MILF: Dureza botched peace talks

KORONADAL CITY - The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Friday accused the government peace panel of sabotaging the peace process and threatened to stop talking peace with the Arroyo administration if the supposed government flaw is not rectified.

Mohammad al-Haj Murad Ibrahim, MILF chief peace negotiator, lambasted Presidential Adviser on Mindanao Jesus Dureza for apparently “imposing his will” by allegedly altering an agreement forged by the conflicting parties during the exploratory talks held last month in Malaysia.

“The MILF strongly opposes Dureza’s personal handwritten footnotes on the minutes of the joint statement dated March 28, 2003. We are protesting his action,” Ibrahim said in a statement.

Today tried in vain to get the side of Dureza, the government chief negotiator talking peace with the MILF.

But Dureza, according to Ibrahim, said the explanatory notes were “just his own personal views.”

Murad said Dureza’s act, if not rectified, could seriously undermine the peace process, especially the formal resumption of the peace talks and the observance of the cease-fire by the military and the MILF forces in Mindanao.

The MILF demanded that Dureza apologize not only to the MILF but to the Malaysian government as well, otherwise the separatist Muslim rebels will withdraw from the peace process.

“Unless Dureza apologizes to the government of Malaysia and the MILF in that obviously unauthorized explanatory notes on the government-MILF joint statement dated March 28 . . . the MILF will not be ready for the convening of the meeting of the government and MILF technical committees as agreed upon,” stressed Murad.

He added the MILF will not also convene its peace panel to resume the stalled peace talks with the government if Dureza refuses to apologize. The MILF statement did not say the footnotes Dureza added in the minutes of the meeting last month in Kuala Lumpur.

Murad, who is also the MILF military chief, said the Malaysian government assigned a secretariat to record and keep the minutes of the meeting.

As agreed, the joint statement dated March 28, 2003, contained general but brief statements expressing the commitment and desire of the parties to, among others, achieve peace or peaceful political settlement of the conflict in Mindanao and to keep the details of what had actually been agreed upon. R. Sarmiento