase, which allows no complacency on the
part of the parties,” Iqbal said.
For his part, Malaysian facilitator Tengku Dato Abd Ghafar Tengku
Mohammed commended both sides for being “very serious in trying to solve
the Mindanao problem.”
In his statement, Iqbal reiterated the commitment of the MILF to the
prevailing ceasefire between the government and MILF forces. He stressed
that the MILF had taken decisive action against groups that he
described as “spoilers” to the peace process.
“Very clearly, these spoilers are mounting up their guns and gunning
up on us and certainly if they had their way they wanted us to stop and
fail. This aggression of the so-called BIFM-BIFF is a clear example,”
Iqbal said.
“Their agenda as I mentioned previously was two-fold: to shame the
government and the MILF and to stop the peace talks. What made their
sinister acts doubly serious is that they are not acting alone,” he
explained.
“The collisions of some personalities or groups are documented, but
which I do not want to divulge details in this speech lest it will stir
another complication.”
Iqbal said he was confident that the Philippine government and the
military “given their good intelligence network, is fully aware of this
development.” #
OPPAP Website
links:
PROTECTION AND PROMOTIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS
---------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
------------------------
