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Malacañang is confident that the negotiations with the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MNLF) will go on smoothly
with the appointment of a new chief negotiator.
The
Palace on Wednesday officially announced the appointment
of retired Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia as the new chief
peace negotiator in talks with the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF).
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said that Garcia, who
was vice chairman of the government panel prior to his
appointment and had served as Armed Forces vice chief of
staff, was recommended by former panel chairman
Silvestre Afable Jr. and Chief Peace Adviser Jesus
Dureza.
“Secretary Afable is very comfortable recommending that
he [Garcia] takes over because the MILF leadership and
the Malaysian officials know him well,” Ermita said.
He added
that Malacañang is confident that the peace talks with
the MILF would advance under Garcia’s helm because he
was indirectly involved in the negotiations when he was
still with the Armed Forces, at the time as cochairman
of the Coordinating Committee for the Cessation of
Hostilities.
Garcia
was first assigned to
Mindanao upon his graduation from the Philippine Military Academy in 1970, when
the region was being wracked by the separatist rebellion
of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
He
served three more combat tours to
Central Mindanao 1994 to 1998—as a batallion commander, as a brigade
commander, and as commander of the Sixth Infantry
Division, which made him understand the roots of the
secessionist problem.
Garcia’s
appointment was announced over a week after Oblate
priest Fr. Eliseo Mercado was reported to have been
picked for the job.
Mercado
later declined the offer, citing the objections of the
MILF leadership who felt that the government had
downgraded the negotiations with the supposed
appointment of a non-Cabinet member without direct
access to the President.
Meanwhile, Dureza is set to attend an international
conference “on building a future based on peace and
justice” in
Nuremburg,
Germany.
Dureza
was expected to arrive in
Nuremberg
on Thursday.
The
governments of
Germany,
Finland and Jordan sponsored the international
conference “which aims to contribute to a better
understanding of the tensions that may arise in peace
negotiations and postconflict peace-building.”
“During
the conference, proposals are expected to be developed
on how to deal with these tensions, while practical
experience from the fields of politics, civil society
and academic expertise will also be tackled,” Dureza
said, in a statement released by the Office of the
Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.
“The
political recommendations of the conference, in the form
of a Nuremburg Manifesto, are directed to political
decision-makers within governments and international
organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and the
International Criminal Court (ICC),” Dureza added.
Dureza
would meet at the end of the conference Vice Minister
Karin Kortmann, the Parliamentary State Secretary of the
Bundesministerium für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und
Entwicklung, or the German Federal Ministry for Economic
Cooperation and Development, for talks that may include
some economic assistance for some areas in the country
like Mindanao.
Mindanao
was the topic of an earlier discussion Dureza had with
Kortmann on economic cooperation in Dusseldorf, during
Dureza’s three-day visit.
He said
the discussion was about “the future developments in
Mindanao through German technical and financial
assistance.”
Dureza
said that the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische
Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), or German Technical Cooperation,
earlier invited him to attend a conference at the
courtroom of the historic Nuremburg war crimes trial.
The
German Technical Cooperation, according to Dureza, “has
been a consistent peace and development partner in
Mindanao with its poverty reduction and conflict transformation
projects.”
--With M. Cayon |
