ABS-CBN News Online: With peace talks between the Philippine government and Muslim rebels in tatters, analysts are warning violence will escalate and could spill over into neighboring countries.
President Arroyo this week scrapped the government panel handling the negotiations, a move analysts say ended any hopes of settling the four-decades-old Muslim insurgency before she leaves office in 2010.
They fear the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which had been negotiating for a Muslim homeland on the revolt-hit southern Mindanao island, may now splinter into smaller and more radical groups.
The government has said any future peace talks will have to be more representative of the people of Mindanao rather than just the MILF, which will have to disarm if it is to enter any future negotiations.
"No respected revolutionary movement will even think of handing over their guns," said Rommel Banlaoi, executive director of the Philippine Institute for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, a think tank.
He said the dissolution of the peace panel would lead the MILF rebel forces to resume their armed struggle on a larger scale, and warned the conflict could "spill over to neighboring countries like Indonesia, Malaysia or Brunei." Muslim Unrest in RP May Spread to Neighbors: Analysts >>> Agence France-Presse | September 5, 2008
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