By RICARDO SALUDO
The Manila Times
The Manila Times
For all the cheering and applause for the Framework Agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the accord is still just a list of talking points on which the final peace pact will be based. And even the document signed a month ago still has thick annexes to be negotiated by the end of the year.
Almost surely the toughest issues yet to be threshed out are the “decommissioning” of MILF forces and the agreed handover by the Philippine military’s handover of law enforcement duties to the Bangsamoro police. Depending on the final terms eventually agreed, these annex provisions could set the stage for the Bangsamoro breakaway that some critics of the agreement fear.
If the 1996 Final Peace Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front is any indication of how the MILF deal would go, the latter may well get to keep many of its weapons, as the MNLF did. Reconstituting rebel forces despite the peace agreement would then remain a possibility. And insurgents may not even have to give up their guns if most of the 11,000 fighters are integrated into the Bangsamoro police.
The Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence (CenSEI), headed by this writer, looked further into these issue. Its assessment appears in the current issue of The CenSEI Report and is reproduced here:
How exactly will the Armed Forces of the Philippines hand over its law enforcement functions to the Bangsamoro police? Indeed, doesn’t the AFP already defer to the Philippine National Police all over the country, including autonomous areas, when the PNP can ably contain criminal activities?
Those devilish details of the Framework Agreement will be threshed out along with the equally sensitive issue of what to do with troops of the Moro Islamic Liberation Force. Regarding the AFP, will its curtailed law enforcement role in Bangsamoro mean that it cannot cross into the autonomous area in pursuit of criminal elements? Thus, the country’s military would in effect treat Bangsamoro almost like another state which it cannot cross into without permission.
Potentially even more controversial is the question of whether the AFP will need to pull out most of its troops out of Bangsamoro, leaving its regional police as the main armed force there. If that happens, is there a danger that Bangsamoro police could be used to support a move by the region to break away from the Republic? The nation would then face the nightmarish prospect of invading a land defended by legitimate security elements—a situation that could qualify as belligerency under international law.
If a self-administered Bangsamoro declares independence and defends itself with its police, that could match conflict conditions set out in the Military Law Review article, “The Concept of Belligerency in International Law”: “the existence of civil war within a state, beyond the scope of mere local unrest; occupation by insurgents of a substantial part of the territory of the state; a measure of orderly administration by that group in the area it controls; and observance of the laws of war by the rebel forces, acting under responsible authority.”
If a status of belligerency is recognized, the article continues, “third party States assumed the obligations of neutrality regarding the internal conflict and treated the two parties to the conflict as equals—each sovereign in its respective areas of control.” Plus: rebels were accorded prisoner-of-war status, and their vessels could conduct searches at sea and dock in ports of countries that recognize their breakaway state, among other privileges. (The CenSEI Report excerpt ends.)
Depending on how much one trusts the MILF or how desperate one is for any kind of peace, one may find the foregoing breakaway scenario either very likely or very loony. But one thing is certain: to eliminate as much as possible the off-chance of such a turn of events in the south, the annex provisions on the future status of the AFP and the MILF must include clear provisions for truly and irretrievably putting rebel forces “beyond use,” as the Framework stipulates.
Adding to the imperative to clarify decommissioning arrangements are recent seeming differences between the government and the MILF officials on the arms issue. Peace Adviser Teresita Deles was reported saying that “even before the implementation of the agreement, arms will be put beyond use.” But top MILF negotiator Mohagher Iqbal insisted that there will be no laying down of arms until the final accord is done.
Fortunately, the annexes governing the MILF and AFP disposition are still being worked out. Unfortunately, with all the hype and expectations stirred up over the Framework Agreement, the government might not press for terms needed to avoid future secession just to avoid the embarrassment of seeing the peace process stall or collapse. Even now, the MILF was able to get President Benigno Aquino 3rd himself to stop ARMM oil exploration concession awards.
But press the government must for prudent provisions to ensure lasting peace and avoid future conflict. The MILF must be verifiably decommissioned, and the AFP allowed to enter the autonomous area with no prior permission, and to base substantial troops there.
As agreed, the military should only be deployed if national security, sovereignty and territory are threatened—including any move to dismember the Republic. And that would never happen, of course, if the MILF has truly renounced its separatist goal.
(Part of the article is from The CenSEI Report on the MILF Framework Agreement, available with legal and other online research through report@censeisolutions.com.)
No comments:
Post a Comment