Manila (AsiaNews) – The meeting took on a “question and answer” form, that focused on “ancestral domain issues” which for years “have divided the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) from the government and “have yet to bring the hoped-for results”. This according to an official MILF document, is the context of fresh bilateral talks between the Islamic separatists and the government which began on October 23 last in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Malaysian round of talks is the fourth to take place since last December: the chief negotiators are General Rodolfo Garcia for the government and Mohagher Iqbal for MILF. The central issue of the talks rests on independence for the southern state of Mindanao (majority Muslim), and the annexation of about one thousand villages along the border, a request which so far Manila has judged “irrational”.
According to the government, this annexation should go to a popular vote. Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman says: “This is the most serious obstacle to a final peace agreement. That land is part of our ancestral domain; a referendum is not pertinent to the question”. The negotiators have agreed in the short term to set a new date for peace talks in November.
Peace talks between the government and the MILF started in 1997, after 30 years of bloody war, but gained momentum only in 2003 with the participation of Malaysia as “third party mediator.” Currently relations are tense but stable: the separatists have agreed to a “temporary” ceasefire, and the government has withdrawn the anti-terrorist troops from Mindanao. Despite this however the southern peninsula remains a theatre of violence, which according to MILF are the “work of break-away groups”.