PHILIPPINES: PHILLIPINE GOVERNMENT AND MOSLEM REBELS SIGN PEACE ACCORD IN MANILA

Record ID: 350291

  • Title: PHILIPPINES: PHILLIPINE GOVERNMENT AND MOSLEM REBELS SIGN PEACE ACCORD IN MANILA
  • Date: 2nd September 1996
  • Summary: MANILA, PHILIPPINES (SEPTEMBER 2, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. MV: SIGNING OF PEACE PACT IN MALACANANG PALACE/ LEADER OF MORO NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT (MNLF), NUR MISUARI/ PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT FIDEL RAMOS 0.15 2. SV: AUDIENCE APPLAUDING 0.20 3. GV: PARTIES SHAKING HANDS/ RAMOS AND MISUARI EMBRACING 0.55 4. MCU: MNLF LEADER NUR MI
  • Embargoed: 17th September 1996 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MANILA, THE PHILIPPINES
  • City:
  • Country: Phillippines
  • Reuters ID: LVA4O5C34WXWKVPMVIA7H6OFBFIH
  • Story Text: INTRO: The Philippine government has signed a peace pact with Moslem rebels formally ending 24 years of war in the south that killed 125,000 people.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------- Nur Misuari, chief of the rebel Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and chief government negotiator Manuel Yan signed the pact on Monday (September 2) in a glittering ceremony at the presidential palace.

    The peace pact is the culmination of four years of negotiations overseen by Philippine President Fidel Ramos and foreign diplomats.

    In a speech after the signing, Misuari led a standing ovation for Ramos, and said the pact marked a new beginning.

    "By putting such a bitter memory of the past behind us, we can now soar and surge to a new height and boldly cast our eyes into the future... to take the reins of destiny into our hands," said Misuari.

    President Fidel Ramos hailed the pact. "Today we not only witness history, we make history... we bring to a close almost thirty years of conflict. Today we launch a new era of peace and development for the southern Philippines and for the Philippines as a whole." The pact was also signed by Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, who helped broker the accord, and by Hamid Algabid, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Conference.

    The pact envisages a Misuari-led Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development as a prelude to a Moslem autonomous region covering most of the south.

    Until the two sides came to the negotiating table, the MNLF had waged a seccessionist war against Manila. Though Moslems consider the southern Philippines as their homeland, years of Christian migration have reduced them to a minority in the nation of 68 million people.


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