New ceasefire monitors due in Mindanao next month

COTABATO CITY — A new batch of ceasefire monitors from Malaysia, Brunei and Libya will replace the 60 members of the international team helping enforce the truce in Mindanao whose tour of duty ends next month.

The three countries have been helping extensively the government’s peace overture with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) since 2003.

Secretary Jesus Dureza, presidential adviser on the peace process, whose office is actively involved in the government’s confidence-building measures with the MILF, said the new batch of ceasefire monitors are now undergoing orientation on their peacekeeping mission in Southern Mindanao.

Sources in the MILF peace panel said Maj. Gen. Soheimi Pahlawan, outgoing head of the international monitoring team, will be replaced by a certain Gen. Ismael Khan.

Soheimi and his predecessor, Maj. Gen. Dato Zulkifeli, chief of the first batch of ceasefire monitors which arrived in Mindanao in 2003, both focused on humanitarian projects that complemented the joint efforts of the government and the MILF in ensuring the cordiality of the ongoing peace talks.

The peace talks began on Jan. 7, 1997, but gained momentum only in 2003 with the participation of Malaysia as "third-party mediator."

Malaysia, a member-state of the Organization of Islamic Conference, has since been hosting the formal talks between the two sides.

The governments of Japan and Iran earlier expressed their readiness to help monitor the ceasefire, which has mechanisms for the interdiction of criminals and terrorists in known MILF strongholds.

Various non-government organizations, among them Catholic and Islamic groups, have also been helping monitor the truce in many parts of Mindanao.

Lawyer Ishak Mastura, trade secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the participation of Japan in the government-MILF peace venture would help boost investors’ confidence in the business climate in Mindanao’s predominantly Muslim areas.

"Japan is undoubtedly an economic power and as such, can help project to the whole world that we now have fragile peace in Mindanao as a result of the ongoing government-MILF talks," he said.

Mastura, whose lawyer-patriarch, Datu Michael, is a member of the MILF peace panel, said Japan has relayed to President Arroyo last month its willingness to help in the socio-economic aspect of the Mindanao peace process.

Citing initial correspondence, Mastura said Japan, through its embassy in Manila, wishes to focus not just on helping monitor the ceasefire, but also on the rehabilitation of impoverished communities affected by recent armed conflicts in the South.

The Japanese government, the ARMM’s Social Fund Project and the World Bank have joint socio-economic projects in the autonomous region, mostly in areas where MILF rebels reside.