Women international peace advocates go to Basilan
Organizers and members of the International Women's Peace and Solidarity Mission To Basilan and Mindanao arrive Friday morning, August 10, 2007, at the Zamboanga City International Airport.

A peace group, called an International Women's Peace Mission, arrived in Zamboanga City Friday to personally see the prevailing peace and security situation in Basilan, one of the five provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) affected by conflict.

The peace mission team will stay in Basilan province from August 10-14.

The visit dubbed as the "International Women's Peace Mission to Basilan", is aimed at checking the well being of women and children in the province who are affected by the on and off conflict between the military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The mission also aims to prevent further escalation of the conflict in the province.

The mission's organizers are members of the South Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict and the Asia Pacific Solidarity Coalition.

The mission is composed of a 12-member team coming from the countries of East Temor, Thailand, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

While in Basilan, the women's group will hold a dialogue with their local counterparts in the local government units and interview some military top officials.

The team will also conduct a forum with representatives of Peace Advocates Zamboanga, Inter-religious Solidarity for Peace Movement and different government agencies on Aug. 10 at the Magbasa Kita Foundation building along R.T Lim Boulevard.

The group described the peace mission as a concrete expression of their women's assertion of their rights to live with dignity in a peaceful environment, with their sense of security intact by showing that women are against all forms of violence and war and that they a very important role in resolving conflicts.

The group stressed the peace mission in Basilan is in line with the United Nation Security Council Resolution no. 1325 on women, peace and security. It is expected the group will release an official statement after their visit in Basilan.

Press Release

The Southeast Asia Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict(GPPAC-SEA) and the Asia Pacific Solidarity Coalition (APSOC) is organizing an international peace mission as a quick-response initiative to the critical peace and security conditions prevailing in Basilan.

The Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID), an international solidarity organization based in Davao City, is the secretariat of both the GPPAC-SEA and APSOC.

Scheduled for four days, August 10-13, the international peace mission will be conducted in collaboration with the Mindanao Peaceweavers (MPW), the umbrella organization of nine peace networks all over Mindanao.

Basilan grabbed international attention again when some 14 Marines of the Philippine military were killed in an encounter with the forces of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 10 of them were beheaded and mutilated, last July 10.

The MILF admitted the killing of the Marines in what it claimed as "a legitimate encounter" but denied the beheading and mutilation of the slain soldiers. The government maintained that the Marines who were on patrol in search for the kidnapped Italian missionary Fr. Giancarlo Bossi and his abductors were "ambushed" by the combined forces of MILF and the notorious Abu Sayyaf.

After the MILF refused to surrender those responsible of the deaths of the 14 Marines, the government gave the go-signal to the military to launch "punitive actions" against the Moro rebels suspected to the killings and subsequent "barbaric acts."

Peace advocates throughout Mindanao and the international community urged government to suspend the military offensives to give way to an international fact-finding body to determine what really happened.

In a command conference held in Zamboanga City last July 27, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the suspension of the military offensives in Basilan for three days in order to give the joint government and MILF team enough time to conduct investigations in Basilan.

As the clouds of war become imminent, the people of Basilan are worried about their situation. Reports coming from the Bantay Ceasefire, a grassroots ceasefire monitor, indicated that around 7,000 persons are now being displaced due to the uncertain peace and security situation in Basilan.

As a rapid response mechanism, according to Solidarity and Networking Program Coordinator Memen Lauzon-Gatmaytan of IID, the women peace mission is an expression of solidarity to the Basilenos and hopefully helps avert the looming war in the island-province.

The mission will be led by women peace advocates and women members of civil society organizations in the Asia-Pacific region to highlight the important contribution women play in the resolution and prevention of violent conflicts and emphasize the solidarity of women to fellow women and children victims of the current violence in Basilan.

Lauzon-Gatmaytan pointed out that it is a given fact that women and children are the most vulnerable sector in conflict situations. Data have shown that countless women and children all over the world suffer the trauma of war. For the most part they are civilians caught in the crossfire and are eventually left alone to care for the needs of the family and the community.

It is in this context that the Women's Peace Mission to Basilan is being conceived for women to insist that war or any armed conflict and violence is most damaging to them, Lauzon-Gatmaytan explained, adding that "the all-women peace mission is a concrete expression of the women's assertion of their right to live with dignity in a peaceful environment, with their sense of security intact."

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security that reaffirms "the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building.

The Resolution stresses the importance of women's equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, and the need to increase their role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution."

As studies have shown, in all conflict situations women have demonstrated astonishing resourcefulness and resilience in coping with the difficulties. They have shown remarkable strength in adversity and ingenuity in such situations.

Obviously, war had changed the status of women, whether within the family or in the community, as the situation obliges them to take on different functions and play different roles.

Therefore, it is important for women to act in solidarity with other women who are in conflict situation, Lauzon-Gatmaytan concluded.