MANILA, Philippines—The separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will not agree to a renegotiation of the controversial memorandum of agreement (MOA) to create a Bangsamoro homeland whose aborted signing has stoked renewed violence in Mindanao.

If anything, the MILF is ready for war, its leaders said Friday, as fighting between government troops and MILF rebels entered its third week.

“We do not imagine war, but we are ready for it,” said Mohagher Iqbal, the rebels’ chief negotiator in the peace talks in a telephone interview late Thursday.

Asked what it would take for the stalled peace talks to resume, he said: “Sign the MOA.”

Contacted for comment, Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said last night: “There should be no talk of war because war is not an option here. We’re always for peace.”

He explained that when the government said it was not signing the MOA, it was “not to prepare for war” but to “determine the next steps” it would take in the face of current developments.

Earlier on Thursday, Malacañang said the government would not sign the memorandum of agreement in its present form because of the strong and widespread opposition to it and the new outbreak of violence in Mindanao.

Iqbal said the MILF would not agree to any renegotiation because as far as the rebels were concerned, the MOA was a “done deal.”

“We will not accept it. Our position is clear. We will not renegotiate with them. It’s a done deal. We will hold on to it and assert it,” he said.

“It has already been initialed, which means the government has accepted it,” he added.

‘Done deal’

The rebel leader reiterated the MILF position in a phone interview with reporters in the military general headquarters Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, Metro Manila, on Friday.

“The position of the MILF is very clear. As early as Aug. 5 in Kuala Lumpur, we came out with an official statement that as far as the MOA-AD is concerned, it’s a done deal. We will not agree to any negotiation. We will stick to it. We will assert it,” Iqbal said.

Asked what the MILF would do if the government were to insist on revising the MOA, Iqbal said: “They cannot insist. It takes two to tango. Both parties should agree. In the peace talks, you cannot impose.”

No signing; consultations first

Dureza said that just as it was the privilege of the MILF to say what it was saying, it was also the privilege of the government to say it could not sign the MOA in its present form.

He said the government still has to consult stakeholders—civil society, bishops and the various people affected in Mindanao—to determine what it should do next.

The consultations would “provide guidance to the President and to everybody on what steps to take,” Dureza said.

Aside from making these consultations, he said the government’s other priority was to bring to justice the perpetrators of the recent violent attacks in the provinces of North Cotabato, Lanao del Norte and Saranggani and “to rebuild the lives of people who became victims of these atrocities.”

Storm of protests

Under the proposed memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain, negotiated after secret talks in Malaysia last July, a Bangsamoro homeland would be created out of an expanded Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to be governed by a so-called Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.

When the terms of the MOA leaked out, however, a storm outrage erupted, with legislators, Mindanao officials and various sectors protesting that it would mean a territorial dismemberment of the Philippines and the creation of a separate state for the Muslims in Mindanao.

Mindanao officials who said substantial areas of their territories were proposed to be included in the Moro homeland without their consent went to the Supreme Court to stop the signing of the MOA. The high court issued a restraining order and is now hearing petitions seeking to scuttle the agreement.

Almost immediately, MILF rebels went on the attack in North Cotabato, Maguindanao and Lanao del Norte, killing more than a hundred and displacing tens of thousands more.

‘Impatient’ field commanders

The MILF leaders have blamed the attacks on their “field commanders” ostensibly becoming impatient with the delay in the implementation of the MOA.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said the fighting in the south had changed the “basic premise” of the peace talks and called on the “MILF-affiliated” rebels to lay down their arms if they wanted to talk peace with the government.

Iqbal said the MILF was “observing and closely following the situation” and has “no next plan because we still give primacy to the peace talks.”

He said the MILF would not abandon the peace talks. “It’s a matter of principle. We believe that the best way to resolve the problem in Mindanao is through a negotiated political settlement,” Iqbal said.

In Davao City, lawyer Beverly Selim-Musni, convenor of the Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao (InPeace), said the government’s new terms in the negotiations—to disarm, demobilize and rehabilitate—could spur more violence.

Shortcut

Musni said the government wanted to shortcut the substantive agenda in its talks with the MILF.

InPeace’s position is that disarmament and demobilization should logically be at the tail-end of any negotiated political settlement, after the resolution of the more substantive items in the agenda such as economic, social and political rights.

“It [the government] is totally abandoning the framework that political justice and social justice are prerequisites to peace,” she said.

Castigating Arroyo

Iqbal said the issue on ancestral domain was the third and last aspect of the Tripoli Agreement of 2001 that needed to be resolved before the MILF and the government can discuss a comprehensive peace pact.

The aspects on security and ceasefire and relief and rehabilitation were agreed in May 2002, he said.

Abdurahman Macapaar, the brother of MILF commander Abdullah Macapaar, alias Bravo, who led the attacks on four Lanao del Norte towns, said: “Allah will soon castigate” the President for “reneging” on the agreement with the rebels.

To die fighting

“Like my brother, all of us in the MILF were deceived by the government into this deal, into this agreement. Soon, Allah will castigate President Arroyo,” Abdurahman, a member of the MILF’s local ceasefire monitoring team in Lanao, said.

He also said his brother had no plans of surrendering.

“He will die fighting than be arrested or surrender. He will never surrender,” he said.

Abdurahman said the government is now spending billions of pesos “to engage everyone in war.”

“What is more expensive? To sign the MOA or declare war?” he asked. Reports from Jeoffrey Maitem, Ma. Cecilia Rodriguez, Grace Cantal-Albasin, Julie S. Alipala of Inquirer Mindanao, and Christine Avendaño