2 nd January 2009

SHURA urges the Philippines government to respect the condition put forward by the MILF to re-open peace negotiation in the conflict zone of Mindanao. The MILF has conditioned the peace process with a statement that there must be an “international guarantee” for any negotiation to proceed. This is to assure that no repeat of dis-honoring an agreement will happen.

We believe that an “international guarantee” as a pre-condition demanded by MILF before the peace talk could be resumed is fare and sensible.

The debacle over the MOA-AD ( Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain) in August 2008 that was aborted by the Philippine government and backed by the Supreme court arguing that the agreement was unconstitutional had triggered a sense of no confidence for further negotiation amongst the MILF leaders.

This to us , is relevant for any further talks since any agreement must be honored .

The Bangsamoro people has every right to question the sincerity of the Philippine government since the deal was already consider done when only at the eleventh hour the government backed down.

SHURA calls for the military operation to be halted immediately and the troops to be withdrawn from the Mindanao conflict zone , as more than 700,000 Internal Displaced People (IDPs) amongst the civilians are suffering for more than 4 month since July 2008.

We call for a special ASEAN summit be convened to address the Mindanao conflict. This region cannot afford to pro-long the more than 3 decades of conflict that has victimized thousands of innocent civilians . A just , peace and durable solution must be put into effect for the Bangsamoro to exercise their rights as a free people to decide on the own destiny for self rule.

Abdul Ghani Shamsuddin
SHURA Chairman