(This is the writer’s maiden column that may regularly appear in the New Luwaran website. It is entitled “By the River Side�). The DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration) is not well understood b some high officials in the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government. For instance, when the President announced that the new policy shift in the peace process consist of dialogues with grassroots communities and DDR in dealing with armed groups, Press Secretary Jesus Dureza similarly made a press statement that the new paradigm shift of the government with respect to armed groups is Disarmament, Demobilization and Rehabilitation? It appears that Secretary Dureza did not know what is exactly meant by DDR when he substituted the initial “R� in of the DDR as “Rehabilitation�.

Companero Jess Dureza, we suggest that before you talk about technical terms, you first check with the experts. No offense my good and dear friend. Perhaps the media may just have quoted you out of context. I cannot believe that a brilliant lawyer like could make such error.

DDR is a post-conflict agenda in order to sustain the peace process after the parties to the dispute have reached a negotiated political settlement to address the root causes of the conflict. It is never an agenda preparatory to reaching a negotiated political settlement through a peace agreement in order to sustain its implementation. It has never been used as a pre-condition for peace negotiations. As currently practiced in several international conflict resolutions, no rebel group or any legitimate liberation movement has ever agreed to talk, discuss or negotiate a DDR preparatory to reaching and entering into a negotiated political settlement that addresses the root causes of the conflict.

The GRP-MILF Peace Process was moving forward towards that direction had the MOA-AD that the GRP and MILF negotiating peace panels have initialed on July 27, 2008 at Kuala Lumpur and whose signing was aborted by the TRO issued by the Supreme Court on the eve of its scheduled signing at Putrajaya, Malaysia on August 5, 2008. For a better insight on how the DRR works, let me quote the article by Kristian Herbolzeimer, an expert on DDR that was posted in the Mindanews web/MindaViews (September 16, 2008):

“When a government puts DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration) as a precondition for talks it means it is not serious about political negotiations. Rebel groups take up arms to challenge a given political situation, not to negotiate how and when to hand them over. Of course the issues of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration have to be an important component of any peace negotiation. But no armed opposition group will discuss DDR before the root-causes of the conflict have been recognized and addressed.� (Italics supplied)

Kristian further observes:

“According to DDR 2008, a study by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, there are currently 19 DDR-processes going on in the world (see www.escolapau.org). According to the report: “DDR is part of broader agreements over justice, police reform, the restructuring of armed forces, elections, political change, etc., as negotiated in a peace process. Therefore, DDR is part of a wider strategy of peace building.� The European Union, who monitored the DDR process in Aceh, recognizes DDR to be “a key area for EU peace building� in the context of post-war reconstruction.

A second thing to bear in mind is that DDR is a two-way process. Not only rebel forces have to dismantle as a result of a peace agreement; also formal military have to adjust to post-conflict situations, reducing their budget and their combat-capacity to a time of peace. This process is commonly referred to as Security Sector Reform (SSR), and is one of the most sensitive and difficult steps in a peace process (as can be seen in the case of East Timor). Some 350.000 out of more than one million combatants who are currently demobilizing in the world are members of government armed forces.

Third, there is a need for strong coherence in government policy. Mindanao is already one of the most densely-armed places in the world. The government does not send good signals when it puts pressure on the MILF to disarm while at the same time handing out guns to civilians. Instead, as the aforementioned report argues, DDR programs usually include provisions for reducing the overall amount of arms available, through three main measures: by “decreasing demand (or influencing the motivations which generate need for arms); secondly, by controlling the existing supply of arms (through legislation and practices which restrict their use); and thirdly, by restraining surpluses (through the collection, reduction, and destruction of arms in the hands of the civil population, in illegal armed groups, and in government arsenals)�. The recent initiative of the Provincial Government of Sulu to disarm CVO's and to ban guns is a move in the right direction, which stands in contrast to the PNP's program that is distributing 13,000 guns to civilians.

Governments have a natural tendency to reject political talks and to limit negotiations to an issue of dissolving the armed groups. This is specially the case in countries where some sort of democracy is in place that helps defenders of the status quo to argue for rebels to respect the Constitution and to join mainstream politics. The most common gesture is to offer amnesty to those who want to abandon the armed struggle. This strategy does work in some contexts, when rebel groups are not politically motivated but instead focus on criminal activity for their personal benefit. Africa is a scenario where these kinds of transactions are common. It may also have some incidence when either the government has a strong democratic legitimacy and/or the rebel group is almost defeated (like the talks in 2006 between the Spanish government and the Basque separatist ETA). But this strategy has limited effects on those (certainly few) groups who are strongly politically motivated, like FARC in Colombia or NPA and MILF in the Philippines.

The recent move from the Philippines' government to “refocus� talks in order to concentrate on dialogue with communities instead of dealing with the MILF is framing the issue of the “moro problem�, as an either/or equation. Instead, as many have urged for, government and MILF should uphold talks while at the same time be open to the voice and concerns of those potentially affected by the outcomes of the talks. If armed conflict could be addressed simply talking to the communities there would be no need for political negotiations anywhere in the world.�

Kristian finally observes with some reservatins to both Parties:
“The country is again at a crossroads in terms of peace talks. If it ignores the MILF as a political interlocutor there is a high risk of falling back to a new all-out-war. If it is genuinely interested in keeping the peace process alive, the government needs to live-up to its commitment with the MILF.
To be sure, the MILF also bears its responsibility over the current crisis-situation. Both parties actually share the challenge to reach out and to strengthen the confidence of the broader public opinion towards the talks they have been conducting for the last years. It is troubling to observe that instead of working together to broaden the peace-constituency, the two parties focus on blaming each other, thus eroding the confidence that has taken so many years to build.� (Kristian Herbolzheimer is a research fellow at the Initiatives for International Dialogue. He served as deputy director of the Program of Peace Processes at the School for a Culture of Peace in Barcelona from 2000-2007.)

The views and opinion of Kristian Herbolzheimer on DDR are very enlightening and this could serve as important inputs in the discussions on DDR, among others. In the next issue, we shall take the MILF initial reaction on DDR. #

(Atty. Mohd. Musib M. Buat is a member of the MILF Negotiating Peace Panel who had actively participated in the discussions of the MOA-AD during the start of the negotiations on the Aspect of Ancestral Domain of the GRP-MILF Agreement on Peace of 2001 in 2005. He first chaired the MILF Technical Working Group and eventually became a regular member of the MILF Peace Panel. He finished his law degree from the University of the Philippines in 1967 and admitted to the Philippine Bar the following year. He has served the government in various capacities for 30 years until he opted to avail of his voluntary retirement in 1998. He last served the government as Presiding Commissioner of the National Labor Commission, Fifth Division, Department of Labor and Management.)