By: Salman Kalaganie
Brief Historical Background
The conflict in Mindanao is considered as among the longest conflict in the world.
It started in 1578 when the Spaniards tried for about 320 years to occupy the Moroland which was under the sovereign of the Moro Sultanates and then followed by the American occupation for more than 40 years of war between the Moro people and the American imperialists.
The conflict continued after the Philippine independence in 1946. The Moroland (Mindanao and the adjacent islands) was illegally annexed to Philippine territory without prior consultation with the Moro people. This is the rallying factor that ignited and led the Moro people to put up armed struggle against the Philippine government.
This is the primary root of this conflict, now raging in Mindanao and Sulu. In fact, almost all other problems in the region are rooted from this issue.
In the 1960's the situation in Mindanao and its adjacent islands became worse due to hostile policies and actions imposed by the Marcos administration towards Muslims of Mindanao.
This led to the creation of Moro armed movements in Mindanao such as Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) under the leadership of Nur Misuari. Since then the bloody fighting between the Moro fighters and the Philippine army started, killing thousands of people and damaging the livelihood of the Muslims in the affected areas.
With the interference of the international communities such as, the OIC countries the Philippine government and the MNLF agreed to solve the conflict through peace talk negotiation.
The MNLF under the leadership of Nur Misuari started to negotiate with the Marcos administration that enhanced the two parties to forge an agreement which is known as " Tripoli Agreement" of 1976.
In this agreement, the Muslims had been granted an autonomous government that covers 14 provinces including some cities in Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan islands.
However, the said agreement was not implemented fully by the Marcos regime. This prompted the MNLF to continue its armed struggle until the time of President Fidel Ramos in 1996.
Split of MNLF
After the signing of the 1976 agreement, misunderstanding among Moro leaders occurred particularly with the issue of ideology. This significantly led to the break up of the MNLF leadership into two: the MNLF under Nur Misuari and the MNLF, a break away group under the leadership of Salamat Hashim.
Misuari continued to negotiate with the administration of President Fidel Ramos that led him to sign a final agreement of 1996 between MNLF and the GRP under the mediation of Jakarta government.
Salamat and his comrades decided to name his new group as Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and started to organise and recruit members of his own armed forces.
In 1984 Salamat adopted the wait and see policy on the final agreement between MNLF and the GRP. MILF did not participate in the said final agreement in any manner.
In 1997 the Ramos administration, being aware of the MILF capability that could pose a serious threat to the national government if neglected, had invited the MILF leadership to sit on the negotiating table in order to completely solve the un-resolved issues in the final agreement between the Ramos regime and the MNLF.
MILF agrees to the offer with preconditions and conditions.
Alhamdulillah, at last certain points has been agreed upon by both parties.
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