INTERVIEW-Rebels not ready to return to talks with Manila
Source: Reuters
By Manny Mogato MANILA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The largest of four Islamic rebel groups in the Philippines is not ready to return to peace talks with the government unless it improves an existing proposal aimed at ending the conflict, the guerrillas' chief negotiator said. Mohaqher Iqbal said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was awaiting a new proposal from the government before it could respond whether the rebel group, fighting for self-determination since the late 1960s, would return to the negotiating table. "The MILF was not happy with what the government had offered us in its Nov. 9 position," Iqbal told Reuters in a telephone interview on Wednesday, days after he returned from a meeting with Manila's negotiators in Kuala Lumpur. "We were expecting the government to expand the areas to be covered under the proposed ancestral homeland. Instead, we would be getting lesser number of villages, from 613 to only about 200, under the new proposal." Iqbal said Manila promised to come up with a revised position but did not give any specific date when a new offer would be offered. Negotiations have stalled since June because of differences over the size and wealth of a proposed homeland for about 3 million Muslims in the south of the mainly Catholic country. Iqbal, who sits on the seven-member executive jihad committee of the rebels' highest policy panel, said the issue on territory remained the stumbling block in the resumption of talks to end nearly 40 years of conflict that has killed 120,000 people. The two sides met in the Malaysian capital on Dec. 1 to clear up outstanding issues over the proposed homeland for 3 million Muslims in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country. Peace talks have stalled since June when Manila insisted any peace deal would involve some legislation, saying it was a requirement under its 1987 Constitution. The MILF wants to add more than 1,000 villages to an existing five-province Muslim autonomous region in the resource-rich south without a referendum. The government has said it must put the demand to a popular vote. Many of the villages earmarked for membership of a Muslim homeland lie far from the existing autonomous region and are surrounded by Christian territory.
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