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Speech
of Prof. Nur Misuari
During the Consultative Assembly Meeting in Zamboanga City
on November 29-30, 1999
Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.
Brothers
and sisters, our distinguished brother H.E. Ambassador Abu
Hartono and his collegues,
assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu.
After listening to his Excelllecy’s speech before
us here, many thing have been clarified. The vital
importance to us in his speech was the enlightenment he
tried to give to us with respect to the treatment of the
government of Indonesia towards its minority group.
As I could read from his speech, he mentioned one
example like the Hindus who constitute barely one percent
but there is no government in Indonesia that does not have
a Hindu Minister.
We
here in the Philippines, we have always been proud of
being a democratic society. But with respect to the
minority people like us, there is no such thing as
democracy. There is a dictatorship. The relationship
between the majority and the minority is one of
dictatorship. Can you imagine in the country like
Indonesia while you have a Catholic General in the person
of Gen. Muldani
not to say of Gen. Panggabian before, who was
wielding the
most powerful position in the government next only to the
President. He’s a Catholic and the Catholics are barely
less than 10% including the Protestants together.
Panggabian was a Protestant. From ERIANBARAKS,
H.E.(Hartono) has told me there is a 4 star general from
ERIANBARAKS and so with Aceh. This is real democracy. And
the proposition to give them, broad and wide ranging
autonomy should be equaled here in Mindanao.
Before
we used to criticize Indonesia, especially during the time
of the late President Sukarno. We said that he was acting
as if he had all the power on his hands. We always loved
to criticize him, we here in the Philippines as if the
people did not enjoy any rights at all. But here in the
Philippines, because we don’t have representation in the
Philippine Senate, out of 24 Senators there is no one
single Muslim Senator, no single highland Senator. In the
cabinet of H.E. President Estrada and the previous one, no
single Muslim, no single indigenous leader. In the Supreme
Court, (cosum?), zero and in the Court of Appeals, there
are only two and they are retiring in December next month.
In fact, I’m already invited to a farewell party of
these gentlemen, so we’ll have (cosum?) again. And so on
and so forth, we have no representation and we are always
saying that “this is a democratic country.” To me as I
have always said, yes maybe democracy among those who
monopolize state power particularly the people of Luzon
with due respect to our friends, those who could
understand us in our predicament here. But democracy with
respect to the minority, this is (cosum?) this is
zero because there can be no democracy without
representation of the people.
The
13 columnists organized themselves in defiance of their
mother country, the empire of Great Britain and overthrew
the colonial yoke and they became independent. They just
declared one very very simple principle, they said “no
taxation without participation”. We can say here in
Mindanao, no taxation without representation can be
re-echoed here, that was how many centuries ago. We
thought we have been learning, what democracy is like. We
are happy to say in the universities that we have a
representative kind of democracy. Is there any
representation on our part in the Senate, in the Office of
the President, in the Supreme Court and so on and so
forth, nothing. Is this democracy? Where is representative
democracy there?
Indonesia has just emerged from the turbulence of their past,
now they’re able to give example to the outside world.
The Armed Forces of Indonesia is 500,000 strong, almost as
big as the total population of East Timor but look, they
have given independence. They are now on a transitional
period. They could have wiped them out to the last man. In
Aceh now they are offering them. Earlier H.E. (Hartono)
was telling me not only 50% maybe 75%, maybe, that’s
negotiable. And I’m very happy to note that the
information that we gathered yesterday which was subject
of a brief deliberation in our session here has been
confirmed by H.E. (Hartono) that indeed brother Gus Dur
wants us to visit our brothers in Aceh to help assuage
them not necessarily persuade them but assuage them, to
quite - - - their soul and to tell them our experiences
here.
The
Aceh-Sumatra Liberation Movement has no comparison to our
strength here, it’s between heaven and earth. (TINGKO
DITEROS?) is like a brother to me, we used to eat together
and so with most of the cadri officers of this movement.
Now look, because
Indonesia has become so flexible and so tolerant because
of the wise kind of leadership they have, leadership base
on the recognition of the fundamental rights of the people
which is the essence of democracy and which is enshrined
in the charter of the United Nation and in many
Resolutions of the General Assembly of the United Nation
and also enshrined in the Charter of the Arab League of
the Organization of African Unity and of course in the
Islamic Charter of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference, “recognition of the fundamental rights of
the people.” This is the highest law of the universe
today. But here in this so-called democratic country, the
best we could expect is a lip service acceptance. Because
they want to maintain the hegemony over everything. They
don’t want to recognize our fundamental rights. All what
we get is nothing but lip service.
