When we hear about the current slow pace of negotiations between the government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, we can lose sight of the many concrete achievements made over the years.

As peacemakers on both sides of the negotiating table try to learn lessons from past peace efforts, two institutions in particular established in the past decade stand out:  the Bangsamoro Development Agency, which is currently working on a medium-term Bangsamoro Development Plan, and the Bangsamoro Leadership and Management Institute, which works for “ideologically-oriented and spiritually accountable Bangsamoro leaders and managers who will utilize political and social-economic knowledge and skills.” These institutions are meant to avoid a situation, ever possible in post-conflict situations, where incoming leadership from a revolutionary movement does not know how to operate in a demilitarized governance system.

During the period that these accomplishments were made, since 2001, Malaysia has acted as Facilitator of the GPH-MILF negotiations. This role can be controversial, particularly in light of well-publicized events such as the crisis in Sabah. But there are quieter, less well-known aspects of Malaysia’s involvement, such as assistance from the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP), a crucial part of the Malaysian government’s thrust toward south-south cooperation. More than 20,000 participants from 140 countries have participated in the various programs administered under the MTCP since its inception in 1980. The program continues to draw interest and participation from a multitude of countries, ranging from the Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Oceania.  Nevertheless, qualitatively, the MTCP has a decidedly Southeast Asian focus. Seven of the top 10 countries in 2012 are located in this region. Malaysia provides assistance upon the request from prospective partner countries, and the initiative for cooperation begins with the recipient countries. In short, the program is demand driven.

Malaysia is not typically seen as a “donor” in discussions of overseas development assistance (ODA), nor does Malaysia use that term to describe its development cooperation with other countries. Malaysian assistance to other countries is part of a wider trend of “new development actors” working to extend assistance overseas, often in ways that more traditional donors (the U.S., UK, or Australia) might not do. Therefore, unlike conventional foreign assistance programs, which are often linked to donor values and priorities, MTCP strives to represent an approach of “prosper thy neighbour” and “mutual benefit” in its partnerships. This approach has been applied with regard to Muslim Mindanao.

The April 27 launching of an association of Bangsamoro graduates of the MTCP is an important occasion, given the need for a cadre of trained professionals to implement by 2016 the transition to a Bangsamoro as envisioned in the Framework Agreement signed in October 2012. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the Bangsamoro generally, will need to look at an expanded talent pool beyond current employees of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM – which will be replaced by the new Bangsamoro) and those currently active in the MILF-led transition. An alumni association that taps the 59 MCTP trainees is an ideal beginning. A similar pool of a total of 326 young people has over the years been supported by USAID to undergo a training in public administration followed by participation in the Congressional Internship Programs for Young Mindanao Leaders (CIPYML), and AusAID has the Philippines Australia Human Resource and Organisational Development Facility that includes a focus on Mindanao. From such pools a “registry” of potential Bangsamoro leaders and managers (both current ARMM civil servants and potential new ones) can be developed. Such a database can be drawn upon as preparations for a Bangsamoro Transitional Authority – perhaps in 2015 – move forward.

A strong cadre of civil servants is particularly important inasmuch as the Framework Agreement for the Bangsamoro specifies that the Bangsamoro will have a “ministerial” form of government – a parliamentary system rather than the “presidential” system of separation of powers in both the national and local Philippine government. Rather than a chief executive (e.g., a mayor, governor, or president) elected separately from the legislature for a fixed term, the new Bangsamoro will have a chief executive elected by the legislature for as long as the executive retains the confidence of the legislature. A cabinet will be appointed from the legislature (in some parliamentary systems cabinet members retain their legislative seats; in others they resign to serve in the cabinet).

The point here is that, as the Framework Agreement says, once there is a ministerial form of government, “The Bangsamoro Transition Authority may reorganize the bureaucracy into institutions of governance appropriate thereto.”  In presidential systems, typically the chief executive appoints many layers of the bureaucracy:  in the Philippines, this includes cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and even directors. In parliamentary systems, typically just the top one or two political leaders of a cabinet department are political appointees; the rest (up to the very top level) are permanent civil servants. A reason for this difference is that in a parliamentary system the duration of an executive government is uncertain – it is only in power as long as it retains the confidence of the legislature. Rather than fixed terms, and fixed intervals between elections, there is uncertainty. An election can be called any time that a government cannot sustain support from the elected members of the legislature. Thus, continuity of services and processes in the bureaucracy rests in the top-level bureaucrats.

In the process of setting up the Bangsamoro Transition Authority to replace the ARMM, the average ARMM civil servant is being assured of retention (as long as they are not “ghosts“). But the opportunity to set up a senior civil service is one that the MILF can use to help instantiate its vision of a Bangsamoro beyond the regular election in 2016. The MILF has repeatedly stated that it is open to other forces winning in 2016, but a well-functioning civil service will help ensure that the post-2016 Bangsamoro serves the citizens of the region well.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines, and represents the Foundation as part of the International Contact Group for the GPH-MILF negotiations. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

In a study I wrote a number of years ago, I quoted a peace activist in Mindanao lamenting the lack of success in ending the war between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). He was speaking in the wake of President Estrada’s 2000 “all-out war” offensive that overran fixed positions of the MILF. Similar sentiments were echoed after the 2003 government attack on the Buliok Complex (in an attempt to arrest MILF Chair Hashim Salamat) and the 2008 upsurge in violence when “rogue” MILF commanders responded to the aborted signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD). In short, civil society in Southern Philippines has often had to face the reality that despite “sustained and varied collective actions,” progress toward peace in the Muslim separatist conflicts has been halting.

