|
News Release
03 September 2008
Moro group expresses fear on the government's decision to abort peace
talks
Suara Bangsamoro expresses fear over the recent announcement of President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. about
aborting the peace negotiation between the GRP and the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front saying that this would further lead to escalation of
violence in the communities that has resulted to more than 360,000
civilians caused by the month-long military offensives by the Armed Forces
of the Philippines and skirmishes with the MILF.
According to Amirah Ali Lidasan, national president of Suara Bangsamoro
(Voice of the Moro People), the Arroyo administration should know better
than abandon the path to peace and replace it with another all-out war
with the MILF.
"President Arroyo owe it to the lives of both Muslim and Christian
civilians who have been displaced because of the all-out war posturing of
the Arroyo administration, and whose properties were destroyed and whose
inter-religious relationships with fellow communities were affected due to
supporting vigilante groups that fan anti-Muslim hysteria in the
communities," said Lidasan.
Lidasan also reacts to the pronouncement of Teodoro that the MILF is now
irrelevant because their leadership would not give up the two commanders
to the national government saying that Teodoro should know how to respect
the ceasefire committees and international local monitoring teams formed
as a result of the first agenda of the GRP-MILF peace negotiations.
Should the government continue to disregard the concrete mechanisms that
have resulted to the previous agreements such as ceasefire and relief and
rehabilitation, it would only show that it is not interested in
implementing the signed agreements.
"Who will really lose its credibility to the international community in
terms of brokering peace? With the war and chaos now happening in
Mindanao, what credibility does the Arroyo administration can show to the
international community except being brutal and incapable of addressing
the needs of her constituents," said Lidasan.
|
Lidasan criticized the Arroyo
administration's adamant use of the disarmament, demobilization and
rehabilitation (DDR) framework for the peace negotiation, saying that this
was not a result of the promise of a compromised or negotiated settlement
that has been the basis for the MILF's agreement to resume peace
negotiation with the Philippine government as agreed in the 2001 GRP-MILF
Tripoli Agreement.
Lidasan further said that her organization fears that should the Arroyo
administration use the Oplan Bantay Laya approach to the MILF, many Moro
activists and innocent civilians will also suffer the fate of thousands of
activists killed and abducted in suspicion of being members of the
National Democratic Front-New People's Army-Communist Party of the
Philippines.
Already, local government units and the Philippine National Police have
been supplying arms to civilians and reviving vigilante groups by
rekindling the Ilaga movement and fanning anti-Muslim hysteria in the
community. As a result, many houses of Muslims have been burned in North
Cotabato that went unreported, and many houses in Iligan were burned but
pinned the blame to the MILF commanders.
"It is the responsibility of the president to keep the atmosphere of peace
in Mindanao, yet instead of stopping the unwarranted violence, her
policies was like a gasoline that further inflamed violence in Mindanao,"
said Lidasan.
Lidasan calls on to inter-religious community to help calm the people by
explaining to civilians the real situation on the ground and by exposing
the opportunists like the Ilaga vigilante groups, private armies of local
warlords and paramilitary groups that seek to break the unity of Muslims
and Christians in Mindanao.
Lidasan invites everyone to visit Muslim communities and evacuation
centers in the whole month of Ramadhan and experience with the Moro
evacuees their observance of the holy fast and their celebration of Hari
Raya Puasa or Eid'l Fitr at the end of the month of September.#
Reference:
Amirah Ali Lidasan
National President, Suara Bangsamoro
Telefax: 064.4215860; email: suarabm@yahoo.com
Mobile No. 0919.6603839 |
