Filipino talks with separatists seriously set back

By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
The New York Times
Published: December 16, 2007

MANILA: Negotiations between the Philippine government and Islamic separatists suffered a serious setback during the weekend after the insurgents accused Manila of unilaterally changing the essence of the draft for a key agreement.

Officials for the rebel group said Sunday that the changes regarding ancestral homelands pushed the decade-old negotiations back to square one.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s negotiating panel refused to see government negotiators at their scheduled meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.

“We decided not to meet them because the draft they prepared was objectionable,” said Michael Mastura, a negotiator for the front. “The government reneged on earlier agreements.”

Mohagher Iqbal, chairman of the rebel panel, said the government’s action was “like changing the rules in the middle of the game.” He said restarting the talks, which Malaysia has been facilitating since 2001, “is now entirely up to the government.”

“There have been differences in the proposed text on concepts of territory and resources, including elements of governance,” Rodolfo Garcia, the chief government negotiator, told The Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur.

Ancestral domain had been a sensitive issue since last year, and the failure by both sides to resolve it has dimmed the chances of a peace agreement anytime soon. Both sides earlier said they were hoping to sign an agreement by January, but Garcia said, “Realistically, given this present situation, it might be difficult to reach the target.”

Officials said the impasse was one of the most serious since talks began in 1997. According to Mastura, the government-prepared draft did away with some “substantive elements” both panels had agreed on since 2005.

“In the guise of editing the draft for styling purposes, they deleted references to ownership of ancestral domains,” Mastura said in an interview by phone from Kuala Lumpur. “But to us, ancestral domains is the meat and bones of the negotiations. By removing the ownership aspect of it from the draft, the government ignored a consensus point that had earlier been deliberated, agreed upon and signed by both sides.”

In February 2006, both sides issued a statement saying that they had reached a “joint determination of the scope” of the Muslim homeland and that Filipino Muslims have the “right to utilize and develop their ancestral domain and ancestral lands.”

Mastura said the government also inserted references to the Philippine Constitution in its draft. “We are not pleased with it. We do not recognize the Philippine Constitution. The consensus points never referred to the Constitution,” he said.

Jesus Dureza, the presidential adviser on the peace process, said Sunday that the government was “agonizing” over how to address the ancestral domain issue without violating the Constitution, which forbids the state from surrendering sovereign rights over territories like those being claimed by the rebels.

“The challenge now is to find creative means to address ancestral domain,” Dureza said. “I am sure we can go around the Constitution without violating it.”

He asked the rebels to be patient. “We cannot forge an agreement only to have it thrown away because of constitutional problems,” he said. “If we are going to sign something, it should be implementable. That’s the bottom line.”