In describing and diagnosing the efforts of civil society, I wrote that there was the promotion of dialogue among communities, but that there was an asymmetry since Christian churches tend to have hierarchies that can organize activities, while Islam has no hierarchy, leading to a perception that such dialogue was Christian-led. A similar situation was seen in that Moro civil society was considerably less developed than Christian civil society. This seemed to be the dual result of poverty and the fact that the revolutionary fronts, the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, used up much of the ideological space for organization.

At the community level, “peace zones” were often established, where citizens requested combatants from all sides to stay away. However there was not much evidence that they were effective in reducing violence in the absence of a general peace agreement, since combatants would still maneuver. An encouraging development was the Bantay Ceasefire (ceasefire watch), a valuable parallel civil society initiative begun in 2003 to supplement the formal Local Monitoring Teams (LMTs) that had been agreed upon in the talks. Since the LMTs were not uniformly active, and since their reports to negotiators were confidential, the public activities of the Bantay Ceasefire were most welcome. However, at that time, the effort was very poorly funded.

Thanks to a stronger civil society, women are increasingly active in the peace process in the Southern Philippines. Photo/Karl Grobl

I also noted that civil society has over the years become increasingly engaged in the formal peace process, with a good example being the chair of Mindanao Caucus of Development NGOs (MinCODE), Sylvia Paraguya, serving on the government’s negotiating panel (and Teresita “Ging” Deles serving as Presidential Assistant on the Peace Process). Still, overall civil society had little effect on the formal peace process, since negotiation contained considerable confidentiality, went through back channels, and can be highly technical. Civil society members on the panels are constrained in what they can say without violating confidences, and in their new role in government were no longer able to be as freewheeling in their participatory consultations as they had been in the past.

Since the study was written, the better part of a decade has passed, and the implementation of a new Agreement seems imminent, as promised in the October 15 signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro. In particular, there is a Transition Commission being set up to draft the Basic Law for the new arrangements. The Executive Order establishing the Transition Commission mandates “authentic democratic collaboration in the crafting of a proposed law by the affected people themselves.” In light of these new developments and progress in civil society over the past years, what are the prospects for the role of civil society in managing the conflict?

Firstly, direct civil society engagement in keeping the peace on the ground is considerably more robust than in the past. Bantay Ceasefire is now better funded, and such engagement is formalized now with Mindanao People’s Caucus involvement in the Civilian Protection Component of the International Monitoring Team. They are joined by two Moro NGOs, Mindanao Human Rights Action Center (MinHRAC) and the Muslim Organization of Government and Other Professionals (MOGOP), in this role of providing local, on-the-ground complements to the efforts of the IMT.

The addition of two Moro NGOs to the Civilian Protection Component is a reflection of how Moro civil society has been strengthened in recent years. Long-standing programs by donors, both foreign and domestic, have over the last decade begun to make a difference. Despite progress, there still remains a lot to do, with the strife-torn island provinces of Sulu and Basilan still having far less developed civil society than central Mindanao.

Along the same line, the ulama (Muslim male scholars), and to a lesser extent, the aleemat (Muslim women scholars), are beginning to become more involved in solving community problems. This begins to remedy some of the asymmetry I mentioned earlier where the hierarchies that Christian churches have makes organizational efforts easier. For instance, the Sulu Ulama Council for Peace and Development interacts with the provincial government on development issues, and with the security forces on peace and order.

Civil society is undertaking new tasks – an interesting example is Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society and its long-standing efforts (funded first by The Asia Foundation, and more recently by Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue) to assist in “convergence” between the MNLF and MILF by consulting the grassroots on what they want from the two fronts. The idea is to produce an independent “Moro Agenda” to which the two groups could react. This begins to open up what I called the “ideological space” for alternative approaches. At the community level, as Asia Foundation conflict expert and author Willy Torres describes in his “Letting a Thousand Flowers Bloom,” civil society organizations have gone beyond just making bantay (watching) to active work on mediating and helping to settle conflicts. In the last five years or so, Asia Foundation partners have been able to settle a total of 204 clan conflicts (accounting for 604 deaths and 231 injuries).

There is one aspect of the peace process that definitely shows the impact of civil society:  the greater involvement of women. Last year, I blogged on Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer who became the first woman to chair the government’s peace panel. But still, overall, we must stick with the judgment that civil society has not had much influence on the peace process thus far – it has been the choices of the parties that make the difference. Notice the progress made in the MILF peace process versus the decades-long stalemate in the NDF process. The MILF chose not to let the question of detainees halt the process, while the NDF refuses to talk until this issue is resolved. Peace talks start and stop based on decisions of the GPH and the MILF, and the details of the talks develop behind closed doors, with little reference to the activities of civil society.

Such disconnect is perhaps understandable since the confidential negotiations were taking place in Kuala Lumpur following diplomatic modalities. But now that the Transition Commission is about to start work in Cotabato City, civil society has an opportunity to engage directly in the process – but it must go beyond mere expressions of sentiment. Taxation, forms of governance, policing and community security, social service delivery, new forms of politics – all of these are difficult and often highly technical topics that must be tackled by the Transition Commission in a limited time. Civil society must step up to the challenge of helping the Transition Commission draft a Basic Law that sets the new Bangsamoro on the path to peace and development.  At the national level, something of a stretch for Mindanao civil society, Congress needs to be encouraged to see the document produced by the Transition Commission as a positive step for the entire Filipino nation.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines, and represents the Foundation as part of the International Contact Group for the GPH-MILF negotiations. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Mr. Masoudi (front) was one of the few who personally safeguarded the crown jewels of Afghanistan (Bactrian gold) in vaults under the presidential palace in 1988 as the Soviet occupation gave way to civil war.

Afghanistan has been called the crossroads of Asia. How does the art reflect this?

