AFP welcomes Bangsamoro decommissioning process

From the Daily Tribune (Jan 12): AFP welcomes Bangsamoro decommissioning process

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) yesterday branded as a welcome development the scheduled symbolic decommissioning of weapons by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) next month as part of the peace agreement with the government of the Philippines (GPH).

Col. Restituto Padilla, spokesman of the AFP, said that the military also hopes that the move would lead to decommissioning of all weapons and other war materials in Mindanao so that long lasting peace would be achieved.

MILF peace panel chairman Mohagher Iqbal said that the decommissioning of MILF firearms scheduled next month would only be symbolic since the process is in reality not that simple but a very “sentimental, sensitive and emotional” act.

“We strongly believe that decommissioning of weapons is a delicate and difficult component of any peace settlement,” Padilla said.

“It is an affirmative support to the normalization process and will contribute to advancing collective security in the future Bangsamoro region and the country as a whole,” he added.

Iqbal said decommissioning of firearms “has to be parallel and commensurate to the implementation of other agreements.”

The MILF official stressed that the decommissioning process should never be equated to surrender nor should there be “a destruction of weapons, but that a third-party monitor, called the International Decommissioning Body (IDB), would be responsible for the storage of said weapons.”

The symbolic decommissioning was initially set last December but “it has to relate to other tracks in Phase 1” of the implementation schedule, Iqbal added.

Nonetheless, Padilla expressed hopes that the MILF move would lead to decommissioning of all “instruments of destruction” in the name of peace.

“This we also hope and pray will eventually lend fruition to the realization of turning all weapons, instruments of destruction into plowshares for peace and prosperity,” Padilla said.

Iqbal, however, has stressed that the decommissioning of MILF weapons would come in four phases and in parallel with eight processes or “tracks” for the disarmament of its troops under a peace pact with the government.

A supposed matrix detailing the program for normalization in the Bangsamoro has been attached to the annex on normalization signed among members of the government and MILF peace panels last Jan. 25, 2014 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Iqbal said the matrix shows four phases of implementation with eight dimensions or tracks, including decommissioning, that have to be parallel and commensurate to each other.

“The rest are transitional components of normalization, socio-economic programs, confidence-building measures, redeployment of AFP, policing, disbandment of private armies and other armed groups, transitional justice and reconciliation,” he added.

Iqbal said he had written Ambassador Haydar Berk of Turkey, who heads the IDB, about the number of MILF weapons and combatants that would be decommissioned.
The IDB is made up of Norway, Turkey and Brunei and four other local experts jointly nominated by the parties.

It is expected to meet in Manila this month.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/nation/afp-welcomes-bangsamoro-decommissioning-process