MILF boycotts polls, rejects autonomy

COTABATO CITY — The country’s largest Muslim rebel group said it had boycotted yesterday’s elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and would reject the prospect of autonomy in peace talks with the government.

Eid Kabalu, spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said his group would rather work for genuine self-rule, criticizing the elections in the ARMM as "meaningless."

It is not clear if there are MILF members who are registered voters or if sympathizers boycotted the polls.

Kabalu said the creation of the ARMM from five southern provinces, after a peace deal with another rebel group, had failed to end three decades of conflict that has killed more than 120,000 and hampered development of resource-rich Mindanao.

"The government’s experiment with autonomy is a total failure," Kabalu said.

"Autonomy is not the solution to our people’s aspiration for self-determination. There was never genuine autonomy under ARMM," he said.

Talks between the government and the MILF, brokered by Malaysia, were postponed last month without explanation.

The meetings are due to resume later this month, once both sides are ready to discuss the contentious issue of an ancestral homeland for Muslims in Mindanao.

The MILF is looking at three options outside autonomy to exercise self-rule in an ancestral homeland: a federal state, commonwealth status or a free association of nations.

Kabalu said the experience of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) after signing its peace deal in 1996 gave the MILF enough reason not to accept any offer of autonomy.

The leadership of ARMM was practically given to the MNLF in past elections in 1996 and 2001 but was taken back this year when the national government supported other candidates.

"It’s not correct to say the ARMM was a product of the peace agreement between the government and the MNLF," Kabalu said.

"It was the government’s unilateral creation to sweeten any deal with Muslim rebels. It was never designed to allow genuine self-government for Muslims."

He said the Manila government continued to pull the strings in ARMM, controlling the budget of the regional government.

Manila subsidizes 80-90 percent of the budgets of 101 towns in ARMM every year. Large amounts are lost to corruption.

Access to the funds and wider influence are the main reasons why the election became attractive to traditional clans seeking to build or expand their economic and political empires.

For the central government, its support in ARMM has also become a "carrot" to reward political loyalty or appease a disgruntled sector.

"There’s no genuine autonomy unless there is really an honest-to-goodness free election in ARMM," said a farmer working with the US Agency for International Development.

The man, who gave his name only as Mohammad, escorted half a dozen diplomats from the US, Canadian and western European embassies to observe the ARMM election on Monday.

"They can go to as many polling precincts as they like and spend time observing the voting and counting done manually, but they won’t see how fraud is actually being done," he said.

Kabalu said the MILF expected only a tenth of the registered 1.2 million voters would be allowed to cast ballots freely.

The rest, he said, would be bribed or coerced.

"It’s still the same," said Monera Andes, a toothless mother of five. "There has been no change in our lives. Whether I vote or not, it doesn’t matter any more. We remain poor."