Located on the ancient Silk Road in Central Asia, Afghanistan is inhabited by a population of diverse cultures. Throughout its history, people of different ethnicities and religions settled in the region, including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians, bringing with them the rich diversity reflected in the paintings, sculptures, textiles, coins, and everyday objects now displayed in the National Museum and provincial museums in Afghanistan.

The artists of that time were influenced by other cultures – they mixed. We are proud of this. In fact, we can also see from the artifacts that in past centuries, we did not have fighting among ethnic groups, which unfortunately, we now have. But, we can learn something from the past by looking at the artifacts – where you can see that people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds could live in peace. Each culture has positive things from the past – we have to transfer these positive things to the present.

You were one of the few who personally safeguarded the crown jewels of Afghanistan (Bactrian gold) in vaults under the presidential palace in 1988 as the Soviet occupation gave way to civil war. Can you describe what this experience was like?

At that time, I remember that people thought the Communist party would transfer power very soon to the Mujahadeen. Everyone thought this. But this also served as a signal to me and the museum staff. We predicted that when this political change came, there would also be a political gap. So, as the situation worsened, we asked ourselves: what do we do to safeguard the museum artifacts?  We needed to transfer the unique pieces from the museum to the center of the city and store them in different places, so that if something happens in one area, the second, third, or fourth area will be safe. One year later, in 1989, we shifted these pieces. After three or four years, authority was transferred to the Mujahadeen and after a couple of months, civil war started. Fighting erupted in the streets, especially in the western part of the city where the museum is located, so we could no longer visit the museum. The museum was looted and took fire.

When the artifacts that were looted from the museum surfaced on the black market, many journalists asked us about the Bactrian Treasure, as none of them appeared on the black market. Of course we knew, but we could not reveal the information to anyone; it could be dangerous. We kept the location of the pieces secret. During the middle of the civil war, while it wasn’t safe to visit what remained of the museum, we wondered if the other pieces were still safe. The president granted our request to go and check the humidity levels of the storage areas. We went, and saw all signatures and boxes all in good condition as we’d left them. But, we still kept it secret. In 1998, under the Taliban, we went once again to check the humidity levels, and everything was still ok. After 2003, Karzai said there is no reason to keep silent. We are not heroes – we did our jobs.

Afghanistan today is perhaps more recognizable for war than for its deep culture of art and expression. What role can art play to change this image?

The situation is not stable in Afghanistan, and usually the media exaggerates this. Unfortunately, this makes people think Afghanistan is the land of explosions, the Taliban, and fighting. In fact, this is a country that has a fine civilization and fine arts. By having exhibitions from other countries at our museum, and having our own art a part of exhibitions around the world, we are building closer relations and exposing ourselves to one another’s cultures. The “Hidden Treasures” exhibit (which traveled from London, across Europe, to Canada, and the U.S. and to San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum), introduced the other face of Afghanistan to people. It’s possible to change people’s minds directly through this exhibition, which has had nearly two million visitors since 2008.

Can you talk about plans for the National Museum in Kabul as well as provincial museums?

Afghanistan has an ancient civilization, and in each part of our country you can find ancient sites. But the economic situation in Afghanistan is not good – people cannot easily travel from the North to the South, East to West, because their incomes are too low. Security is a problem, but in some parts, it’s not as serious. But traveling to learn about their culture is not urgent for most Afghans. That’s why we must develop museums in each province so that the young people can easily access and visit the museum, to learn about their past, their art, their culture. The Ministry has a clear plan to improve the museums in the provinces.

Our national museum is 92 years old, and we’ve recently started important new initiatives, including a computerized database according to international standards. But, we also need a new building to preserve the artifacts properly – we must have humidity control, proper lighting, fire protection, and security. Our present building doesn’t have anything close to this. Before I had visited other museums in other countries, I didn’t know how much we were missing here. But, these systems are extremely important to preserve the arts.

During my Fellowship in San Francisco, I met with experts from different departments of the Asian Art Museum, including the registration, public relations, marketing, and restoration departments. When I go back, I hope to increase my staff capacity in these areas, and develop new branches – especially in marketing. We don’t have a PR department, but I’m going to request from my ministry to add these branches to the museum.

The Brayton Wilbur, Jr. Memorial Fellowship in Asian Art is administered by The Asia Foundation’s Asian American Exchange unit. Read more about Mr. Masoudi’s fellowship. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

On January 24, Ambassador Eikenberry joins Asia Foundation President David Arnold in conversation at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles to discuss this chance for a better future, the 2014 transition, and political, economic, and security challenges ahead as the country works toward becoming a peaceful and stable society. Prior to his current position as the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, Ambassador Eikenberry spent 35 years in the United States Army holding two command posts in Afghanistan. As U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from May 2009 to June 2011, he led President Obama’s civilian surge, in order to set the conditions for transition to full Afghan sovereignty. Read recent coverage in the blog of Afghanistan and analysis of the 2012 Survey.

Mindanao dominates the headlines in the Philippines this week for several reasons. There is the horrific aftermath of Typhoon Pablo (known internationally as Bopha), which slammed into an area of the island that typically does not get hit by storms. On a lighter note, but one that also riveted the nation, hometown boxer Manny Pacquiao (from General Santos City in Mindanao) was knocked out this past weekend in a surprise, convincing defeat – leading to speculation about whether his sterling career is on the wane.

Not surprisingly, some good news about Mindanao – that the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro is being fleshed out in Kuala Lumpur at the next round of peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – got pushed to the back pages of newspapers. The goal is to finish the details this year – and the news is that the government panel has a new chair, Professor Miriam “Iye” Coronel-Ferrer, the first woman to hold this position.

