TAT’s All, Folks!

Dear all -

As events unfold in Mindanao, I join many Filipinos in feeling helpless
and in the dark at how violence escalated to an unconscionable degree.
The loss of lives and the violence that we see cannot and should not
continue. I hope that we take time to look at the issues and speak with
genuine stakeholders. Where lies Mindanao in our national
consciousness? How do we truly seek the path of peace and solidarity
with Muslims in Mindanao - they whose rich culture and heritage also
show us a glimpse of what it is to be Filipino?

Because of my recent sojourn in Mindanao and the work that I do on
electoral reform, many of you have asked me what is really happening
over there. As a reply, please allow me to share an interview aired on
ANC yesterday (url link and transcript below). This interview is with
Atty. Zainudin ‘Zen’ Malang, Executive Director of the Bangsamoro
Center for Law and Policy.

Hopefully, amidst the cacophony of voices, we begin to discern better
and appreciate in a more nuanced manner all the issues that Mindanao
faces. I’ll forward other statements and similar interviews as I also
try to discern with you how we can all do our part in keeping Mindanao
close to our hearts.

Sincerely,

Tatine

"Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all…"

================

http://abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryID=128716

    Malang: We might end up becoming the Darfur of southeast Asia
 

 

 
    ANC’s
Tony Velasquez interviewed on August 18, Zainudin Malang, executive
director of the Bangsamoro Center for Law and Policy, on the clashes
that have erupted in parts of Mindanao and on the prospects for peace
in the south. Malang has been a close observer of the peace process
with Muslim separatists.

Q. What was your expectation
after the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain
(MOA-AD) in Malaysia, had it pushed through?

A. I was
expecting optimism on the ground, not what we are seeing here, not what
we saw today. I was expecting the complete opposite after they had
signed the MOA.

Q. Are these recent clashes in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte an offshoot of the failure to sign the MOA-AD?

A.
I cannot help but arrive at that conclusion. You know, there are only
two ways to resolve the conflict: either through military means or
through negotiations. And apparently, after the cancellation of the
signing of the MOA, the product of a dozen years of long and hard
bargaining on both sides, perhaps, there are armed groups who feel it
will already be hard to resolve the conflict by way of negotiations.

Q.
Do you think the government and military should have anticipated that
this would be the backlash from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF)?

A. I’m sure they’ve always been aware of the possibility of this happening. This situation is not new to them.

Q. Does it help the MILF if they undertake this kind of hostilities granted that they may have been frustrated?

A.
I have to go back to the sentiments on the ground, both civil society
as well as sentiments of people within the MILF as well as the other
revolutionary movement, the MNLF. You have to bear in mind that the
Mindanao peace process is three decades old. This started in 1976. The
feeling on the ground is that, they had this 1976 Tripoli agreement,
there was a 1996 peace agreement, but where did these end up? It ended
up in failed implementation. When the MILF leadership undertook
negotiations with the government, many in their ranks were already
asking: why negotiate with the government when all the past peace
agreements have never been implemented? So there’s always been
skepticism among the [MILF] ranks in the peace process. And then at
each stage of the peace process, each stage of the exploratory talks
and formal talks, there has always been good results that both the MILF
and government could present to their respective constituencies. But
after all of those hard bargaining, those long years of negotiations,
after they arrived at an agreement on how to resolve the conflict,
suddenly, the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) was
blocked. So the skepticism that was present before is alive again. I
think that’s what we’re seeing now.

Q. Were you privy to the details of the MOA-AD that was to be signed in KL?

A.
There were several instances when I had attended very public forums
where members of the GRP [government of the Republic of the
Philippines] as well as members of the MILF gave the audience updates
on what was going on.

Q. What about the contents of the draft MOA-AD?

A.
We were given updates on what were the pending issues they discussed,
they had resolved. My friends in the Mindanao People’s Caucus, for
instance, organized several of these forums in Davao City , in Marawi
City , and these very public consultations. And I also recalled that
every time that the GRP and the MILF panels are about to meet, they
always announce, they make a public announcement that we are about to
meet.

