MILF waffles on disarmament

From the Daily Tribune (Jan 11): MILF waffles on disarmament

Decommissioning set next month "symbolic" -- MILF

The decommissioning process of firearms would be at best symbolical when it is held next month as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) cited four phases that should be held in parallel with eight processes or “tracks” for the disarmament of its troops under a peace pact with the government.

MILF peace panel chairman Mohagher Iqbal said decommissioning of firearms “has to be parallel and commensurate to the implementation of other agreements.”

Iqbal described the event to be held next month which the government billed as the start of the decommissioning of the firearms of the MILF would merely be “symbolic” since the proces is in reality not that simple but a very “sentimental, sensitive and emotional” act.

Iqbal 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.

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.

Iqbal added that delaying the decommissioning process is the unfinished implementing guidelines of the terms of reference of the IDB.

Since the IDB was constituted last September only, its members “cannot put up themselves yet in the proper way to move forward,” Iqbal said.

“The MILF is committed to decommission its weapons and forces and put them beyond use, but it is in exchange for something for our people. That something is in a good (Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL),” the MILF, meanwhile, said in its website luwaran.com.

“If there is no reason to bear arms and that all our limbs and properties are safe, who will then be in need of these weapons?,” it stated.

The Palace, meanwhile, said it hopes to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law within the administration’s timetable in the first quarter of this year.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, the chairman of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments and revision of codes, said she will raise the legality issues of the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Santiago, has set the hearings for Jan. 26 and Feb. 2.

Deputy presidential spokesmann Abigail Valte, in a radio interview, said she hopes the constitutionality issues on the BBL will be settled in Congress.

“In the beginning, I understand that Senator Defensor-Santiago has always been of the position that there are certain things that she believes — that she has a contrary opinion,” Valte said.

“Hopefully, these questions or positions can be the subject of discussions between her and other lawmakers, as the law is discussed in Congress,” she added.

Asked if she thinks the the law could be passed within the administration’s time frame, the Palace official said they have not lost their optimism for its passage.

“We remain hopeful. We understand that there are a number of issues that need to be thoroughly discussed by lawmakers when this reaches the floor,” she said. “But we remain hopeful that it will make the intended timetable.”

Santiago said she wanted to hear the views of those who forged the agreement. She noted the peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) also sought to establish a substate that would exercise certain sovereign powers otherwise reserved for the central government.

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who conducted public hearings on the draft law in parts of Mindanao as chair of the local government committee, agreed that the issue of substate was the “main constitutional question.”

http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/milf-waffles-on-disarmament