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| Southeast Asia |
| Manila, rebels discuss Muslim self-rule bill |
| 2014-08-02 |
| [ARABNEWS] Philippine government and rebel negotiators began a new round of meetings Friday to draft a Moslem self-rule law after falling behind a timetable laid out in a peace treaty, officials said. A peace pact signed in March committed President Benigno Aquino and the largest Moslem rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), to pass a law creating an autonomous Moslem region by mid-2016, when his six-year presidency ends. In return, the 12,000-member MILF would disarm and help the national government to improve the lot of Filipino Moslems, who are among the poorest and most marginalized in the mainly Catholic nation of 100 million. However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... Aquino failed to submit the bill to Congress on Monday, with the MILF suggesting the government was seeking to renege on its peace treaty commitments by diluting the wording of the proposed law. "(The) government intends to see through the full implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro," Teresita Deles, Aquino's adviser on the grinding of the peace processor, said in a statement as the two sides met in the southern city of Davao. Chief government negotiator Miriam Ferrer said the two sides were expected to meet over the next 10 days, by which time they would have produced a version of the bill that was acceptable to both sides. |
| Posted by:Fred |