MILF: We know General Garcia well

June 26, 2007

Manila---Commenting on the appointment of retired General Rodolfo Garcia as the new government chief peace negotiator, Muhammad Ameen, chairperson of the MILF Secretariat, said: “We know him very well from his stint as Army officer in Central Mindanao up to his becoming a member of the government peace panel.

“As a person, he is a good man,” Ameen told Luwaran in an interview early today, when reached for comment.

He also said Garcia knows the issue of Mindanao very well and the nuances of the present peace talks, especially the issues of ancestral domain where the two Parties had already signed 29 consensus points since April 2005.

But whether he becomes a good negotiator like his predecessor, Secretary Silvestre Afable Jr., depends on his consistency and how he relates to the other party across the table, he added.

Garcia has been a member of the government peace panel, along with Prof. Rudy Rodil, Gov. Pax Mangudadatu, and Ms. Sylvia Paraguya.



The GRP-MILF peace talks have stalled since September 2006 over the contentious issue on territory, the third strand of the ancestral domain of the Tripoli Agreement of 2001.



Meanwhile, Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief peace negotiator , in an interview with Reuters early today, said the MILF would still wait for official communication from the government through the Malaysian Government before he or the MILF can give an official statement.



He said there are procedures to follow on issues like this, saying, repeated earlier line, that the choice of a chief peace negotiator is not an absolute prerogative of either party. Somehow the other party has the right to refuse talking to anyone not acceptable, he added.

The MILF expects to be informed officially of the new appointment by the Malaysian Government.

Earlier Senator Jun Magsaysay was nominated to replace Afable but he was reportedly out of the country, besides slow to accept the nomination, saying the Mindanao Problem is a complex issue.



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