MILF peace panel chair shares a dozen tips on negotiating peace
A gentleman’s agreement is no agreement at all. Sign the document the first time it offers itself. But before the signing, check what you are signing. Beware of the ‘riders.’ They can spoil the whole thing.
- “Sometimes, it is more difficult to negotiate with your comrades in the organization rather than your counterpart in the government.
- “Spoilers of the peace process are bad of course. But they are not always so. Sometimes, they factor in to improve the process especially in the relations of the negotiating parties and the various frameworks of the talks. When the MOA-AD was not signed because of some spoilers, there was fighting, etc.. But because of the non-signing, the ICG was born. So thanks to the spoilers. Otherwise, ICG won’t come to the picture.
- “Lastly, negotiators must know what he wants and more importantly, he knows how to get it. This requires commitment, persistence, patience – and of course, skills of your negotiators.||| |||buy priligy online with |||
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On the difficulty, sometimes, of negotiating “with your comrades in the organization rather than your counterpart in the government,” the MILF’s chief negotiator paused and looked at the direction where Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, who was one of the participants in the seminar, was seated, noting that Dureza earlier wrote about similar difficulties.
Dureza wrote in his syndicated column on November 15 that in his experience as government’s chief negotiator, “while negotiating with the rebels on the other side of the table is not a walk in the park, it is as equally sensitive – and in fact more difficult – to ‘negotiate’ with the parties on our side of the table.”)
Iqbal in his first and second tips, said the peace process is never easy and that sometimes, the implementation phase is more difficult than the actual negotiation itself.
He cited the 21-year negotiation between the government and the MNLF that ended with the 1996 Final Peace Agreement (FPA), which was supposed to have finally implemented the mother agreement, the Tripoli Agreement of 1976.||| |||buy bactrim online with |||
It took the Ramos administration only four years to negotiate the FPA from 1992 to 1996. But 14 years after the signing of that agreement, the parties are still reviewing its implementation. In fact, while the Consolidation for Peace Seminar was happening in Penang, the government and MNLF, along with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, were in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for the 4th GPH-MNLF-OIC Tripartite Review.
In Jeddah, Secretary Teresita Quintos-Deles, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and head of the 21-member government delegation, said the Aquino administration “do(es) not want to turn over another unfinished business to the next administration. It stops with us.” (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)