Q. I guess the people back then should have already
known about the more contentious issues such as the resource sharing
agreement with the GRP-MILF, the inclusion of 700 barangays in an
expanded Bangsamoro homeland. All of these were made public.

A.
Some of these were made public. The forums I attended, these were
staggered. They occurred over time. So depending on what the status of
the negotiations at that time, that was what was divulged.

Q.
Sen. Mar Roxas and Frank Drilon actually have an initialed copy of the
MOA-AD, and they’re taking exceptions to several provisions there. For
example, that the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity can now enter into
separate treaties with foreign governments. And now, they’re saying
that that’s totally unheard of for an autonomous homeland, to have that
kind of sovereign power. Was that ever included in the consultations?

A.
I think they refer not to treaties or all kinds of treaties. They
referring to economic treaties, and this is not entirely unheard of.
This is the kind of arrangement that they have in Belgium . For
example, the Flemish region in Belgium is allowed to set up trade
missions or enter into economic treaties with other countries.

Q. Like Quebec in Canada .

A.
Yes, so let us bear in mind that the Philippines is not the only one
that has an internal conflict in the whole world. So maybe we should
learn at how this kind of problem has been tackled in other parts of
the world. So I think that’s what the GRP and the MILF panels have
borne in mind. And if I’m not mistaken, they’ve also mentioned Northern
Ireland , for example, when it comes to a need to reexamine the
Constitutional framework to resolve the conflict.

Q. It’s good you mentioned the Flemish territory in Belgium . But doesn’t it cause a lot of tension within Belgium ?

A.
The tension that I’ve heard in Belgium is actually being managed by
these sort of accommodations or arrangements. Because the Waloon region
[of Belgium] can always tell the Flemish, why go for separation when
you already enjoying these sovereign privileges? And I guess that’s
what both the GRP and MILF panels had in mind when they agreed on this
MOA-AD. I suppose what they were thinking was that, there would be no
use, for now, to secede because all of these genuine…sort of tools
would now be afforded or accorded to you rather than paper autonomy.

Q.
But look at what’s happening now, when you see the MILF acting in a
belligerent way, just because they’re frustrated, ,maybe this, to them,
hopefully a hiccup in the peace talks, and then they finally give up
all hope and resort to violence again. What does it say about giving a
group like this the kind of powers that are contained in a MOA-AD?
Isn’t it dangerous?

A. I will be frank with you. We ourselves
are finding it hard to pacify these armed forces. We need to appeal for
them to hold back, all the armed groups because, as they were saying,
‘We thought you said we should give negotiations a chance. We’ve been
talking already for 12 years. We’ve already faced two all-out
offensives already and then it ends up nowhere.’ We in civil society
are finding it hard to pacify these armed groups. And I’m not just
talking about the MILF, I’m also talking about the AFP. Our work is
made much harder when we hear about much-publicized statements from our
political leaders who say, if the MOA-AD is signed, there will be
bloodshed, which we find completely illogical. Because what they’re
saying is, if there’s a peace agreement, there won’t be peace. There
will not be any peace. Whereas we are saying, if there’s a peace
agreement, there will be peace.

Q. Let me play devil’s
advocate. If you say it’s hard to pacify these groups, what we’ve seen
is it’s the MILF that has been provoking these all-out wars. So it’s
the MILF that is more difficult to restrain than the AFP.

A. I
don’t want to take sides. I just want to say that when it comes to
military solutions…we hear so many people say now, it’s time to go all
out against the MILF. What I want to remind everyone is that every time
we adopt a military solution, it never works. Remember that in the
1970s, we were under martial law, and President Marcos, with all the
resources and powers he had in his hand, could not crush a hastily
organized rebel army with very little training, with no battlefield
experience, with very minimal equipment. And the military went against
them during martial law. Here we are, three decades later, they are far
more experienced, they have more equipment, what makes us think that
they cannot put up a fight? What I’m afraid of is, they fought for two
weeks in North Cotabato , we already have 160,000 internally-displaced
refugees, extrapolate then. Let’s assume they continue fighting for two
or three months. How many thousands or millions of refugees will we
have? Remember, in year 2000, we had one million internally-displaced
people, and these were World Bank and government figures.  In
comparison, Bosnia only had 600,000, East Timor only had 300,000. What
I’m trying to say is, if we do not deescalate the situation, we might
end up becoming the Darfur [in Sudan] of southeast Asia.

