Philippines ends peace talks with Muslim rebels

MANILA: The Philippines has ended peace talks with the country's largest Muslim rebel group, the president's spokesman said on Wednesday, ending an 11-year peace process that has been marred by violence and disagreement. Manila has dissolved its negotiating panel and will shift its peace policy towards wider and more direct dialogues with local communities in the south of the mainly Catholic state, said Jesus Dureza, also a former peace adviser. "There are no more talks," Dureza said in an interview. "We're dissolving the peace panel. You don't need it when you're ending talks with an armed group. We'll start consulting with the people on the ground and find out how can we resolve the Muslim problem." Dureza said the shift came after rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked communities on the southern island of Mindanao last month, killing civilians and burning property. The violence prompted Manila to junk a territorial deal with the 11,000-member MILF. The agreement is already being scrutinised by the Supreme Court and legal experts have said the court will likely rule that it is unconstitutional. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo reiterated on Wednesday the government's refusal to sign over more land and rights to Muslims in the resource-rich south. "In light of recent violent incidents committed by lawless violent groups, the government will not sign the MOA-AD (memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain)," Arroyo said in a statement. "Our commitment is to peace, the constitutional process and rule of law. There will be no peace gained through violence, no peace agreement will be reached through intimidation or the barrel of the gun," she said. The government and the MILF were supposed to sign the peace deal on Aug. 5 in Malaysia, creating an ancestral homeland for 4 million Muslims in the south. Some Catholic politicians, including some allies of Arroyo, opposed it. The government has been in on-off talks with the MILF since 1997 to end a conflict that has killed 120,000 people, displaced 2 million and stunted growth in an impoverished region believed to be sitting on huge deposits of metals and hydrocarbons. From 2001, Malaysia has been brokering the peace talks and last month agreed to keep its 12 unarmed troops on Mindanao for another three months to help monitor a truce agreement since July 2003.
source : TOI