Philippine officials hope to induce some 300,000 people to return to the southern island of Mindanao, nearly a year after they fled the fighting between the army and Muslim separatists, officials said Friday.
President Gloria Arroyo declared this week a unilateral ceasefire in the fighting against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest Muslim separatist group, but the two sides have yet to set a date for resuming the talks.
In the meantime, Arroyo formed a committee "to look into the situation of the evacuees and whether we could convince them to return to their homes," said Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who heads the task force.
Arroyo has said about 300,000 people out of the 18 million people in Mindanao and other southern islands live in evacuation camps, the legacy of a military offensive launched by her deposed predecessor Joseph Estrada last year.
The campaign wrested back most of the territory under the sway of the 12,500-member MILF, but unraveled efforts by three previous governments towards a settlement to end three decades of rebellion by a large Muslim minority.
Arroyo said in a statement Friday that the Organization of the Islamic Conference bloc of nations, which has brokered many of these deals, has written to her to express approval of her decision to reverse course.
"They are very happy with our peace initiative. They'd like to do what they can do to help," she added.
Ermita said civilians who fled villages around the MILF training bases "are reluctant to return, fearing they would be sandwiched" in any renewed fighting.
He appealed to the MILF to "allow the evacuees to return home, especially those who lived in towns around Camp Abubakar," the largest of the rebel camps.
Arroyo visited Mindanao on Thursday and urged the MILF leaders, who have taken a wait and see stance, to take the next step.
"It is now your turn to unload your weapons and keep them for a while, organize your peace panel and we will send our own panel to meet with you," Arroyo said.
In a parallel move, the government is in talks with western donor countries and multilateral lenders to revive and boost development aid to Mindanao.
Many of them had suspended assistance and pulled out aid workers during the height of the fighting, which left thousands of casualties and displaced an estimated 600,000 people.
Half of the residents of the Mindanao region, the southern third of the archipelago, live in poverty after decades of conflict, Arroyo said. The poor make up a third of the population in the rest of the mainly Roman Catholic nation.
Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Hernando Perez ruled out the release of all jailed communist and Muslim separatist rebels.
Manila has offered to free 77, including about two dozen alleged MILF members, and has announced the names of 73 so far.
About 230 "political offenders" began a hunger strike in prisons across the country on Thursday to protest the tardiness with which the government was fulfilling its pledge.
"First, they (the 73) cannot be released immediately. Second, we cannot release all political prisoners," Perez told a local radio.
"If you still want to pursue your hunger strike, we cannot force you to eat. You are not like children who can be force-fed." -- MANILA (AFP)
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