The peace and the process
TALKING POINT
Maasin City (8 July) — For a peace talk to get underway, warring camps must first stop fighting for a while, and sit down in a table to talk about peace, negotiate limits of compromises, even as both parties try to agree disagreeably, or disagree agreeably.
Almost always, when the talks, or series of talks, are over, no concrete results can immediately be seen, because details on talking points of both sides had to be ironed out, fine-tuned, and rehashed for subsequent round of talks, until an implementable resolution is at hand, ready for, well, implementation.
Then all of a sudden, everything collapses like a house of cards, nothing was attained, and every party gets back to square one, fighting again with more vengeance than before, and trying to sue peace when any of the parties saw it fit to call one, obviously to regroup or consolidate its forces.
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With the foregoing never-ending scenario as background, the attempt to come up with two peace panels as envisioned by President Benigno Aquino III makes sense, since the government has had to deal with two kinds of belligerent groups.
In this manner, one panel can undertake talking peace with one group, while the other group can still study how to best approach the other group while a ceasefire may not be necessarily be issued.
And it was good that no particular timetable has been spread out beforehand, for as pointed out earlier, the expected consequences may not be forthcoming, creating false hopes.
Besides, attaining peace is just as important as going through the process itself, like having to enjoy the journey as much as the end destination.
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One critical factor in any peace talks is the sincerity of opposing sides, expressed in tangible terms through mutual trust, goodwill, and moves that doubtless insure confidence building, not to mention good faith, which must be inherent in such attempts.
The talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) bugged down about two years ago, since either the government of the Republic of the Philippines or the MILF hierarchy somehow felt shortchanged when an agreement for an ancestral domain did not push through.
We leave it to the newly-composed panel to dig the details of this one, but probably one lesson learned was the lack of transparency on the subject matter in which no amount of alibi or damage control, as it happened then, can bridge the gap of communication by both sides.
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The talks with the communist group, on the other hand, got stalled in 2004 when the National Democratic Front (NDF) demanded as a pre-condition for resumption of discussion the delisting of its status as a terrorist group by the US and European nations.
Now this is something beyond the territory of the Philippine government to unilaterally initiate, since this act already involves consensus with the community of nations.
Still, building confidence can be done: for the communist New People?s Army (NPA), they can show the world that they abhor terrorism by not resorting to plain terrorist acts, like ambushing soldiers on the way to bringing relief goods to disaster-stricken areas; in so doing they may just be delisted one day as a matter of due course.
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For the government, especially the Aguino government, the best way to show goodwill is to release the so-called “Morong 43.”
The continued detention of these health workers is a clear violation of human rights — they were not charged until five days had elapsed since their “arrest” on February 6, 2010, exactly five months to the day on July 6, 2010, at the dawning of a new political administration.
Besides, on humanitarian grounds, two women among them are about to give birth this month or next month, and complications for the health of these two pregnant women, and the others, may worsen with continued imprisonment, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Aquino, Sir!
Granting, without admitting, that these 43 are rebels, then releasing these “rebels” will be a good starting point for peace talks, for as they say, actions speak louder than words.
And even if this will not result to a peace agreement with the underground group, regaining freedom for the “Morong 43″ is a feat in itself, an objective more doable than trying to end the decades-long insurgency problem.
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LOCAL FRONT: Maasin City Mayor Maloney Samaco is doing his best to lure investors to the city, meeting them personally to let them consider locating in the city. One advantage of doing business hereabouts, it must be stressed, is the peaceful environment, and I am sure the good Mayor included this major asset in gatherings with potential businessmen where he had a chance to talk with them, be it one-on-one or as a group. And for businesses looking for expansion, it is high time, indeed, to take a closer look at the city and the Southern Leyte province, where people are hospitable and friendly.
ODDLY YOURS: In Indonesia, a special force of highly-trained soldiers called Detachment 88 was given credit for neutralizing and even arresting suspected terrorists. Perhaps no other country in Asia suffered the brunt of terrorism in this decade than Indonesia, starting with the Bali bombing in 2002. Thus far, the government, through Detachment 88, had succeeded in going after the suspected terrorists, one by one, involving them in a wide intelligence network. But aside from commando-style raids that usually got positive results, members of Detachment 88 also act like spiritual advisers to imprisoned terrorist suspects, immersing with them in prison life, providing for their needs, until the terrorist?s brainwashed minds will be replaced with the seeds of kindness and generosity. (PIA-Southern Leyte)
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