‘MILF-GRP peace talks may be stalled anew’

COTABATO CITY — Peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front may not resume in the next few months if negotiators from both sides remain adamant and cannot agree on the date and venue of a new round of formal talks.

"Both sides are good only at giving assurances they are ready to resume the talks and this has been going on for months now," commented Datu Michael Sinsuat, mayor of Upi, Maguindanao and president of the league of mayors of the province.

According to Sinsuat, the uncertainty now shrouding the seemingly moribound peace talks have seriously been affecting the efforts of the national government to rehabilitate the areas devastated by the recent military-MILF hostilities.

"And evacuees continue to languish in evecuation sites and refuse to return to their villages because they don’t see the members of the GRP and MILF panels facing each other to discuss peaceful solutions to the conflict," Sinsuat added.

Some observers, among them Muslim religious leaders, said stories are rife that the MILF, as a requisite to the resumption of the talks, may ask for the recognition anew of its five major camps which fell following government air, ground and artillery offensives.

"The explicit expression by both sides of their willingness to resume with the talks was already a big stride, but it was just the first step of the ladder and the longer it takes for them to start talking again will only create mixed feelings about what the peace talks are really all about," he said.

Al-Haj Murad, MILF’s vice chair for military affairs, said they are ready to reactivate their peace panel once the government will agree "in black and white" to the holding of the negotiations abroad.

"We can form our peace panel in 24 hours once we have that document," Murad told The STAR through a two-way radio.

MILF chieftain Salamat Hashim disbanded their peace panel last August, about three weeks after soldiers overrun Camp Abubakar, the front’s last bastion on the border of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.

But even with the capture of the 10,000-hectare guerrilla enclave, MILF forces have not ceased launching clandestine attacks against the Army and Marine combatants guarding the area, using surrounding forests as springboards for their tactical maneuvers.