![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.japantoday.com\/images\/size\/x\/2012\/10\/photo_1349437747064-1-0.jpg\")
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Philippine President Benigno Aquino announced Sunday that a deal had been reached with Muslim separatist rebels to end a decades-long insurgency that has left more than 150,000 people dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis framework agreement paves the way for a final and enduring peace in Mindanao,\u201d Aquino said, referring to the southern third of the Philippines that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front regards as its ancestral homeland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brings all former secessionist groups into the fold. No longer does the Moro Islamic Liberation Front aspire for a separate state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aquino said that the agreement paves the way for the creation of a new semi-autonomous Muslim region in parts of Mindanao, which is one of the country\u2019s most resource-rich and fertile areas.<\/p>\n
However, the national government would retain control over defense and security, as well as foreign and monetary policy.<\/p>\n
Aquino said the agreement, achieved after many rounds of peace talks in Malaysia, would have to be ratified by the people of the Philippines through a plebiscite.<\/p>\n
Aquino gave no time frame for when the final peace with the 12,000-strong MILF would be achieved, although his aides had previously said they were aiming for before the president ends his term in mid-2016.<\/p>\n
There are roughly four million Muslims in Mindanao, which they see as their ancestral homeland dating back to Islamic sultanates established before Spanish Christians arrived in the 1500s.<\/p>\n
The MILF and other Muslim rebel groups have been fighting for independence or autonomy in Mindanao since the early 1970s.<\/p>\n
The rebellion has claimed more than 150,000 lives, most in the 1970s when all-out war raged, and left large parts of Mindanao in deep poverty.<\/p>\n
The MILF is the biggest and most important rebel group left, after the Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace pact with the government in 1996. <\/p>\n
Photo: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Philippine President Benigno Aquino announced Sunday that a deal had been reached with Muslim separatist rebels to end a decades-long insurgency that has left more than 150,000 people dead. \u201cThis framework agreement paves the way for a final and enduring peace in Mindanao,\u201d Aquino said, referring to the southern third of the Philippines that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}