Before the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) sealed a deal for wealth-sharing in the future Bangsamoro region in Mindanao, there were too many heart-stopping moments and too much hand wringing in Kuala Lumpur.
Formal talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Kuala Lumpur will resume in July, government chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer said in a statement released by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) on Friday.
Some 26 children were recruited as soldiers, messengers and informants in conflict zones while dozens of other minors were slain and maimed in militant attacks and gunfights in the Philippines last year, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said in a report.
The negotiations between the government and Muslim rebels look to have hit a bump. The separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is none too pleased that the latest round of exploratory talks ended in Kuala Lumpur last Thursday without the negotiating panels signing at least one of three annexes to the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement.
The family of a freed Australian hostage expressed hope on Monday that his kidnappers, including Abu Sayyaf bandits and rogue elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who kept him in jungle captivity for 15 months, would be captured and punished so such ordeals would not be repeated.
The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front will resume peace talks next week in Malaysia, even as followers of the Sulu sultanate are embroiled in conflict with Malaysian security forces there.
A Bangladesh-inspired organization out to sow peace and development in poor and strife-torn communities vowed to resolve the illiteracy problem hounding the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for decades.
The chief negotiator of the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Mohagher Iqbal, reportedly lost his cool during the latest round of peace talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last week, ostensibly because of a “seeming distrust” he felt from the government panel, according to a source close to the talks.
The 34th exploratory talks between government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) ended in a “technical impasse” even as they “made tremendous gains” in resolving remaining issues related to power-sharing, wealth-sharing and normalization.
A Belgium-based non-government organization focusing on conflict prevention has said that the Philippine government’s framework peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front must hurdle several issues to achieve lasting peace in Mindanao.
Nobel peace prize laureate Lord William David Trimble said giving up violence and tackling problems peacefully through democratic means would be keys to lasting chief in Mindanao.
One issue that has yet to be threshed out before a peace agreement can be finalized between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is the matter of a “trust fund” to help combatants and others affected by the war normalize their lives, the head of the rebel panel said Sunday.
