Hostility between 6th ID and MILF closed finally

MAGUINDANAO --- Peace activists were elated with closure of the 30-year hostility between the 6thInfantry Division and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that exacted hundreds of fatalities on both sides.Bobby Benito, director of the Regional Reconciliation and Unification Commission-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said Monday it was something he never thought would happen.Brig. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of 6thID and Hadji Murad Ebrahim, the figurehead of the MILF, met in Camp Darapanan over the weekend and agreed to cooperate in helping push the southern peace process forward.Sobejana, commander of 6thID, has tactical control over four Army brigades and a dozen battalions in central Mindanao.Sobejana was accompanied to the MILF’s Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao by brigade and battalion commanders under 6thID and representatives from the 1stMarine Brigade based in Lebak, Sultan Kudarat.The 1stMarine Brigade and its component-battalions are performing peace and security missions under the supervision of Sobejana. It was the first ever visit to the MILF’s main camp of such a big group of top military officers from across Mindanao. We are happy with it, Benito said.The event was preceded by the approval by the bicameral committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the enabling measure for the replacement of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more politically and administratively-empowered MILF led Bangsamoro regional government.The BOL was premised on two compacts between the government and the MILF - the 2013 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro and, subsequently, the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro.The two documents were products of 19 years of peace talks mediated by the Malaysian government.Senior MILF officials and Sobejana’s group huddled for about two hours at the conference hall of Camp Darapanan, constructed with funds from the Japan International Cooperation Agency, a key benefactor of the Mindanao peace process.The animosity between the 6thID and the MILF started in the 1980s, right after Murad and their legendary revolutionary chieftain, the Egyptian-trained cleric, Salamat Hashim, bolted from the Moro National Liberation Front and established a separate group that is more religious in stature.They left the MNLF due to irreconcilable differences then with its founding chairman, Nur Misuari.The MNLF forged a final peace pact with Malacañang on September 2, 1996.The peace talks between the government and the MILF commenced on January 7, 1997.The 6thID covers the adjoining North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao provinces and several towns in Lanao del Sur, where there is strong MILF presence.The 6thID and the MILF have had bloody showdowns in 1997, in 2000, in 2003 and in 2009.The conflicts resulted in deadlocks in the peace talks between Malacañang and the MILF. This engagement ended the `rido’ between the MILF and the 6thID, Murad had said during last week’s event at Camp Darapanan.Rido is a common term for clan war in most Moro dialects.Sobejana and his entourage were escorted to Camp Darapanan by officials of the Malaysian led International Monitoring Team which is helping enforce the government-MILF ceasefire in conflict flashpoint areas in Mindanao since 2003.The foreign peacekeeping contingent is comprised of soldiers and police officers from Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia and non-uniformed conflict resolution experts from Japan, Norway and the European Union.There has never been any encounter between units of 6thID and guerrillas of the MILF since 2010.Peace advocacy blocs attribute the feat to each other’s religious compliance with all of their interim security agreements meant to prevent hostilities that can imperil the government-MILF diplomatic overtures.Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, chairperson of the provincial peace and order council, lauded on Monday the MILF and the 6thID for putting an end to the hostility between them that lasted for three decades. All is well in the Mindanao peace process of President Rodrigo Duterte, said Mangudadatu, a staunch supporter of the peace talks between the government and the MILF.The MILF has dozens of camps in Maguindanao’s 36 towns that were scenes of heavy gunfights between rebels and personnel of 6thID. Peace is difficult to achieve but as long as stakeholders and conflict protagonists agree to have peace and work for it together, it is achievable, Mangudadatu said.The office of Mangudadatu has facilitated the settlement of more than a hundred bloody clan wars in Maguindanao in the past eight years in support of the normalization agenda of the government and the MILF.Members of the local business communities were touched with what is for them historic meeting last week of key MILF officials and the Army and Marine officers from across central Mindanao.Bai Sandra Siang, president of the Kutawato Muslim Business Chamber, said it will boost the confidence of their contacts and partners outside of Mindanao and abroad on the domestic business climate. This peace process is also good for central Mindanao’s business atmosphere. If investors come in because there is peace in the region, there is employment for our people too, said Siang.Siang’s group is also involved in various programs complementing the efforts of the MILF and Malacañang to put a negotiated closure to the nagging Moro secessionist issue hounding Mindanao since the 1970s.