Above, residents of Marawi city attend a peace forum in southern Philippines. Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer will become the first woman to chair the government’s peace panel, and has attracted attention from gender advocates. Photo/Karl Grobl

For more than two years, Attorney Marvic Leonen has been heading the government’s efforts that reached a successful interim conclusion with the signing on October 15 of the Framework Agreement for the Bangsamoro. However, in November he was appointed to the Supreme Court at the tender age of 50 (in the Philippines, justices have mandatory retirement at age 70). This takes him out of his service as an academic (at the College of Law of the University of the Philippines) and public service (as a public interest lawyer and as peace panel chair since 2010), and puts him in an entirely different arena (when issues regarding the Framework Agreement come before the Supreme Court, he will inhibit himself).

As senior member of the government’s panel, it is perhaps not surprising that political science professor Coronel-Ferrer was chosen to succeed Leonen as chair. She has long worked in this area, with writings about the government’s peace thrusts in the 1990s, the 1996 peace agreement, and advanced academic work comparing the movements in the Cordillera to the Mindanao movements for autonomy. She has been a prolific presence even as she was on the panel, explaining the government’s August 2011 proposal and the process that led to the Framework Agreement for the Bangsamoro.

It is inevitable these days that people focus on the fact that she is a woman. It’s true that this is the first time a woman has headed this peace panel, but the appointment is the culmination of a long build-up. In fact, for the past dozen years the overall head of the government’s various peace efforts, the presidential advisor on the peace process, has for most of the time been a woman. Teresita “Ging” Quintos-Deles was in the post from 2001 to 2005, the late Annabel Abaya in 2009-2010, and Deles again since 2010. The MILF, which many would call socially conservative, signaled early on that they had no objection to a woman heading the government’s panel, and in their welcoming statement reiterated that it should not be a factor in the negotiations.

As noted, the MILF itself has taken to including women in its delegation to the peace talks and in its outreach. Recently, Cababay Abubakar, a consultant to the MILF, published on the official MILF website an examination of Bangsamoro identity that used the inclusive “his/her” locution. And, in the last round of talks, when two of the peace panel members were not in Kuala Lumpur (they had gone to Djibouti for the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation meeting to discuss the latest developments in Mindanao), MILF asked their female consultant attorney, Raissa Jajurie, to join their panel in the formal plenary sessions.

As the Framework Agreement was being finalized in early October, the gender advocates in the room (both MILF and GPH) were led by Emma Leslie of Conciliation Resources to scan the text to see how many times women’s issues were dealt with. Laughingly, they said that this would be what gender advocates in the peace movement would do. Sure enough, last week in the Waging Peace Conference, the presentation by Women Engaged in Action on 1325 (We Act 1325 – referring to UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security did just that:  counted the number of times gender concerns came up (three) in the Framework:

• In the section on basic rights:  “Right of women to meaningful political participation, and protection from all forms of violence;” and

• “Right to equal opportunity and non-discrimination in social and economic activity and the public service, regardless of class, creed, disability, gender and ethnicity.”

• In the section on normalization:  “The Parties recognize the need to attract multi-donor country support, assistance and pledges to the normalization process … for return to normal life affecting combatant and non-combatant elements of the MILF, indigenous peoples, women, children, and internally displaced persons.”

This is generally seen as not enough, with much more work to do. We Act 1325 and Asian Circle 1325 both made submissions to the two panels (and for good measure to the International Contact Group). The fact that so much movement has happened on women’s issues – including the construction of a National Action Plan for the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 – is a testament to the long dedication of organizations focusing on this issue.

Professor Ferrer has long been associated with these efforts, so one can expect that while she chairs the government’s side a discussion on women’s concerns will continue as the panels work to finalize four annexes.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines, and represents the Foundation as part of the International Contact Group for the GPH-MILF negotiations. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

On October 19, The Asia Foundation held the Manila launch of the book, Dynamics of Gender and Conflict in Mindanao, written by conflict experts Rufa Guiam and Leslie Dwyer. The release capped the weeklong excitement over the signing of the Framework Agreement on October 15 between the government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). It also provided an opportunity to bring together women and men leaders and advocates from Bangsamoro who witnessed the conflict first-hand to share emotional stories of what this Framework Agreement means to them, and how decades of violent conflict has affected their lives.

During their research, the book authors discovered a rich diversity of women’s peace-building activities in conflict-affected Mindanao. Photo/Karl Grobl

At the book launch, author Rufa Guiam acknowledged that “decades of conflict have wrought substantial changes in women’s lives, as well as in male-female relationships. Women and girls have often borne the brunt of conflict, but have also taken on new roles.” Through their research for the book, the authors discovered a “rich diversity of women’s peace-building activities in conflict-affected Mindanao, and a capacity for mutually enriching dialogue on the prospects for local conflict resolution.” Guiam also emphasized that women’s participation in peace-building efforts should not be limited to resolving local conflicts, but should include participating in formal Track One and Track Two processes. From 1996 to mid-2011, male representation in the GRP’s panel for negotiation with the MILF was 82.6 percent, with two women (Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and Yasmin Busan Lao) currently of the five on the government’s panel. Partly because of civil society’s call to include women in the peace panel, the MILF for the first time in 2011 enlisted the services of Moro women in the ongoing negotiations – including Muslim lawyer Raissa Jajurie as a legal consultant. For the Track Two processes, advocacy efforts should continue to allow women’s networks and civil society groups to monitor the implementation of the UNSCR 1325.

The book release brought together panelists Karen Tanada, women’s rights and peace activist with the Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute; Fatsi Salapuddin of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos; renowned journalist and professor Luz Rimban of Vera Files; and Danton Remoto, head researcher of TV5, who offered comments on the book findings and its timely relevance to the signing of the Framework Agreement.

