PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT REJECTS MILF DEMANDS (tags)
The Philippine government (GRP) on Wednesday rejected demands by Muslim rebels for control over vast swaths of land as peace talks remained at a standstill. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita conceded that the talks with the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) “are at a stalemate right now on the issue of territory.”
MILF: WE ARE FOR NEW WAR (tags)
Media sources reported that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said yesterday that it was prepared to return to war should negotiations on territory, the thorniest of issues in ongoing peace talks with the government, lead to results not to its liking. Negotiations on territory, which documents on the peace talks describe as issues of ancestral domain, bogged down in Kuala Lumpur. More than 50,000 people died at the height of the Mindanao War just after Marcos declared martial law in 1972. In 2000, more than a million people were displaced when then President Joseph Estrada declared an “all-out war” policy aimed at dismantling MILF camps in Mindanao.