Extend international monitoring team’s stay by a year, Malaysia urged

COTABATO CITY — Negotiators of the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) have asked the Malaysian government to extend by one more year the tenure of the international monitoring team which helps oversee the ceasefire between the military and the secessionist group.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said both panels want the monitoring team’s stay extended from October this year, as stipulated in the terms of reference agreed upon by the Philippine and Malaysian governments, to October 2006.

"Both sides have seen and really experienced the benefits of having the (monitoring team) in Mindanao," he told The STAR via mobile phone.

The monitoring team is composed of military officers from Malaysia and Brunei and civilian representatives of the Libyan government.

The team, led by Malaysian Gen. Dato Zulkifeli, has been helping the military and the MILF implement the ceasefire in hostile areas in the South since October last year.

Kabalu said the MILF central leadership is confident that the governments of Libya, Malaysia and Brunei will grant their request.

The three countries belong to the so-called Ministerial Committee of the Eight of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), which has been helping mediate the government-MILF peace talks since Jan. 7, 1997.