Fatsi Salapuddin, wearing an all pink dress and hijab (head scarf) emotionally recalled the week’s events. She recalled how on the eve of the signing of the landmark peace agreement, some 150 soldiers and Filipino Christians came together for a running race called, “Hijab Run for Peace: Religious Understanding Now,” an event organized by the Young Moro Professionals Network in support of the framework agreement. Although Fatsi is affiliated with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) from which the MILF split some 20 years ago, she is part of the Bangsamoro community being negotiated by the MILF. As a former NGO worker during the conflict and a government official at the start of the peace agreement, she said she saw all 30 years of her advocacy work flashback before her eyes like a film when she witnessed the signing. She recalled the hardships borne by the Bangsamoro women throughout the conflict years and felt euphoric that finally, peace will come.

Karen Tanada expressed a similar happiness, and said that all the hard work and sacrifices finally bore fruit and resolved to continue to work with them to realize the dream of peace.

Luz Rimban recalled how the many stories she has covered on Muslim Mindanao – its conflict, its men and women torn and uplifted by war, its youth forced to migrate because of the war –  have honed her skills as a journalist and sharpened her appreciation of the nuances of the conflict. She cited the story of Sarah Balabagan, a Filipino contract worker in Saudi Arabia who suffered abuse, as well as the many other women who in order to survive have assumed roles (including moving abroad ) not typical of many Bangsamoro women.

Danton Remoto recalled how he had spent months researching the plight of Bangsamoro women and men in order to contribute to the writing of the script of the film “Bagong Buwan,” (“New Moon”), produced by acclaimed director Marilou Diaz-Abaya, who had just died of cancer at the time of the book launch. He said that the Bangsamoro stories need to be told and retold through the creative arts, films, and novels.

As the book findings show, despite the gender disparity in conflict-affected areas in Mindanao and the challenges faced by women in conflict situations, women have risen from enormous obstacles encountered during the conflict. However, substantial efforts must still be made by the Philippine government, local governments, development partners, and civil society groups to strengthen women’s capacities as peace builders and peace makers in a post-conflict setting, including their participation in peace prevention and peace processes, in the framing of the Basic Law for the Bangsamoro, and continued monitoring of the implementation of the Philippine National Action Plan on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and 1820 which called for women’s full participation in peace-building activities. It is only when women participate in peace processes that a truly sustainable peace can be attained at last in the southern Philippines.

Maribel Buenaobra is The Asia Foundation’s director of Programs in the Philippines. She can be reached at mbuenaobra@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

It has been an exciting and emotional 10 days for the peace process between the Philippine government and the country’s largest rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which looks to end 40 years of conflict that has left a reported 150,000 dead and devastated the economy. It culminated on Monday with an all-star cast witnessing the signing in the Presidential Palace between the two peace panels of the Framework Agreement for the Bangsamoro, witnessed by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III and Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

On Oct. 15, President Aquino signed the Framework Agreement between the MILF and the Philippine government which looks to end 40 years of conflict between the two parties. Photo/Karl Grobl

As you can imagine, a veritable flood of articles rolled out over the by-lines of many respected analysts: Rudy Rodil (parts 1, 2, 3, and 4), Carol Arguillas, Jess Dureza, Tony LaVina (parts 1 and 2), Benedicto Bacani, Bong Montesa, and Pat Diaz, to name a few. Anyone interested in the peace process can spend a lot of very productive time reading through all of this – but I’d like to add a little more to this analysis by focusing on the international dimension, given my role as The Asia Foundation’s representative on the International Contact Group (ICG) for the GPH-MILF peace talks.

One of the tiresome aspects of being on the ICG is the repeated conflation of the role of the ICG with that of “guarantor” and the search for “adequate clout to compel” an agreement. As negotiations have twisted and turned, with pessimism occasionally breaking out, in consultations and press statements we have often been exhorted to pressure the parties to resume negotiations, make progress, take particular substantive stands (“Uphold the MOA-AD”), and reach closure.

In reality, in both design and practice, the ICG is a creature of the two parties and their Third Party Facilitator, Malaysia. My colleagues on the ICG from Conciliation Resources, Kristian Herbolzheimer and Emma Leslie, have written about the hybrid nature of the peace process in which the ICG participates.

Each of the four states (Japan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom) and four international nongovernmental organizations (The Asia Foundation, Conciliation Resources, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, and Muhammadiyah) has its own mandates, programs of activities, and goals with respect to peace in Mindanao. As a body, however, the ICG attends negotiations to watch the formal sessions and technical working groups, speaking when spoken to. We meet on occasion to update each other, to be briefed by one or the other of the panels, or to discuss what we collectively might say when asked for our opinion in the negotiations (which is rarely).

A moment’s reflection will lead to the conclusion that this lack of “clout” is unsurprising. The Philippines is not a failed state. Even when the Organization of the Islamic Conference credibly could threaten to wield the weapon of an oil embargo back in the mid-1970s, then President Ferdinand Marcos easily avoided fully abiding by the 1976 Tripoli Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front. In contemporary Philippines there are many domestic constituencies – both Christian and Muslim – that are more important in the calculations of an elected government than the opinions of some international experts on the peace process, development, and diplomacy.

The MILF, the organized Muslim separatist group currently in negotiations with the government, has been an organized revolutionary movement for some 30 years, surviving many shifts of fortune and occasional armed onslaughts by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. One of its primordial concerns is unity in its ranks, and it successfully instituted in 2003 a succession after the death of its founding Chair, Hashim Salamat.

