+ GMT Select Your Local Time London GMT Johannesburg Lagos Cairo Accra Mogadishu Abuja Cape Town Free Town Addis Ababa Austria Bahrain Bangladesh Australia Sydney Austria Bahrain Bangladesh Belgium Brazil East Brazil West Canada Toronto Canada Pacific China Beijing Cuba Cyprus Denmark Egypt Ethiopia Finland France Germany Ghana Greece Hon Kong Hungary India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kenya Korea (Rep. of) Kuwait Lebanon Liberia Libya Luxemburg Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Mexico City Morocco Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Paraguay Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Moscow Russia Vladivostok Saudi Arabia Senegal Sierra Leone Singapore South Africa Spain Sudan Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Trinidad And Tobago Tunisia Turkey United Arab Emirates United Kingdom USA Washington USA San Francisco USA New York USA Hawaii Venezuela Yemen Zaire Kinshasa Zaire Katanga Zambia Zimbabwe STO
[Pacific Sighting] See Makkah Clock
EsinIslam
Web
Site Explore
Exclusive Search
Broadcasters
Helping Shops
Home | Explore | Broadcasters | Media | Donations | About Us | Contact | Fatwa | Our Sheikh
Save
Is War The Best Policy In Mindanao? Philippines Government Forced To Redress
30 June 2009
A senior member of the MILF Central Committee has told www.luwaran.com during an interview recently that he doubted very much whether war is the best policy that the changing governments in Manila can adopt to confront the Moro Problem and the armed conflict in Mindanao. Muhammad Ameen, chairperson of the MILF Secretariat, said the government can make the Moros poor forever by destroying their economic base and shut down all their opportunities for improvement, but such approach will ricochet to the government. The government will also be poor and underdeveloped forever as a consequence of this endless war, he said. He recalled that since the Moros were forced to be under Filipino hegemony from 1946 to present the policy in Manila has always been on the basis of hatred and distrust for Moros and never of love and trust. He said that despite the pronouncement of the government for the primacy of the peace process as a policy the reality was and is still: It pursues peace talks not as real-problem solving exercise but part of its counter-insurgency approach. But he warned that if the MILF reaches the level of a truly ideological movement and people’s war with correct application of strategies and tactics, then the Manila government will be in trouble. He said at the moment the MILF has not reached that level, in addition to several errors committed both in strategy and tactic. “Some of our political and military leaders are still learning the nuances of ideological warfare and people’s war,” he said, without elaborating. Four-man MILF delegation back from Northern Ireland A four-man delegation from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has returned home after an eight-day trip to Northern Ireland at the invitation of the British government through it embassy in Manila. They left Manila on June 20 with a stopover at Kuwait before proceeding to London. The purpose of the trip was educational in character by affording members of the MILF negotiating team first hand information about the Good Friday Agreement and to talk to people who were directed involved in the negotiation. The Agreement, also known as the Belfast Agreement, and occasionally as the Stormont Agreement, was a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process. It was signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998 (Good Friday) by the British and Irish governments and endorsed by most Northern Ireland political parties. On 23 May 1998 the Agreement was endorsed by the voters of Northern Ireland in a referendum. On the same day, voters in the Republic voted separately to change their constitution in line with the Agreement. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was the only large party that opposed the Agreement. The Agreement entered into force on 2 December 1999. In Northern Ireland, the Catholics are the ones rebelling against the majority Protestants; in Philippines, the Muslims are engaged in almost four decades of fighting against a Catholic government in Manila. The team is composed of senior members of the MILF peace negotiators, namely, Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief peace negotiator, Atty. Datu Michael Mastura and Maulana Bobby Alonto, both MILF peace panel members, and Abdullah Camlian, MILF Technical Committee chairperson. Before they flew to Belfast, the group had a stop at London where they rested and conferred with British personalities related to their trip. Originally, the trip was supposed to be a joint delegation of Philippine government and MILF peace negotiators but the MILF, in a communication to the British Ambassador in Manila, His Excellency Peter Beckingham, requested the travel to be separate. The Ambassador granted the request. However, www.luwaran.net failed to learn when the Philippine government’s peace negotiators’ turn to fly to London and Northern Ireland. Before they flew to Belfast, the group had a stop at London where they rested and conferred with British personalities related to their trip. Originally, the trip was supposed to be a joint delegation of Philippine government and MILF peace negotiators but the MILF, in a communication to the British Ambassador in Manila, His Excellency Peter Beckingham, requested the travel to be separate. The Ambassador granted the request. However, www.luwaran.net failed to learn when the Philippine government’s peace negotiators’ turn to fly to London and Northern Ireland.
EsinIslam.Com
Sign In Password