| Submit your comments on this article |
| Southeast Asia |
| Muslim envoys says unhappy over Manila peace deal |
| 2006-05-20 |
| MANILA, May 19 (Reuters) - Muslim envoys visiting the Philippines to review a 1996 peace deal with Islamic rebels have said they were disappointed over Manila's failure to carry out promised reforms on the restive southern island of Mindanao. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a group of 57 Muslim states, sent a five-member delegation to the Philippines this week to look at obstacles holding up a peace agreement between the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and Manila. Insurgencies by four Muslim groups and communist rebels have killed more than 160,000 people and delayed development of the Philippines' resource-rich south since the late 1960s. "The treaty has not been fully implemented," Sayed Kassem el-Masry, an Egyptian diplomat and head of the OIC mission, told a meeting of government officials and leaders of the MNLF on Thursday. "We have to sit down and resolve the problem." The Muslim envoys visited Mindanao this week before heading to southwestern Jolo island on Saturday to see how communities scarred by nearly 40 years of conflict are faring. During their stopovers in five cities in the south, some local Muslim leaders petitioned the OIC mission to work for the freedom of MNLF founder Nur Misuari, who has been detained since 2002 while on trial over a failed rebellion on Jolo in late 2001. The OIC was worried the peace deal may soon collapse due to growing frustration among former Muslim guerrillas about Manila's failure to provide social and economic assistance to the families of 50,000 MNLF members. Jesus Dureza, the president's adviser on the peace process, said the government had completed the first part of the accord by absorbing 10,000 former rebels into security forces, adding the implementation of the agreement remained on track. The MNLF leaders have been complaining to the OIC since 1999 that Manila had reneged on its commitments under the peace deal after Filipino lawmakers watered down a law creating a Muslim autonomous region in the south. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #3 What peace deal - iff the articles in the Manila news and blogs is accurate, the Muslims violated the peace deal before it was even signed. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-05-20 22:14 |
| #2 ameture hour continues... |
| Posted by: bk 2006-05-20 11:10 |
| #1 I look at stuff like this, and I gotta wonder. I can't help but thinking that if these diplomats from the OIC manage to screw up the peace deal, they're not going to be the ones to suffer. The people they're pretending to act on behalf of on Mindanao will suffer. |
| Posted by: Phil 2006-05-20 00:49 |