I
fought for more than twenty years of my most precious part
of my life and I entered into this Peace Agreement in
behalf of my brothers and the Gausbaobog of the MNLF of the Bangsamoro Jihad Fi Sabilillah hoping that
we could use autonomy as an instrument for ending the war
and inaugurating the era of durable and lasting
peace in Mindanao. But until now it is sad to note
that the idea of genuine autonomy is as illusive to me as
illusive as ever. My heart is restless, because I am not
so sure just exactly what is in the store for us in the
forth coming referendum which they want to stampede
through their electoral process. They want to produce
wrong and bad result. That’s why they are in hurry to
have that referendum so that they can dictate on the
outcome of that referendum.
They want us to have a referendum so that the people will
count us down because we have not yet produce anything
visible let alone beneficial to the people. How can you
expect them to support us in the referendum? Referendum
is a suicidal on our part. I would rather go back to war
than to have a referendum here. Unless I’m
satisfied that that referendum will deliver genuine
autonomy to our people there will be no referendum in
Mindanao, Insha Allah. They have violated our Peace
Agreement, time and again we can not accept another
violation, never. I will stick my life with this. I will
not allow anyone to humiliate us through their dirty
electoral process. So I would like this message to be sent
to all corners of the country in the presence of H.E. (Hartono).
We want to be treated as human beings with honor and
dignity. And we want people to comply with the Peace
Agreement. If anyone will abuse the Peace Agreement then
we reserve the right to say goodbye to that Peace
Agreement. So I hope I captured the sentiment of our
people . We have maligned for so long. We have been abused
for so long despite the fact that we have been fighting
for over 400 years of our lives still people can not
understand what
we stand for. It’s about time that we open their eyes
and their ears and their conscience.
I
am saying this in the presence of our brother here, so
that when H.E. will return home he will not misunderstand
us and Indonesia in his capacity as Chairman of the
Ministerial Committee of the Six will not misunderstand us
either. Through Indonesia, I would like to plea with our
brothers in the Islamic world, 56 Muslim countries
representing 1.5 billion of the population of the world
and all our brothers and friends in Africa, non-Islamic
Africa and Europe and all those, we ask them to understand
us. We have sacrificed everything in order to comply with
the wise judgement and advises of the Organization of
Islamic Conference. But until now dear brothers, I am
sorry to say that I don’t see any sign of fulfillment of
the obligation of their government to produce genuine
autonomy for us. Without genuine autonomy for us the Peace
Agreement can not survive for one single moment. We can
accept to become part of this country only if we are
treated properly, that they recognize our fundamental
rights just like all other Filipinos that we are not
treated as if we are third class citizens or no class at
all. How in the world could we accept a Senate without a
Muslim, how in the world could we accept an executive
office without a Muslim or a highlander there. How can we
accept the Armed Forces without a single general from the
highlanders and the Muslims. I have been pleading with
them. There are more than a hundred generals, not one is a
Muslim and not one is a Highlander. Why? Because until now
they don’t trust us because they don’t take us as a
part of the country. They only want to govern us and
occupy our lands and to expropriate our resources. We
cannot be keeping all of these in our hearts we must tell
so that they will not blame us. And I don’t want also
anyone to provoke any war in Mindanao. Our people have
suffered too much and too much is too much. We should not
allow ourselves, our people, we should not expose them to
the vagaries, to the whims and caprices of those generals
who want to get new star at the cost of the lives of the
people and the people of Mindanao as a whole.
I want change,
change in the attitude. Now
they have prepared, I think they have organized a
constitutional group to study the constitution. And there
is no single Muslim, let alone a Highlander in this group.
They are repeating the mistake of former Pres. Corazon
Aquino when she formed the constitutional commission. I
was touring around Mindanao, we were at the height of our
peace process suddenly came the pronouncement from here,
constitutional commission to be composed of 50 people were
to be formed. And they did. And I was asked Mr. Chairman
in a big meeting attended by thousands and thousands of
people, how do you react to the formation. I said I don’t
recognize this constitutional commission nor do I
recognize the constitution that will come from them. How
can you recognize when you are not participating at all or
you are not allowed to participate. They just make the
constitution and impose it. Ram it down our throat. They
just ram it down our throat to show that there is really
no democracy in this country for us. If there is no
democracy for us there is no future for us. No future for
us.
So
I thank H.E. for this important message because for a long
time now we have been keeping this sentiment in our heart
and I hope the country will awaken to this. So once again
excellency, on behalf of your brothers here, we thank you
and your colleagues, and this evening Insha Allah, we will
manifest in our humble and modest way our sense of
gratitude to you. I know you don’t need it but we need
it because Rasullah Sallawahi Wassalam was quoted as
saying “La yashkurullah man la yashkurunnas”, he who
does not grateful
to his Creator if he is not grateful to his fellow being.
This is the guideline for us. Thank you for listening to
me.#
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