Peace monitoring team from Indonesia to join the international mission tasked with ensuring compliance with the ceasefire between the Philippine Muslim rebels

Peace monitoring team from Indonesia to join the international mission tasked with ensuring compliance with the ceasefire between the Philippine Muslim rebels


Peace monitoring team from Indonesia to join the international mission tasked with ensuring compliance with the ceasefire between the Philippine Muslim rebels on Saturday (01/07/2012). Both the parties were planning to sign a peace deal this year.

Indonesia team consists of 10 military officers and five civilians who is an expert on conflict prevention. Indonesia team was presented the request of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Philippine government.

Delegation of Indonesia is the most recent contingent to join the mission consisting of 40 people from Malaysia, Brunei, Japan, Libya, and the European Union.

"Their arrival to guarantee that the ceasefire is properly implemented," said Teresita Deles, chairman of the Philippine government peace adviser.

Deles said the 12,000-strong MILF and the government aims to sign a peace understood better later this year. This is performed following a breakthrough agreement in April, where both parties are committed to creating the southern Philippines that has political autonomy.

"We are expanding common ground and together find a way to narrow the differences in the issues being debated," he explained. Deles expressed optimism the two sides could sign a deal this year.

For more than three decades, the MILF launched a rebellion against the Philippine government. At first they demanded the establishment of an independent state in Mindanao.

But in recent years that demand declined, from full independence, becoming an autonomous region that includes most of the island of Mindanao.

Rebellion that has killed more than 150,000 people since the early 1970s. Failed peace efforts initiated in October 2011 after rebels killed 19 soldiers whom they accused of violating an agreement for violating their territory.

Assassination rekindled the fighting in some areas in Mindanao, killing 40 soldiers, policemen and civilians, and thousands of others displaced.

Both sides then agreed to resume peace efforts, and since January, is no longer a battle.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front (English: the Moro Islamic Liberation Front / MILF) is an Islamic militant group based in the southern Philippines. The area where this group called Bangsamoro by the MILF is active and covers the southern part of Mindanao, Sulu Archipelago, Palawan, Basilan and some adjacent islands.
MILF was founded by Salamat Hashim, who is influenced by Sayyid Qutb. Salamat died in July 2003 and was replaced by Al Haj Murad Ebrahim