The Malaysian pull-out

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

First it was a rice crisis. Then came the fuel crisis. Now we are faced with what could be a “peace crisis” with the announced pull-out by Malaysia of its contingent in the International Monitoring Team that is supposed to be the facilitators of the peace process, or peace talks, going on in between the Philippine Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The decision of the Malaysia group followed that of Indonesia that had also earlier hinted that it may also get out of the IMT. With the announcement of Indonesia, it was also reported that Brunei would follow suit. Indonesia, however, must have been only sending signals about their exasperation with the “peace talks” since its Defense Official later gave assurance that they were not deserting yet.

But it’s a different story with Malaysia, whose chief mediator was quite frank about the reasons why they are giving up their participation. He scored the delays in the negotiations for which he blamed the government. But he tried to soften the blow by saying that their withdrawal would be in stages, and not at the same time.

Even so, this development doest not augur well for the success of the peace talks that we have been hearing about for so many years now. One of the reasons cited by the Malaysian official was that none of the things they talked about or proposed were approved or adopted because local officials always tell them the solutions offered could not be sanctioned by our Constitution. Indeed, we have to go by the provisions of the highest law of the land, but this, foreigners, or officials from countries who are not as completely democratized as we are, do not realize or understand, and therefore lose patience with us.

It has now come to a point where our own peace officials, who seem to rely so much on the help of the monitoring and mediating teams, appear to be frantically pleading with the contingent to stay.

They might succeed in stopping them, but all this clearly emphasizes to us, that, while we can call on our Asian neighbors to help, when it comes to the major decisions, we still have to be on our own.*