(Chiba, Japan)- A huge global conference on peace ended here today affirming support for the Mindanao peace process and echoing civil society calls for the Malaysian International Monitoring Team contingent to stay on.
The Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War accepted a resolution submitted by its lone guest from Mindanao which also sought support for the active participation of civil society and the grassroots in any peace process. The resolution called on all third party government facilitators, mediators, brokers and negotiators to accompany any peace process until a lasting agreement is reached.
(Chiba, Japan)- A huge global conference on peace ended here today affirming support for the Mindanao peace process and echoing civil society calls for the Malaysian International Monitoring Team contingent to stay on.
The Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War accepted a resolution submitted by its lone guest from Mindanao which also sought support for the active participation of civil society and the grassroots in any peace process. The resolution called on all third party government facilitators, mediators, brokers and negotiators to accompany any peace process until a lasting agreement is reached.
Conference Co- Chairman Yoshioka Tatsuya, who is also Director of the Peaceboat that was the main organizer of the conference, said that “peace is important not only for Mindanao but also for the region”. Yoshioka also asked the Malaysians to “be more patient” while calling on the Philippine government to likewise be more sincere in the negotiations.
Yoshioka also called on the Japanese government to do more for peace in the island and likewise convince the Malaysian government to stay on in the IMT. Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda recently announced that Japan should be a “Peace Cooperative State” and should thus put this commitment into more concrete practice.
Some 22,000 people attended the conference which re-affirmed support for the retention of the Article 9 of the Japanese constitution that renounces war as a policy. More than 100 international guests were present. The conference was held amidst pressure from the Bush government and militarist elements within Japanese society to amend the constitution to allow Japan to deploy military forces in Iraq and elsewhere. If Article 9 goes, Japan’s business sector can also start to churn out war materials for export. A recent national survey published by the Asahi Shimbun- Japan’s leading newspaper- has however showed that an overwhelming majority of the Japanese people want Article 9 retained and even replicated around the world.
Meanwhile, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) network in Northeast, South and Southeast Asia expressed concern for the stalled Mindanao peace talks and the reported impending pullout of the Malaysian IMT presence. GPPAC expressed fears that the Malaysian pullout may create conditions to attract elements more prone to violence in the region. GPPAC likewise paid tribute to civil society and citizens efforts in Mindanao to actively engage the peace process.
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