Neither protagonists is likely to be easily compelled. That said, however, there are clearly roles that can be played by international actors, ways they can help protagonists move toward a negotiated solution that is in the interest of both entities, and connections they can facilitate between domestic stakeholders and the negotiation process. More than any other country in Asia, the Philippines has welcomed international involvement in the resolution of internal conflicts, with currently an elaborate architecture including nine countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Turkey, United Kingdom, Japan, and Norway), two international organizations (the European Union and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation), five international NGOs (the four on the ICG plus Nonviolent Peaceforce on the Civilian Protection Component of the International Monitoring Team), along with three domestic NGOs (Mindanao People’s Caucus, Mindanao Human Rights Action Center, and the Muslim Organization of Government and Other Professionals) that are part of the Civilian Protection Component.

This complex architecture is represented in the below diagram (produced by the Office of the Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process), but even this complexity leaves out the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which has observer status for the negotiation.

While the ICG has undoubtedly been important in negotiations, Malaysia has played a critical role that seems under appreciated, at least if judged by news coverage. The Aquino administration was originally reluctant to have Malaysia continue to provide facilitation, as they had since being invited by former President Arroyo in 2001. However, over the course of 18 months of difficult negotiation, the facilitator (Tengku Dato’ AB Ghafar Tengku Mohamed) gradually won the trust of both parties.

As Prime Minister Najib so eloquently said at the signing ceremony:

“Today, we pay tribute to the quiet bravery of negotiations: to the many years and countless hours spent in search of shared understanding. In confronting their differences and finding common ground.”

This blog is partially based on a talk given on October 12 in Canberra, hosted by the Australian National University.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines, and represents the Foundation as part of the International Contact Group for the GPH-MILF negotiations. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

A fortnight ago I blogged about the energy for peace I found at two very different events in Mindanao. We might now ask: what is the origin of that energy, and of the general surge toward a peace agreement?

At first glance, this may seem to have an obvious answer, since it is clear from citizen surveys that Filipinos in general, and Mindanao residents in particular, prefer peaceful means to resolve issues being raised by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and other Muslim organizations. But, as I have written before, sometimes a small number of people are sufficient to keep a conflict burning. So, why does that not seem to be happening in Mindanao, where clashes between government and Muslim separatist forces have gone down to zero recently?  It is valuable to have some clarity on this issue, as a misreading may have untoward consequences.

One recent analysis put forth the theory that the MILF basically has no choice but to negotiate, as it is “a shadow of its former self.” There are two things wrong with this analysis. The first is that it is incorrect. As the chair of the government panel for peace talks with the MILF tweeted in response to this, “this misunderstands and is an oversimplification of the leadership of the MILF and its relationship to followers.”  These “shadows” managed to bring to one place in their main Camp Darapanan some 200,000 participants in the July 7 Leaders Assembly. (I stand by my estimate, which jibes with those independently arrived at by a member of the government’s ceasefire team and a Moro NGO leader.) An interesting variation on mass mobilization was the next day, when several hundred Bangsamoro leaders dialogued with the MILF. These were not core MILF constituents – I spoke with a number of them – rather, they were what might be termed local notables (teachers, government employees, small traders) from across Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago. They were drawn by the prospect of discussing the future with the organization that currently looks close to an agreement with the government.

The second problem with this analysis is the implication (particularly after the peaceful show of strength in Darapanan) that the only way to demonstrate that the MILF is not a shadow of its former self is by demonstrating strong military action. This alternative is hard for all sides to contemplate:  even what this analysis dismisses as “low-level sporadic attacks” in 2008 resulted in hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons.

In short, the MILF has made a strategic judgment to “pivot toward peace” and is sticking to that direction. Of course there is pressure on the MILF’s negotiating panel and the leadership to actually achieve something – to demonstrate that this peaceful process can attain the goals of their constituency. Such pressure is preferable to outright military action as a method of demonstrating that they are not “shadows of their former selves.”

As befits an open democratic system, we know with much more precision what the government’s motives toward peace are. There is President Aquino’s personal commitment to the legacy of his family – the administration has vowed to bring to closure all the different internal conflicts of the country. At the same time there is the increasing urgency of attaining a “minimum credible defense” against external pressures. What began as a general discussion in PNoy’s first State of the National Address in 2010 of the need to bolster the navy has morphed into a focus on disputes with China in the West Philippine/South China Sea. In that light, a “rebalancing” away from expenditures on domestic insurgencies to territorial defense lends a strong practical aspect to peace talks.

Still, to talk of “the Philippine government” is to oversimplify – since many domestic stakeholders have differing incentives. For instance, as the International Crisis Group has recently documented, Muslim elected local officials – particularly those in the Sulu archipelago – do not necessarily view with equanimity the prospect of an agreement that leaves the MILF in the driver’s seat. Or, while there are business leaders advocating for a peace agreement in order to reassure investors and boost the economy, the Zamboanga Business Conference (which covers the area just outside the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) passed a resolution opposing even participating in a plebiscite about whether to join any new political entity.

The government peace panel is operating in this arena of mixed incentives, and much of their negotiating behavior is in pursuit of an agreement that they can, indeed, implement. In the concept of the “2011 World Development Report: Conflict, Security, and Development,” the government is in pursuit of an “inclusive enough” coalition and so needs to consider the incentives that all stakeholders face.

But there is one question that continues to stump analysts: what incentives are faced by Nur Misuari, the founding chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF – from which the MILF split 30 years ago)?  Professor Misuari, “Maas” as he is respectfully and fondly called, has made his displeasure manifest both with the government’s negotiating with the MILF and with progress towards the full implementation of the Final Peace Agreement signed between the government and the MNLF in 1996.

