MILF pins hope on TWG in remaining drafts

From the Daily Tribune (Jul 20): MILF pins hope on TWG in remaining drafts

While acknowledging there are still hard issues to be tackled in the negotiating table, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is banking on the technical working group (TWG) to make sure that the two remaining annexes in the peace negotiations would be settled.

The MILF, in its official website, cited the TWG role in settling some issues regarding the wealth-sharing, which were settled during the last formal talks in Malaysia but negotiators needed extended time to finally reached an agreement, and transitional arrangement and modalities at their level.

Still to be settled are power-sharing and normalization annexes of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB).

“The remaining two issues are as tough as wealth-sharing,” the MILF said.
The MILF, however, expressed optimism that both the government and MILF peace panels, through TWG, can settle the matter.

“To make sure that the two remaining issues will also be sealed, the government and MILF should now discriminate those harder issues from those already settled. To date, only three issues on power-sharing are unsettled,” the MILF said.

“On normalization, there are still many areas for the parties to work on, but the latest meeting in Kuala Lumpur, more and more issues are settled on the level of the technical working group (TWG),” it added.

The MILF also expressed belief that both parties are now aware that much have been “invested” in the peace negotiations.

“By now, the two parties have surely realized that they have invested already for the peace talks. To go back to zero is harsher than to move and finish the peace process. They know the consequences of both happenings,” the MILF stressed.

The MILF regarded the last formal talks in Kuala Lumpur early this month as the “toughest of all.”

“However, there is no hurdle that a willing and dedicated peace partners cannot find a way out. There is always that formula of compromise. The government and MILF peace negotiators have proved this during the last peace encounter in Kuala Lumpur.

Not until the dying minutes of the negotiation, already way past 10:00 into the night of the sixth day, that the breaker was found,” the MILF said.

The MILF got the “lion’s share” in the agreed wealth-sharing annex.

Under the deal, the government has agreed to let the rebels have a 75 percent share of earnings from natural resources and metallic minerals in a proposed autonomous region for the Muslim minority in Mindanao.

For energy resources, both sides agreed to split earnings equally following the talks hosted by neighboring Malaysia.

The government had initially bargained for a bigger share of the wealth, arguing that it wanted a deal that could withstand legal challenge in the Supreme Court.

Chief peace negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer has earlier said a final peace deal with the 12,000-MILF could be signed after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which officially ends at the end of July.

Muslim groups including the MILF have waged a guerrilla war for a separate Islamic state in Mindanao since the 1970s, a conflict that has claimed an estimated 150,000 lives.

The government and the MILF signed a preliminary deal in October outlining the broad terms for a peace treaty that is expected to be signed before he ends his six-year term in 2016.

Ferrer, however, has noted that both sides still had to agree on a formula over how to disarm the rebels as well as the extent of the powers of the autonomous region.

MILF vice chairman for political affairs Ghazali Jaafar has said the group expected a “more contentious” round of negotiations ahead.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/index.php/headlines/item/16877-milf-pins-hope-on-twg-in-remaining-drafts