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KUALALUMPUR/MANILA-Philippine Muslim rebel negotiators have rejected the government's proposal to end 40 years of conflict in the south of the largely Catholic state, Manila's chief negotiator said Tuesday. Marvic Leonen said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front's rejection of the government's proposal did not mean the peace talks hosted by Malaysia since 2001 had collapsed. He added that both sides were still open to continuing the negotiation process. The disagreement, however, puts the brakes on President Beningo Aquino and MILF leader Murad Ebrahim's agreement to fast track the peace process following their secret meeting in a Tokyo hotel on Aug 4, "It is not unusual in negotiations for one party to take a hard-line position,"Leonen told a video conference from the Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur "The two parties have different positions; otherwise, we will not be negotiating. Our framework is not as they had expected it. They expected something more; they expected the word 'sub-state,'" he added. The 11,000-member MILF seeks a "state within a state" on the southern island of Mindanao as a condition for ending four decades of armed conflict that has stymied development in this poor but resource-rich region. Aquino has attempted to expand on the demand with his 20-page proposal for a" more genuine" autonomy that was presented to the Muslim separatist group this week in Kuala Lumpur. The rebel negotiators said they will recommend that the MILF leadership reject the proposal, but they did not return the document, Leonen said, signaling that the peace process had not reached a stalemate. "We can't accept proposal that we think will not address the problems of Muslims in Mindanao," Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs, said during a television interview from his base in the south.
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
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