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MPI 2000 • PHILIPPINES Growing branches from a healthy tree trunk
THE ORIGINS of the first peacebuilding institute in Asia can be traced to a conversation in the home of John Paul and Wendy Lederach when they lived near EMU in 1998. John Paul was then the visionary behind EMU’s 4-year-old Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI). Myla Leguro recalls joining seven other Filipinos around the Lederachs’ dining room table to talk about setting up a peacebuilding institute modeled after SPI in Mindanao. It would be located in the heart of the southern region of the Philippines where violent conflict had raged for generations.1 Two years later, the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute (MPI) began holding summer training sessions, initially underwritten by Catholic Relief Services and Mennonite Central Committee. Two seasoned SPI instructors flew to the Philippines to teach at MPI’s inaugural year: Nancy Good (Sider), a social worker and an EMU faculty member, and Mohammed Abu-Nimer, a Muslim-Palestinian who had recently finished his PhD in the United States.2 Over the next dozen years, as MPI grew to have more than 1 The eight Filipinos were: two Mindanao bishops, Abp Ledesma and Bp Dela Cruz; two Muslim religious leaders, Alim Elias Macarandas (deceased) and Alim Julabbi; two Civil Society Organization peace advocates, Guiamel Alim and Deng Giguiento; and two Catholic Relief Services staffers, Myla Leguro and Peter Rothrock. 2 Mohammed Abu-Nimer went on to found his own peacebuilding institute at American University in Washington D.C., which ceased functioning in 2013, as described on page 44.
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1,800 alumni, Mindanao gradually moved from being convulsed by near-constant warfare to experiencing a fragile peace across much of the island. In March 2014, the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed a comprehensive peace agreement, which paved the way for a new Muslim autonomous entity called “Bangsamoro.”3 Top-level peace negotiations had occurred over many decades, facilitated by leaders from largely Muslim countries. From 1976 to 1996, Indonesia facilitated the peace talks. From 1997 to the present, Malaysia has done so. Yet these negotiations also fell apart repeatedly – until the most recent series of talks leading to the 2014 agreement. How much credit for the current shift toward peace is traceable to the efforts of MPI in training hundreds of peacebuilders – who, in turn, trained or influenced thousands of others through their religious organizations, educational systems, neighborhoods, tribes, government agencies, military networks and nonprofit organizations? 3 Political and social hurdles remain for this agreement: the Philippine Congress must ratify it, followed by a plebiscite of voters in the affected region. A major setback occurred January 25, 2015, when the elite “Special Action Force” of the Philippine National Police launched an anti-terrorist operation in an area occupied by Muslim rebel groups. The operation was interpreted as a broader attack on groups that had agreed to a ceasefire. Fighting ensued. At the end of the day, 44 police and 23 rebels lay dead. Despite this, many leaders have urged that the peace process continue.