Army general visits MILF leaders in Camp Darapanan

SULTAN KUDARAT, Maguindanao-- Army officials and leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front on Tuesday dined together in Camp Darapanan, the first since the 1997 onset of the government-MILF peace overture.The meeting, held at the MILF’s main bastion in Sultan Kudarat town, was jointly organized by Major Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. and Al-Mansur Gambar, chief of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces.During the meeting, Galvez, installed as commander of the Army's 6th Infantry Division only last September 12, and Gambar assured each other to cooperate in enforcing the now 19-year government-MILF ceasefire in Central Mindanao.Galvez is well-versed in dealing with the MILF, having served as chairman of the government’s Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities, which has a counterpart in the rebel group.Gambar, an ethnic Maguindanaon who hails from Kabuntalan town in Maguindanao, said they are grateful to Galvez for personally visiting them in Camp Darapanan to assure them of his commitment to the Mindanao peace process.Galvez, who graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1986, was the first 6th ID commander to do so. Peace is something we cannot impose by use of force. It can only be developed through diplomacy, cooperation and understanding,” Galvez said in a message to MILF officials present in the dialogue.Predecessors of Galvez, the now retired Generals Rey Ardo and Romeo Gapuz, had both toured Camp Darapanan, but only as guests to events organized jointly by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and the MILF central committee. The coming over of Gen. Galvez to Camp Darapanan is a clear indication of the 6th ID’s commitment to the ceasefire agreement,” Gambar said during the meeting.Units of 6th ID had figured in about a thousand deadly encounters with MILF forces in Central Mindanao in decades past.The 6th ID covers the adjoining Central Mindanao provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat, where there are more than 20 guerilla enclaves protected by the July 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities between the government and the MILF.There has not been any single Army-MILF encounter in the 6th ID’s territory since late 2010, a feat peace advocacy groups attribute to the close security coordination between military units in the area and local MILF commanders.