GPH-MILF talks end without deal on power sharing, arms

From Rappler (Sep 20): GPH-MILF talks end without deal on power sharing, arms


'FULL AUTONOMY.' The Moro Islamic Liberation Front negotiating panel during a short break in the talks. Photo by OPAPP 

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – After holding the longest round of talks between the Aquino government and rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the parties ended the 40th phase of talks here on Friday, September 20, without signing a deal on power-sharing and normalization.

Both sides had high hopes all pending issues would be resolved this round. But proposed changes to the annex – both from the government and the MILF – extended discussions, described to be "generally constructive" during this round.

READ: Gov't MILF, extend talks another day

The negotiations are now down to the final details of power-sharing, considered the "heart" of the negotiations, and normalization, the "most sensitive and emotional" aspect of it and which includes decommissioning of arms.

"One of the most important things that happened is that we were able to understand each other's perspective and hopefully in the next round of talks it will be easier for both parties to settle the annexes," MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said.

As this round of negotiations wrapped up, the violence in Zamboanga City – launched by a faction of MILF's rival group Moro National Liberation Front on the day the talks were scheduled to resume – had waned.

Did the Zamboanga siege have a direct impact to the negotiating table? Both sides have repeatedly said the incident should not derail the talks.

"I don't think that affects the negotiations between the MILF and the government," Iqbal said. "On the contrary, I would say that it even give more strength to the parties, that there is a problem going on. It gives the parties more reason to really push the process forward."

The panels could not finish due to the sheer amount of issues that still needed to be resolved and consulted with their respective principals, Iqbal said.

 

Race against time

It's been almost a year since the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which set hopes up for lasting peace in Mindanao, was signed.

The government and the MILF envision the transition from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to the Bangsamoro political entity to be completed by 2016, before the end of the Aquino administration.

The longer they fail to resolve the issues, the more constricted the Bangsamoro peace process' 2016 timeline becomes.

With less than 3 years left in the roadmap, both sides are aware they are on a race against time.

"That's what we both have to weigh," government peace panel chair Miriam Coronel Ferrer earlier said. "Do we want a perfect agreement that will not get you to 2016? Or you have to take leaps of faith and keep the trust and really, really go full blast in implementation? These are the questions that are I'm sure at the back of their minds and also in our minds."

It's better to be meticulous about the contents of the annex that will set the political structure for the future Bangsamoro government than leave it to the Basic Law, said Undersecretary for Political Affairs Chito Gascon, an alternate panel member.

"It's better to have no gray areas," Gascon said. "The work of the Transition Commission will also be expedited."

Although all set to start work, the Transition Commission, the body tasked to craft the Bangsamoro Basic Law, can only go full blast once the final peace agreement is completed.

After the basic law is crafted, it will then be deliberated in Congress. Aquino wants the law to be passed before the end of 2014.

READ: Bangsamoro Basic Law by 2014? Realistic but...

Once the law hurdles Congress, the Bangsamoro Transition Authority will take over until the 2016 elections. The MILF and the government will only sign the final exit agreement once the new Bangsamoro government has been installed.

'Balancing act'

Shortly after Aquino's historic meeting with MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim in Japan in 2011, the MILF dropped their bid for independence, pushing instead for "full autonomy."

The MILF wants to include "all their aspirations" in the power-sharing annex, Ferrer said.

In this round for instance, Gascon said the MILF proposed to include more details about the "ministerial form of government," which was the structure agreed upon in the Framework Agreement.

Meanwhile, the government also wants to ensure that the power-sharing deal for the Bangsamoro would stand the scrutiny of legal experts.

This "balancing act" is taking time.

"All aspirations have a maximum, we're not saying a minimum but some kind of a middle ground within the flexibilities of politics and our Constitution," Ferrer earlier said.

She added: "They [MILF members] have a lot of ideas but they're not very sure maybe how to operationalize. But the process is constructive because we try to work together how these approaches can be utilized. It's taking a lot of time."

Iqbal, meanwhile, said there might be a need to create a better system for resolving issues on the table.

Territorial waters

The most contentious item in the power-sharing annex is the issue on "territorial waters" around the proposed Bangsamoro area as the MILF puts it or "water domain" as the government likes to call it.

Iqbal said this is the most difficult part of power-sharing because it involves many aspects.

"Many factors are factored in – power, wealth-sharing, communication, transportation," Iqbal said. "On the part of the government, the issue of security also comes into play."

Both parties aimed to complete both annexes on power-sharing and normalization this round but decided to just focus on power-sharing during the latter part of the talks. These are the last two annexes required before the final peace pact can be signed.

"The idea was really to come to terms, to have a common understanding and sometimes it really takes time to understand different perspectives but I think for most parts we were able to achieve that kind of clarity that we need to become very good partners not just to finalize annexes but for the implementation phase," Ferrer said.

Normalization

Meanwhile, the normalization process being negotiated for the Bangsamoro will also include the disbandment of other criminal and private armed groups.

The MILF wants the decommissioning of their forces to happen once all other armed groups have been disbanded. The government, meanwhile, wants a "gradual and phased" approach.

The ball will be in the MILF's court once the discussion shifts to the normalization annex, according to Ferrer.

"In the normalization annex, this is where crunch time really comes for the MILF because this is the part where we will be working on the decommissioning of combatants and weapons, and as you can imagine, that is something that is not easy to give up for a group that has held on to its arms in order to pursue its cause," she said in a July press conference in Malacañang. "It is something that they cannot simply do when, in fact, there are so many other armed groups in the area.

In July, the parties signed a historic wealth-sharing agreement that gave automatic appropriations to the Bangsamoro, as well as a 75% share on taxes and revenues from metallic minerals.

http://www.rappler.com/nation/special-coverage/peacetalks/39423-40th-round-gph-milf-peace-talks-no-deal