Q.
Right now, we have a Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of
Hostilities (CCCH). So far, we haven’t heard from it. If that committee
does its job, then it should defuse the situation.

A. I
remember one instance when I talked to a member of the CCCH. This was
about Cotabato. This was when a Civilian Volunteer Organization and the
MILF were fighting. The MILF were farmers in that area; the CVO members
were also farmers in the barangay. There was fighting and it was
reported to the Joint Ceasefire Committee. The committee came in and it
was told by the CVOs, "We don’t recognize any captain. We don’t
recognize any ceasefire committee." So, the problem is, the public in
Manila who don’t know any better, who are not immersed on the ground,
who don’t know what’s happening, it’s very easy for them to be
manipulated. It’s very easy for public opinion to be manipulated
nowadays. Because we know that in times of war, the first casualty is
truth. I would advise our friends in media to get a direct line to the
CCCH so we will know what’s really happening. Let’s not rely…our
sources of information should not depend on groups that are taking
advantage of the conflict. We have so many groups who feel that their
interests, whether economic or political, will be affected negatively
by the peace process. I’ve always said the reason why there’s still no
signing of a peace agreement is that….I’ve always said that if the
government panel, as well as the MILF panel were left on their own to
decide if they should sign the agreement, they would have done that two
years ago. They just couldn’t sign it because they’re afraid. There are
powerful economic and political forces who genuinely feel that their
interests, political and economic may be adversely affected by the
Mindanao peace process. Because we are talking here of returning the
ancestral domain of the Moros themselves. Now, let’s ask ourselves: who
are enjoying now the fruits of these ancestral domain? Who owns the
mineral rights? Who has tens of thousands of hectares per DENR records
in Mindanao ? How would you think they feel, now that the government is
about to return the ancestral domain back to the Moros?

Q. But were they consulted in the first place?

A.
If they had been consulted, what do you think they would say? Our
friends in Zamboanga are complaining, they’re saying they were not
consulted. But later, they said, they were. And they’ve said no.
Apparently, what they mean by consultation is, to them, they are
consulted if the government takes their position. In layman’s term,
when we ask, what do you think? It doesn’t necessarily mean that I
would have to adopt your position. But to them, they say that since
they have already expressed their views in a public forum, albeit
informally, their position is, the government should adopt their
position. The problem is, if you’re in the GRP or MILF panel, if you
try to accommodate everyone’s interest into this agreement, without
asking anyone to make sacrifices or compromises, we will never arrive
at any peace agreement. And what we saw today, it will continue to
grow.

Q. How can this be resolved? The President has already
ordered an all-out offensive. The military says it’s not going to stop
because it’s already got the upper hand. Even local officials say it’s
got to stop now. When do you think it’s going to stop?

A. I
myself am hoping everything dies down, everbody calms down. How is it
going to stop? There has to be…we have to show to everyone that there
is a big constituency for peace. As of now, what’s being given air
space and print space are the anti-MOA and the MILF. And both of them
are either saying, if there’s no MOA, there’s going to be war. Or if
there’s MOA, there’s going to be war. Right? Perhaps, it’s about time,
the silent majority, if there is really a silent majority in support of
the peace process, or the peaceful resolution of the conflict, maybe
now is the time, now more than ever is the time for us to come out and
say to everyone, say to these groups, say to those who would rather
resolve the conflict by armed means, ‘Wait, there’s a big constituency
in support of a peaceful resolution of whatever grievances, Bangsamoro
grievances you have there.’

Atty. Zainudin ‘Zen’ Malang, Executive Director of the Bangsamoro
Center for Law and Policy, may be reached through mobile +63 928
5000432, and email address <morolaw@yahoo.com> 


- END -

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