EU envoys on a mission in Mindanao

Ambassadors from the European Union started their three-day tour of Mindanao yesterday to see for themselves how the European Commission’s assistance to war victims has been implemented.

They are Ambassadors Heikki Hannikainen (Finland), Christian Ludwig Weber-Lortsch (Germany), Rubens Fedele (Italy), Valeriu Gheorghe (Romania), Luis Arias (Spain), Peter Beckingham (United Kingdom), and Alistair MacDonald (European Commission).

French chargé d’affaires Didier Ortolland, represented the EU presidency.

Colleagues from the Austrian, Czech, Dutch, Greek and Swedish embassies will also take part in the tour, along with officials from the World Food Programme, led by Stephen Anderson, country director; and from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, led by Undersecretary Celia Yangco and Assistant Secretary Ruel Lucentales.

They will meet with local government officials and civil society organizations and NGOs involved in peace and development in Cotabato City, Maguindanao, South Cotabato and Sarangani.

They will also visit a number of evacuation centers in Maguindanao, where assistance provided by the EC is being implemented.

Last October, the European Commission agreed to provide   7 million (approximately P440 million, at current exchange rates) to help civilian victims of the conflict in Mindanao.

The assistance is used to cover emergency food distribution, drinking water and additional sanitation facilities, non-food relief items, basic shelter assistance, health care and psychosocial support, emergency support to livelihood rehabilitation and protection.

Over the last decade, and including this latest assistance, the EC has provided some   33 million in assistance to persons displaced by conflict in Mindanao (including some   12 million in humanitarian assistance, and   21 million for longer-term rehabilitation).

Other EC assistance for Mindanao (development assistance, excluding purely humanitarian assistance and rehabilitation assistance) has amounted to some   93 million (approx P6.2 billion) over the last two decades.

Taken together, the EC’s humanitarian, rehabilitation and development assistance for Mindanao has amounted to 126 million (approx P7.9 billion) over the last two decades.

This figure does not include the assistance provided by individual EU member states, several of which have also contributed substantially to the development of Mindanao.

Teodoro warns MILF

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. warned the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) against attacking civilians in Basilan to force the government into acceding to the peace talks.

“If they think using kidnapping and atrocity to pressure us, we will not bend,” he said.

Teodoro said the military would treat the Abu Sayyaf and their MILF cohorts as plain criminals not protected by any ceasefire.

MILF commanders and their men found harboring criminals would face military action, he added.

Lt. Steffani Cacho, Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command spokesman, said local government leaders and residents have identified the MILF as behind Saturday’s attack in the outskirts of Barangay Balobo in Lamitan, Basilan.

“All this incidents perpetrated by the MILF are not in the subject of the formal complaint for violation of ceasefire filed before the ceasefire committee,” he said.

‘Yes’ to peace talks

COTABATO CITY – Southern Mindanao’s political and religious communities are certain President Arroyo’s envisioned “cross-section” participation in the government’s peace panel will hasten peace talks with the MILF.

Monsigñor Jose Colin Bagaforo, auxiliary bishop of the Cotabato diocese, said they will support a concept where all stakeholders to the peace process would be given representation.

Ibrahim Ibay, acting governor of Shariff Kabunsuan with jurisdiction over Sultan Kudarat town where the MILF’s main enclave Camp Darapanan is located, said it has been their ardent wish for the ARMM to be “given a voice” in the peace talks. – With Roel Pareño, John Unson, Jose Rodel Clapano, Paolo Romero