Improved prospects for peace

Even as peace negotiations, at least with the two major insurgent groups—the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the CPP-NPA-NDF—seem to have hit some snags, hopefully temporarily, the outlook for peace seems to be rosier in the rest of the region.

In Nepal, there has been what some call a “historic breakthrough” with the signing of an agreement among the country’s four political parties to integrate some 6,500 former Maoist guerrilla fighters into the Nepalese Armed Forces. The approximately 12,000 other fighters who will not be joining the Nepalese military will receive cash assistance. The agreement is seen as paving the way for the long-delayed enactment of a new Constitution.

The Nepalese government and military had been fighting a Maoist rebellion for decades, and following the fall of the monarchy amid popular protests, the communist rebels called an end to armed struggle in 2006. In subsequent elections, the leader of one of the Maoist factions, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, emerged as prime minister, although he stepped down from power in 2009 following a controversial campaign to oust the head of the Nepalese armed forces. Prachanda remains the leader of the biggest Maoist bloc in government.

The integration of the Maoist forces was hailed by the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) as “providing an Asian solution to an Asian problem without outside interference.” ICAPP founding chair former Speaker Jose de Venecia, co-chair Chung Eul-yong of Korea, former Sen. Mushahid Hussain Sayed of Pakistan, and Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, conferred earlier with four of Nepal’s former deputy prime ministers before the agreement was signed.

De Venecia compared the Nepalese agreement to the “Cambodian model” where Khmer Rouge forces were integrated into the Cambodian Army, and even to the integration of more than 7,000 troops of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) into the Philippine armed forces following the 1996 peace agreement.

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“There is no substitute for creative patience and practical reconciliation steps if we are to achieve the peace dividends of the Asian Century,” the ICAPP leaders said in a statement.

Indeed, there remain many conflicts, of varying degrees of intensity and violence in Asia. Aside from the two major insurgencies confronting government in the Philippines, there are the conflict over the Spratlys; the disputes over the Paracels between China and Vietnam, over the Senkaku Straits between China and Japan in the China Sea; the differences between the Red Shirts and Yellow Shirts in Thailand; the conflict over Kashmir between India and Pakistan; and talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in light of the announced US withdrawal.

Making the settlement of these disputes feasible is the recent endorsement of both ruling and opposition parties in Asia of the creation of the Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council.

First proposed by De Venecia, the creation of the council was hailed as a “primary need of the new political order… to heal society’s wounds and lay the basis for political, economic and social reforms that will endure, because they are rooted in truth and justice.”

Two weeks ago, says De Venecia, President Jose Ramos Horta and Premier Xanana Gusmao of East Timor told him that they would sponsor a meeting of the council in Dili by April next year “to highlight the successful peace and reconciliation between Indonesia and East Timor in spite of the massacres of the previous years.”

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Despite the passage of a law in 1999 banning the use of incinerators for general wastes, and the use of incinerators for medical waste in 2003, the country continues to pay close to $2 million a year for a 15-year-old medical waste incineration project.

The government of the Philippines and Austria entered into the P503-million agreement in 1996 to provide medical waste incinerators to 26 public hospitals around the country. And yet, despite the fact that these incinerators are no longer being used, “another year will pass and we are still paying for a loan that should have been diverted to other health care needs and services,” asserted Merci Ferrer, head of Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia, which has led the fight against incineration of medical waste.

“Government agencies such as the Department of Health, Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) lack the initiative to explore other alternative technologies to properly handle waste,” said Ferrer. “They seem bent on pushing for the incineration of medical wastes when hospitals all over the country have proven that proper waste management is possible without resorting back to incineration,” she added.

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In 2007, she added, Health Care Without Harm and other health groups lobbied the national government for the allocation of P100 million  in the 2008 budget of the DOH “for the purchase of autoclaves that will be used to disinfect wastes,” said Ferrer. But even though the allocation was approved and included in the 2008 General Appropriations Act, it was never released.

“P100 million is a small amount of money compared to the billions of loans and ‘investments’ that the government is entering to bring back incinerators,” said Ferrer. “Or even compared to the $2 million we are allocating for incinerator debt payments.”

One would have to ask why, despite existing laws expressly banning the use of incinerators for waste disposal, including medical waste, government functionaries seem bent on ignoring the law and bringing back hospital incinerators. Do they not breathe the same air we all do?