Secession is not the way to peace Global trade and diplomacy have reached a level cooperation and civility that internal conflicts are left to the better judgment and resources of the nation concerned to resolve. Only a few exception can be cited and this is where savagery and incoherence in governance have no respect for basic human rights and political sense and sensibility. Secession has lost its fashion and governments especially those of advance democracies opted to respect the sovereignty of nations. It is for this reason that members of Organizations of Islamic Countries have ceased to intrude into the conflict between the secessionist fronts in the Philippines for one. Libyan president Moamar Khaddafy, erstwhile major sponsor of the Front and other radical Islamic extremist movements, is emphatic with his posture against secession. He is unequivocal in his advice to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that the way to a rational peace and accord with the government is by respecting the Philippine Sovereignty. The secessionist agents of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has lost its timing and fashion. If the fragile life of Mindanao conflict is extended it is merely on account of the fact that there are influential members in to hurry to live in peace. These elements have lost their usefulness but continued to utilize its members to perpetuate the myth that they are still strong and can win the futile struggle to secede. The fact is the external support is dwindling to a halt, sooner or later they will suffer and realize in silence that secession is not the way to freedom, peace and development but in asserting their rights for existence through negotiation and not forgetting the dictum that in a rational negotiation you win some and lose some. =================================== ONE NATION Former senate president Franklin Drilon has warned the government including those who are engaged in pursuing various peace initiatives to be cautious enough so as not to drag the conflict in Mindanao before an international forum.
Drilon who was among those who petitioned the Supreme Court to reject the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain drafted by the GRP and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace panels for what he claimed was unconstitutional, stressed that inviting foreign consultants and bringing our internal conflict before an international audience will merely earn points for the MILF status of belligerency.
Drilon is correct and his counsel ought to be heeded by all. Our enthusiasm to bring peace to Mindanao might overshadow this pitfall and can only compound the problems and complicate the solutions. Moreover, we too go by the earlier declaration of Libyan leader Moamar Khadaffy that peace negotiations between the MILF and the GRP should always respect the sovereignty of the Republic of the Philippines and its constitution. On this score, Khadaffy had effectively foreseen the collapse of the talks as the sovereignty of the Philippines in the draft MOA on AD had challenged. Drilon in his very lucid stand against the proposed agreement gave us a clearer
picture of what the Libyan leader had early on asserted. And as fated, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. We are not necessarily back to square one for there are a lot of valuable inputs and lessons to be learned from past negotiations even as these were stalled and failed. Drilon stressed that peace negotiations must proceed. One that must assure our Muslim brothers as with the rest of every Filipino a place where each can live in peaceful co-existence regardless of cultural and religious differences. Meaning, one nation for Muslims, Lumads and Christians.
EDGAR PALMA
[email protected] Kidapawan City =================================== MILF HEADS LIVING LUXURIOUSLY AS PAWNS FIGHT, TOIL – AFP
A military official assumed that while the non-ranking members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are fighting the secessionist campaign in the trenches, not minding anymore their dire economic status, the top leaders of the rebel group are apparently leading luxurious lives after the discovery of a half-finished P10-million mansion being built for a rebel leader inside a camp that was overrun by government forces.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division based in Mindanao, said government forces overran a satellite camp of a rogue command of the MILF and found an unfinished mansion being reportedly built for the rebel group’s leader, Ameril Umbra Kato.
The mansion was estimated to be worth at least P10 million, he said.
“This concludes that the leaders of the MILF live in lavish and extravagant ways while their followers and their families remain poor as they are with no adequate food and medicines to sustain their living,” Ponce said in the statement.
The Army official said troops from the Army’s 46th and 49th Infantry Battalions swooped down on the rebel camp located in the village of Pagada, Talayan, Maguindanao Friday around 12:45 p.m., as part of an ongoing offensive against the renegade groups of the MILF.
He said an undetermined number of rebels under the leadership of Kato, one of three commanders being sought by the government for staging bloody attacks in several villages in the
South August last year, put up a fight for about 15 minutes and afterward withdrew. No casualties were reported on both the government and rebel sides, Ponce said.
He said the troops then took control of the satellite camp which, according to him, was being utilized as “forward and perimeter defense to a nearby mansion and rest house owned by Ameril Umbra Kato.”
“The unfinished mansion is worth P10 million.. We have evidence to prove that this is owned by Kato,” Ponce asserted.
Ponce said there were indications that Kato was in the area at the time of the fighting, but that the rebel commander escaped.
He said the troops have so far seized rebel uniforms, documents and other rebel war material at the satellite camp.
The military launched August last year an offensive against what it tagged as the lawless MILF groups – composed of three rogue MILF base commands – that pillaged villages in Lanao del Norte, North Cotabato, Sarangani and Maguindanao provinces.
Kato, Bravo and Pangalian led their troops in the raids, killing civilians, razing their homes and looting property in apparent anger over the Supreme Court’s derailment of the scheduled forging of a draft accord between the government and the rebel group on the contentious issue of Muslim ancestral territories.
The attacks prompted Pres. Arroyo to scrap the territorial deal altogether and disbanded the government panel negotiating peace with the MILF. She also suspended the seven-year old peace talks after the MILF rejected government demands to surrender the rogue rebel leaders and poured more troops into Mindanao.
The government has raised a total bounty of P25 million for the arrest or “termination” of Kato, Bravo and Pangalian. None of the three, however, has yet been brought before the bar of justice.