Filipino Muslim rebels ready to talk peace with new president-apparent Aquino

Filipino Muslim rebels open to talks with Aquino

MANILA, Philippines — Muslim guerrillas said Sunday that they were ready to enter into peace talks with Philippine president-apparent Benigno Aquino III after years of little progress under his predecessor, hoping that his strong electoral mandate can bolster negotiations to end one of the country’s decades-long rebellions.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, however, said his group would reserve its expectations on the prospects of a peace accord under a new Aquino administration, recalling that talks initially went well under his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, but then collapsed.

“Aquino’s victory was untainted by allegations of vote-rigging unlike Arroyo’s,” Iqbal said. Arroyo stormy rule ends on June 30.

“He has more moral authority as a president and that will add to his clout,” Iqbal told The Associated Press.

The guerrillas congratulated Aquino on his expected victory, saying in an editorial on their website that he deserved “the admiration of all” for a near-impossible feat of having the winning edge in the elections even though he decided late to enter the presidential race.

“Noynoy is surely a good man, but as president, it remains to be seen,” the rebels said, calling Aquino by his nickname.

They praised his late parents, two pro-democracy icons, for supporting the cause of minority Muslims.

The long battle for minority Muslim self-rule in the southern Philippines by the Moro rebels, the largest guerrilla group with an estimated 11,000 fighters, will be one of Aquino’s major security headaches.

Two smaller insurgent groups, including the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf, also have waged bloody insurrections in the south. New People’s Army rebels have been fighting a rural-based Marxist uprising that has killed more than 120,000 people since the late 1960s.

Aquino, who is headed to a landslide victory based on an almost-complete count of the May 10 elections, can rule with more stability, which can help him defend possible accords with Muslim rebels, Iqbal said.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Aquino said he will restart talks with the Moro guerrillas and will consult all affected groups, including Christian politicians, to ensure acceptance of any peace pact.

“I really feel that Mindanao is the most poised for rapid transformation,” Aquino said, referring to the resource-rich but poverty-wracked southern region, where the Muslim rebellion has raged on and off for four decades.

Although several agreements with the Moro rebels were signed under Arroyo, her administration failed to clinch a preliminary peace pact after it was opposed by Christian politicians in 2008. The Supreme Court declared the pact unconstitutional, sparking fierce fighting that killed hundreds and displaced about 750,000 people. A cease-fire has taken hold since then.

Although some of Aquino’s political allies were among those who opposed the pact, his parents had no history of anti-Muslim bias, Iqbal said.

Aquino, however, has to overcome great pressure from interest groups, including Christian politicians and business people, to push an accord that would grant territory to minority Muslims and allow them to govern themselves, Iqbal said.

“Arroyo failed to bring the revolution to an end,” Iqbal said. “Whether the next one can do it, it’s very difficult to tell.”

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