DDR? by Kristian Herbolzheimer / MindaNews

Kristian Herbolzheimer
Tuesday, 16 September 2008 07:07

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/13 Sept) — 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 oposition group will discuss DDR before the root-causes of the conflict have been recognized and addressed.

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, recognises 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 refered 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.

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 genuinly 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.