COTABATO CITY - Peace advocates in Mindanao are consolidating themselves to form a big lobby group that will appeal to Malaysian officials and pressure the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to get back to the negotiation table and strive to strike an agreement that would solve the decades-old armed conflict in the southern Philippines.

The group, naming itself Peaceweavers, will convene in this city on Monday and call on all Filipinos to help them lobby for the Malaysian government to fast-track the preparations for the hosting of the talks after both the government and the MILF declared they are already prepared for the resumption of the negotiations and are only waiting for the host country to facilitate the dialogue.

The formal talks between the government and the MILF have been stalled for three years, October 2001.

Lawyer Mary Ann Arnado, spokesman of Peaceweavers, said, “All the conditions for the resumption of the formal peace negotiations between the government and the MILF are already in place,” referring to the implementation of the cease-fire agreement between both camps; the dropping of the criminal charges against MILF leaders who had earlier been charged with the bombings at the Davao International Airport and the Davao wharf, which killed tens of civilians in Davao City; and the pullout of military forces in some identified areas influenced by the rebel group.

Since the formal talks were stalled, the government continued to pursue back-channel talks with the MILF leaders, but Arnado’s group was not amenable to it, saying it would deny nongovernment organizations and communities of their participation in crafting the kind of peace agreement that “we want being the major stakeholders of peace.”

“We want formal peace talks that we can monitor and where we can participate,” stressed Arnado in a phone interview from her residence in Davao City.

“Further delay in the negotiation would be denying Mindanao its long sought-after peace,” Arnado, who is also an offcicial of the Initiative for International Dialogue, added.