There is no clear indication that the decades-old armed conflict in Mindanao will end despite the sincerity of President Duterte to reach a solution to the secessionist problem in Mindanao with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), as well as the National Democratic Front-Communist Party of the Philippines (NDF-CPP) and its armed wing New People’s Army (NPA).
Like in previous administrations, the government peace negotiators appeared to be having difficulty reaching a peace agreement with the communist groups.
Officials of the NDF-CPP led by CPP founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison have been issuing “double-meaning” statements pertaining to the party’s seriousness in ending its more than 40-year-old armed conflict.
Fighting between government troops and the rebels marked the first six months of the Duterte administration.
Duterte announced the immediate implementation of a unilateral ceasefire with the NPA-NDF-CPP during his first State of the Nation Address in July.
Instead of reciprocating Duterte’s goodwill, the NPA ambushed government troops, killing a member of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit and wounding four others in Sitio Patil in Barangay Gupitan, Davao del Norte.
Aside from the declaration of a unilateral ceasefire, Duterte also released from detention Benito and Wilma Tiamzon and granted presidential pardon to four political prisoners.
The Tiamzons were able to participate in the peace talks in Oslo, Norway as members of the NDF peace panel following their release.
Sison said the forging of an agreement between the government and the NDF remained possible.
The President, however, has rejected the request of the NDF to release more than 130 political prisoners as part of the confidence-building measures in the peace negotiations between the communists and the government.
Duterte said he would order the release of the political prisoners serving time for criminal offenses only if the NDF representatives would present documents signed by both the negotiating panels of the government and the CPP.
The government peace panel said it has drafted the amnesty proclamation and submitted it to the President in September.
The government amended the guidelines of the Presidential Committee on Bail, Recognizance and Pardon to facilitate the release of the political detainees on humanitarian grounds.
As a gesture of goodwill, Duterte pardoned four communist rebels convicted of murder and kidnapping on Dec. 2.
Martin Villanueva, Bonifacio Suyon, Dindo Absalon and Rico Bodina had served 18 to 26 years in prison.
In almost 50 years of guerrilla war launched by the NDF, through its armed wing NPA, more than 150,000 people have been killed in armed clashes.
The military said the NPA members had been reduced to less than 4,000.
But NDF panel chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni claimed they have 10,000 members operating in more than 120 guerrilla fronts in 72 provinces.
The peace talks with the NDF-CPP-NPA have been disrupted at least 15 times.
The breakdown in the talks was mainly due to two issues: the release of detained NDF consultants and declaration of a ceasefire.
With both issues addressed, the formal resumption of peace talks on Aug. 22 in Oslo was made possible.
The government has an ambitious target of conducting the talks with the NDF-CPP-NPA for one year and implementing the reforms that they would reach in the succeeding five years of the Duterte administration.
Last August, the government and the NDF ended the first round of talks in Norway and agreed on three of five substantive issues, including a formal commitment to accelerate the process of forging a political settlement during the term of President Duterte.
The three major issues settled were the “affirmation of previously signed agreements; reconstitution of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) list, and the accelerated process for negotiations, including the timeline for the completion of the remaining substantive agenda for the talks: socio-economic reforms; political and economic reforms; and end of hostilities and disposition of forces, including the Joint Monitoring Committee.
Government peace panel chairman Silvestre Bello III said all agreements signed during the peace negotiations from the time of former president Corazon Aquino up to the present were re-affirmed “subject to enhancements that may be mutually agreed upon later by both panels.”
The agreements that were re-affirmed include The Hague Joint Declaration of 1992, Breukelen Joint Statement of 1994, the JASIG and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.
To speed up the peace negotiations, both panels agreed to activate the Reciprocal Working Committee on the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms as well as the Reciprocal Working Groups on Political and Constitutional Reforms and End of Hostilities-Disposition of Forces.
Bangsamoro
The government peace negotiators then led by Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and the MILF panel affirmed their partnership for the continuity of the Bangsamoro peace process when Duterte assumed office.After breaking away from the MNLF then headed by Nur Misuari, three other terrorist groups – the Abu Sayyaf, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Maute group – held sway in Mindanao.
Misuari created a five-member panel to negotiate with the government.
The panel will work on the completion of the remaining commitments under the 1996 Final Peace Agreement and the Tripartite Review Process on the peace deal between the government, MNLF and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Misuari, who had been released by the court so he could participate in the Bangsamoro peace process, opted not to take part in the newly constituted Bangsamoro Transition Commission to draft a law for the future Bangsamoro government.
Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza said the passage of a new Bangsamoro law would move alongside efforts toward implementing a federal form of government to end decades of armed conflict in Mindanao.
“We would entrench the Bangsamoro law and make it operational because federalism is a long process. If the next Bangsamoro law would be constitution-compliant and Congress will pass it, maybe the Bangsamoro can test pilot our move to federalism,” Dureza said.
http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/01/08/1660744/yearender-peace-negotiators-find-end-conflicts-not-easy
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