There have been efforts both to write off Misuari and to bring unity between him and the MILF, or other factions of the MNLF. The fact of the matter is that among ordinary Moros throughout Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, Nur Misuari is widely admired and respected. A durable peace would definitely be bolstered by solving the Misuari puzzle.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines, and represents the Foundation as part of the International Contact Group for the GPH-MILF negotiations. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

For the first time in my life, I am visiting London. Everybody tells me how unusual is the glorious weather we’re enjoying, and that my infatuation with the city might not be as strong if the weather were more normal – gloomy and wet – but I plan to take these first impressions as fixed. And besides, rain failed to dampen the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Of course, I wasn’t here to sightsee. With the support of The Asia Foundation’s partnership agreement with the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) which supports conflict management programs, I have for the past year participated as the Foundation’s representative to the International Contact Group (ICG) for peace talks between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Together with Conciliation Resources (which has a similar partnership with DFID), another international NGO on the ICG, we thought it would be worthwhile to undertake a road trip to explain how the ICG works for the GPH-MILF negotiations. The UK Embassy in the Philippines (also on the ICG) enthusiastically agreed, and this visit (coming just after the visit of President Aquino to the UK) would raise British government awareness of what was being accomplished on the other side of the world.

The core message of our meetings with DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – and of similar meetings in Brussels with European Commission offices and NGOs – was that what had evolved in the GPH-MILF peace process was an innovative hybrid model that brought together both states and non-state actors. This was not a well-planned implementation of some brilliant design, but an organic response to the crises of a prolonged peace process (beginning in 1997) that also attempted to learn the lessons of problems in implementation of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front. MILF founding chair Salamat Hashim is quoted as referring to the hadith, “A believer is not bitten from the same hole twice” – an injunction to learn from experience.

Thus, when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo instituted in 2001 a policy of “All Out Peace” after the “All Out War” of her predecessor Joseph Estrada, the cessation of hostilities included “local monitoring teams.”  When these failed to contain an outbreak of violence in early 2003, in late 2003 there were instituted International Monitoring Teams. These, and other peace process mechanisms, failed to prevent the upsurge of violence in late 2008 after the August debacle of the failed Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain  (MOA-AD) – so the resumption in mid-2009 involved further innovations.

First was the International Contact Group itself, composed of four countries (UK, Japan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia) and four international NGOs (The Asia Foundation, along with Conciliation Resources, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, and Muhammadiyah) applied and were accepted. The MILF sought more “guarantees” of any agreement since they felt the Philippine government had failed to uphold its side of the MOA-AD bargain, while the then-Arroyo administration wanted to increase international involvement partly in response to perceptions that Malaysia’s facilitator role (begun in 2001) was biased by the Philippines’ official territorial claim over the island of Sabah, containing two states of Malaysia.

We argued that this hybrid contact group (the first time worldwide that states and non-states were officially together in this capacity) was a valuable response to the growing complexity of long-running conflicts. In Mindanao, aside from the MILF there is the MNLF, communist rebels, private armed groups and the ever-present threat of persistent clan conflict (rido) in local communities. The experience of several international NGOs on the ground in Mindanao means they can be valuable in their role as “bridges” between the formal peace talks and stakeholders in Mindanao. International NGOs, for their part, benefit from the added legitimacy and clout afforded by officially being teamed with governments that have bilateral ties with the Philippines and therefore access at the highest policy-making levels. The state members of the ICG, on the other hand, would naturally be interacting in their ongoing diplomatic role with government and non-government stakeholders throughout the Philippines, but having regular systematic contact with a select group of international NGOs reduces the “white noise” in communications to help them maximize their understanding of the issues involved.

A similar innovation came when non-government organizations were invited to comprise a “Civilian Protection Component” of the (again Malaysian-led) IMT so that if nation-states pulled out their monitors (as was the case in 2008) at least non-state actors would help reduce the threat to local citizens. Again, giving members of the IMT (mostly members of the military) regular official, confidential, and ongoing access to civil society actors in a formal partnership means that the monitoring mission has reams of information that is needed to understand and respond to reports of incidents of various kinds. Furthermore, the innovation here includes local NGOs (Mindanao People’s Caucus, Mindanao Human Rights Action Center, and MOGOP) as well as an international group, the Nonviolent Peace Force.

Another innovation that continues to gather strength in the GPH-MILF peace talks is addressing gender concerns. The government has long had women involved both on the peace panel and as the cabinet member overseeing peace agreements, the Presidential Advisor on Peace Process (current Teresita Quintos-Deles, previously under the Arroyo administration Annabelle Abaya).  The MILF now regularly includes a female lawyer in its consultants at the negotiating table. More generally, the Philippines was the first country in Asia to adopt a National Action Plan for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. Currently, the government is pushing ahead with more localized action plans in regions of the country that are affected by conflict.

Of course, innovations such as these require that parties to the conflict (in this case the government and the MILF) need to be both open to experiment and flexible – which raised the question in our meetings of how applicable the hybrid model might be to other conflicts around Asia and the world. We stressed that the ICG does not think that we have a model that needs to be followed everywhere – particularly as the hybrid nature of the ICG and the IMT grew organically out of crises in the peace process and in response to local context and dynamics. What we did say, however, was that given that many other conflicts in the region have long durations (we calculate an average 34 years based on the Uppsala Conflict Data Program) that the opportunities for learning can and must be seized to establish lasting peace and development.

Editor’s note: this piece has been edited slightly from the original version.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines, and represents the Foundation as part of the International Contact Group for the GPH-MILF negotiations. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

In March 2012, a few weeks before Thai New Year which is celebrated every April, a series of explosions rocked a district of Thailand’s Songkla province popular with tourists, and a business district in Yala province. Thirteen people were killed and 400 wounded. The bombings shocked the nation, raising more questions about the competence of the Pheu Thai government and the ability of the Royal Thai Army to quell the persistent separatist conflict that affects the three southern border provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat and four districts of adjacent Songkla province.

