Government chief peace negotiator Marvic Leonen
COTABATO CITY—Government chief peace negotiator Marvic Leonen on Monday asked the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to stop fueling apprehensions the peace talks with the rebels would fail.
“Instead of trying to fuel people’s apprehensions, we urge the MILF to work with the government and meet our timetable for a peace agreement this year,” Leonen said in an e-mailed statement to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Earlier, MILF officials had complained the talks were going nowhere.
MILF political affairs chief Ghadzali Jaafar said they were becoming impatient because “it appears we are going in circles.”
“We want a peaceful resolution to the Mindanao conflict and we look at the Aquino government as the hope that we’ve been waiting for. But then, it seems frustration has crept in lately among the MILF peace negotiators because of these delaying tactics,” he said.
Noncommittal stance
Jaafar said the noncommittal stance of the government peace panel on several issues, including one that concerned territory, had been delaying the peace agreement. He said discussions had revolved around the same issues without any concrete solution in sight.
“The negotiation tactic the government is employing is courting dangerous ground. There is now the question of sincerity on the side of the national leadership,” he said.
Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief negotiator, told the Inquirer the talks with the Aquino administration had been going on for nearly two years but there had been no progress.
“They are not serious. The government says there will be a signing of the agreement in the first quarter of the year but up to now there is no clear future for the negotiations,” he said.
On the contrary, Leonen said, the government had “laid a very pragmatic proposal that would ensure real and genuine autonomy for the Bangsamoro.”
He did not say what the proposal was but that the MILF wanted to govern an expanded territory and share in the wealth and power with the national government, among other things.