By Abdullah Dogan
KONYA
A Turkish member of a group monitoring the Philippines peace process says he expects the agreement to overcome the challenges posed by the suspected involvement of the rebel signatories in the death of 44 police commandos during a botched raid.
Huseyin Oruc, one of two international NGO members on the independent Third-Party Monitoring Team (TPMT), told The Anadolu Agency this week that he suspected the Philippine opposition was using the failure of the operation to corner the goverment.
“The opposition is using this. The peace process had come to a very important point, but suddenly came to a halt with this nonsensical operation," said Oruc, who is also the deputy chairman of Turkish NGO the Humanitarian Relief Foundation.
"The [signed] agreements remain in place. The MILF [Moro Islamic Liberation Front] says it is standing by its word."
On Jan. 25, around 400 commandos descended on Mamasapano township, Maguindanao province, in the country’s Muslim south in search of one of Southeast Asia’s top terror suspects, only to run into members of the MILF and splinter group Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
In the ensuing gunfight, 44 commandos, and at least 17 MILF members and five civilians were killed.
Philippines Justice Minister Leila de Lima told a news conference Thursday that the government would file charges against 90 MILF and BIFF members for suspected involvement in the deaths.
The killings have put in jeopardy a peace deal signed with the government last year to end a 45-year conflict that has seen around 120,000 people killed, displaced two million and stunted economic growth in one of the Philippines’ poorest regions.
Oruc said that even though the murders of the commandos had placed in jeopardy the passing of a pending law - the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) - that will govern the proposed expanded political autonomous government in the Muslim south, the process has still not failed.
"Everything had been going in a positive way until last January," he said, but added that with additional requirements and deals "peace is [still] near."
The MILF-led Bangsamoro political entity was expected to be in place before the 2016 presidential elections.
MILF has said it will not renegotiate with the government if the present agreement collapses. It has also vowed not to surrender the fighters it sees as defending themselves when police commandos attacked what the MILF considers to be their territory to capture suspected bomb-maker Abdul Basit Usman.
MILF has said the operation was not coordinated with them based on their standing agreement with the government.
On Thursday, the top leadership of the Saudi-led Organization of Islamic Cooperation arrived in Manila to try and prevent the peace accord from collapsing.
The TPMT was set up by the government of the Philippines and MILF to monitor the implementation of the peace agreement, as provided for in the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which was signed by the two parties Oct. 15, 2012.
The team has five members – two representatives from Philippine NGOs and two representatives from international NGOs, and one “eminent international person” to act as chair, convener, and spokesperson.
Outside of Uruc, the other international member is the Asia Foundation's Steven Rood.
It is chaired by former European Union ambassador Alistair MacDonald.