Nearly 1,500 participants from local communities, government, and armed forces gathered in May for a Peace Festival to discuss key issues in the conflict-affected Deep South.

The region has been plagued for decades by daily shootings, bombings, and other acts of violence that have affected the security and well-being of the Malay-Muslim majority and Thai-Buddhist minority communities. Since the latest cycle of violence in the separatist conflict resumed in 2004, leaving 5,000 dead and over 8,000 injured, successive national governments have pursued a two-pronged strategy of development and security to address the conflict, imposing martial law and deploying over 80,000 armed security personnel in the Deep South.

The recommendations of the National Reconciliation Committee (NRC) established in 2005 –which combined the restoration of civilian justice, recognition of the unique identity of the Malay-Muslim community, and a shift from security solutions to political mitigation – have been only modestly followed through on to date. In fact, according to a 2010 Asia Foundation survey of the Deep South, over one-third of citizens in the region cited the failure of the government to understand the local population as the main cause of the southern conflict. However, over the last few years, central authorities have gradually registered calls from the local community for a greater voice in the peace process. The current administration has adopted a new, three-year strategic plan (2013-2015) that recognizes that the southern conflict is fundamentally ethno-nationalist in nature, departing from past claims that the conflict is motivated by economic inequalities, criminal elements, or international interference, and has begun to embrace key NRC recommendations.

To advance the NRC recommendations and create space for community input in the peace process, The Asia Foundation and 12 local partners launched a grassroots peace recommendation initiative in 2010. The initiative featured a “deliberative dialogue” technique and involved a series of 84 community-level forums in which 3,000 local stakeholders participated – including residents of remote communities that are especially affected by the insurgency movement. Participants included young people, women, religious leaders, government officials, security personnel, young men charged with or detained on suspicion of criminal misconduct related to the conflict, and family members of victims of the conflict. The dialogues allowed local participants to identify the four issues that most seriously weighed on their daily lives: personal and community security; access to justice; education quality; and the high incidence of drug use among young men. A set of four “issue books” similar to white papers were produced. Each issue book presented three alternative resolutions and described actions needed and associated obstacles and trade-offs of each. These books served as the basis for follow-up dialogue sessions, the resolution and recommendations of which were documented in a publication entitled Local Peacemaking: Challenges and Alternatives, which documents areas of common ground and points of disagreement or debate.

One of the priority follow-up actions proposed by local community members, and by women in particular, was the need for mechanisms that enable peaceful co-existence between locals and security officials to ensure personal security. Community members called for the pilot testing of “safety areas” in which communities would assume responsibility for their own security as an alternative to formal military protection. Another recommendation called for the introduction of compulsory cultural and human rights training for security personnel – most of whom are natives of other parts of Thailand and locally recruited armed militia prior to their deployment in the conflict region.

While opinion is divided on the issue of military withdrawal, consensus emerged on the value of adjusting the number of security personnel to an appropriate level below current numbers. Recommendations also focused on the desirability of applying conventional criminal laws and procedures rather than the existing combination of martial and emergency laws, which the community views as vexatious and ineffective. Consensus emerged on the poor quality of government and private Islamic school administration and teaching. Further, as a result of the conflict, many Islamic schools were closed down or subjected to piercing scrutiny by the authorities, suspected of being breeding grounds for insurgents. School-burnings, killing of teachers, and other security challenges have undermined the quality of education. A 2006 study conducted by the Ministry of Education found that only 2 percent of students from the heavily conflict-affected communities of the Deep South were able to graduate from university, and these students scored the lowest in all but one subject on a national test.

Communities, government officials, and security forces share a common concern about the scale of drug use among young men in the South, including addiction to drinks made of krathom – a plant whose leaves can be ground to form a narcotic. Communities recommended that security forces try to adopt a more positive attitude toward the young men as the first step in trying to more effectively reduce drug use, rather than branding them as insurgents.

On May 20, 2012, the two-year dialogue initiative culminated with a Peace Festival convened by The Asia Foundation’s local partners in the seaside community of Saiburi in Pattani province. The festival attracted nearly 1,500 participants from local communities, government agencies, and the armed forces. The opening ceremony included remarks by Police Colonel Tawee Sodsong, secretary general of the Southern Border Provinces Administration Center (SBPAC), the central government agency responsible for the multi-disciplinary civilian administration of the Deep South. Tawee voiced an appreciation of the deliberative dialogue initiative and a commitment to ensuring local recommendations documented in the publication inform SBPAC’s future operations and peace-building initiatives. He agreed that sustainable solutions to the conflict must begin at the kampong or community level. The day-long program included panel discussions on the four key issues, interspersed with cultural performances that highlighted the unique artistic traditions of the Malay-Muslim community. Participants responded to the passionate remarks of discussants in the local dialect with swells of clapping and cheers. [Watch a slideshow of the festival below.]

Widely reported in the local and national media, the Peace Festival included the first-ever, face-to-face discussions between military officials and young men who experienced physical and mental abuse at the hands of security personnel while in detention, with former detainees candidly describing their suffering and the grievances that they have harbored as a result, and military officials apologizing. The forum was further distinguished as the first occasion in which participating military and police officials followed the wishes of the organizers in wearing civilian or local cultural dress and leaving their weapons outside the venue.

The festival closed with the reading of a formal Declaration adopted by the 12 local partners, which said: “We the people of the southernmost provinces have a strong will to take part in ending this sub-national conflict and beg all societal sectors to sincerely support local initiatives … as it might be too late to solely depend on the government.” This impressive and well-received local initiative is a crucial first step along the pathway to peace.

Ruengrawee Pichaikul is The Asia Foundation’s senior program coordinator in Thailand. She can be reached at jieb@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.