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Visiting UN human rights execs support Mindanao peace process
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Jun 26, 2009 - 11:44:05 AM

MANILA, June 27 (PNA) -– Visiting officials from the United Nations humanitarian headquarters based in New York and their Asia-Pacific section office in Bangkok have expressed full support to the comprehensive peace process pursued by the Philippine government in Mindanao.

A UN delegation led by Agnes Asekenye-Oonyu of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), Section Chief for Asia and the Pacific, recently visited evacuations centers in Maguindanao province and other areas of Central Mindanao, including Cotabato City.

Other members of the delegation were Ann Kristin Brunborg, Pia Hussein, and Sebastian Rhodes-Stampa, a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England who is involved in peacekeeping action in Kosovo and in the Middle East.

Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Avelino “Sonny” I. Razon Jr. has repeatedly said the government is ready to resume peace talks with the MILF.

Earlier this month, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, head of the government peace panel negotiating with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said the government would work to alleviate the plight of evacuees in various evacuation center at the Datu Gumbay Piang Elementary School in the Maguindanaoan town of Datu Piang.

In late November last year, UN officials from the United States and the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (Unicef) in the Philippines, together with the representatives from the international humanitarian group Non-Violent Peace Force (NVPF) also visited the same public school compound.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative to the Secretary General on Children in Armed Conflict (SRSG-CIAC), and Vanessa Tobin of Unicef, conducted dialogues with ceasefire committee officials from both the Philippine government and the MILF during their visit in the provinces of North Cotabato, Shariff Kabunsuan, and Maguindanao.

“We want to know the gaps and their needs,” Oonyu was quoted by the Philippines News Agency as saying.