Transcript of
U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone’s interview
over Channel 21’s
ANC News Live with Ricky Carandang at 8 p.m.
July 7, 2004

Ricky Carandang: Joining us on the phone to clarify a recent report attributed to him is the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, Francis Ricciardone. Mr. Ambassador, good evening:

Ambassador Ricciardone: Good evening Ricky. It’s a pleasure to be back on your show and back in the Philippines. How are you?

Carandang: I’m fine. It’s nice to hear from you again. I heard you’ve been traveling in the Middle East…

Ambassador: Yes. I’ve been to Washington and I made a few trips to Iraq over the past several months that I’ve been away.

Carandang: Sir, there was – let’s get right down to it. There was a report that the United States withdrew some $30 million in development aid which was targeted for areas in Mindanao. You were reported as having said that part of the reason for the withdrawal of the aid was a sense, again correct me if I’m wrong but from what I gathered in the report, a sense that the peace talks were going either too slowly or that there seem to be a lack of sincerity on the part of the MILF in pursuing the negotiations. Is this an accurate report, Sir?

Ambassador: Not entirely. If you want to see the full exact text, you can check our Embassy website and you’ll see the full text of my interview with the Foreign and Overseas Correspondents Association of the Philippines yesterday. The fact is we continue to offer our support if the MILF wishes to join in the peace process with the government. The Government of the Philippines has bent over backwards, from what we can see, over the past year to make clear it wants to advance the peace talks. And we’d like to support that with development assistance. What I did make clear is just a matter of our budgeting process: Congress makes money available for a certain period of time. In the year since Hashim Salamat wrote his letter to President Bush -- and then unfortunately the letter was written during his dying days and he passed -- that peace process has not gone off the ground. The multiple – I guess the collegial leaders of the MILF -- have apparently not taken up the offer of the government to really get into a serious conversation towards a settlement. There was progress, as I pointed out. The level of violence has gone down and that is a good thing. There have been talks about talks, and that’s a good thing.

But what we’ve not been able to do, through our Agency for International Development or through the United States Institute of Peace, is to expand our development programs into the areas where the MILF has its constituencies. We’d love to be able to do that still, but we’ve not been able to that. So, what we’ve done, instead, is to continue our programs in most parts of Mindanao, and with those parties in Mindanao that welcome development assistance and welcome private investment as well as official development support. We’re working there and will continue to do that.

Carandang: Sir, but with regard specifically to the $30 million dollars, are you saying that it was set aside ready for use by the MILF or the government or whoever it is, and because it had not been touched over a period of time, the budgeting process calls for it be reallocated?

Ambassador: The budgeting process made funds available for a set period of time, specifically to the end of our fiscal year, which is September of this year. And it should be used for the purpose specified, or we could go back to Congress and use it in another way. Now, we’ve worked hard to preserve that funding for use in the Philippines and specifically in Mindanao, so it will not be lost to our broader aid program for support of the Philippines.
But some portion of it will not be available in the MILF areas. Now, if the MILF does follow up, and the news reports are true that the MILF is going to work with the government to establish the conditions of peace and security in Mindanao, and get rid of the outlawed organization and the terrorist organizations that the U.N. determined such as the Jemaah Islamiya, well that’s good news if it’s true. That means people who want to invest in that part of the Philippines and do development assistance work will be able to do so. And we hope that we’ll still be able to have very substantial resources to sustain a peace process that the MILF might choose to join with the Government.

Carandang: But there is -- or it may not have been related to the $30 million -- but there is a sense, I’m picking up a sense from you Sir that you feel the MILF could be moving a little bit faster with the talks than they are now?

Ambassador: Oh, absolutely. A year ago, we could have been building roads, and refurbishing schools, building solar dryers, and granaries, and irrigation projects, and helping with micro-finance and working with Well Family clinics, and doing all the things we’re doing elsewhere in Mindanao, in the areas where the MILF communities are. We could have done that a year ago, we would have been glad to, but the conditions did not permit that to happen. We’d love to see those conditions come about now. Why not?

Carandang: Mr. Ambassador, do you have any specific benchmarks under which, if they were reached then you would say ‘well yes, it looks like the MILF is complying, I mean is doing what it can to seriously pursue the talks. I mean what to you would be an indication that they were serious?

Ambassador: Clearly, we cannot do anything that would support an organization that tolerates, much less supports, training programs for bombers. It’s inconceivable. And you know, we need more than a rhetorical break. We need to have an actual break with the people who murder and destroy. So, those are the benchmarks, and I don’t think they’re difficult to meet. One thing I should make clear: we know that there are political objectives that the MILF have sought to advance, and we believe those may have legitimacy. It’s up to the MILF, or any organization, to pursue political objectives in lawful ways.And there are groups that do that: The MNLF used to lead violence. Not only did it verbally say it was going to abandon the path of violence, but it made good on that. And so we’ve had many programs to help improve the economy in the areas of the MNLF: To train them in running governments or running a payroll; developing farming, and fish farming and seaweed farming; and small businesses and professional associations. And it’s been taking off.

Carandang: Sir, so the message is, if I’m getting you correctly, the message is there is a lot of willingness on the part of your government to assist in many ways in development projects in the Southern Philippines, but first you need to see some greater indication of the MILF’s seriousness to crack down on the terrorist element?

Ambassador: That’s fair enough, yes.. Clearly, the government is serious and has put its top talent into this process. We think there probably are serious people within the MILF. We don’t know them very well. We do know people who speak for them that we respect. But the fact remains that the Jemaah Islamiya is still in that area. And they are not lawful.They are violent. And as long as the MILF are associated with people like that, there’s really not much we can do together. On the contrary, we have to wonder what is the nature of this organization. Is it in fact itself committed to terrorism, rather than to the lawful struggle to advance the rights of people they represent?

Carandang: My last question, Mr. Ambassador, it seems as if that at this point while you do find the progress slow, you’re still willing to give the MILF the benefit of the doubt. But if this drives on indefinitely, at some point you guys have got to come to the conclusion one way or the another that they’re either serious about pursuing peace or they’re not. Do you have some kind of, even an informal timeframe under which you’ll begin to tell Washington ‘we’ve given these guys much time, and we don’t think they’re serious about it’?

Ambassador: You know, it’s not for us to set deadlines. We’re not the ones who suffer from poverty and violence down there everyday. It’s the people who live there who have a daily deadline of suffering from violence. You know, they can’t go to an airport or a bus station or a market without concern that some idiot is going to set off a bomb, allegedly in the name of religion or in the name of a political cause.

Carandang: Right. But I mean, Sir, you’re not going to be -- I mean if this situation continues for the next five years, you guys aren’t going to seriously doubt, not just you, but perhaps even the Philippine government are going to begin to seriously doubt the sincerity of the MILF. I mean they have to show seriousness in cracking down on terrorist elements, and they have to do it within a certain period of time before whatever goodwill and benefit of the doubt is dissipated.

Ambassador: We believe there are serious people among them and their constituencies; serious people who speak for them. Hashim Salamat wrote a letter that was very touching, and we took it seriously in Washington. So, I don’t mean to say that people associated with the MILF are not necessarily serious. But at a certain point, they have not come to grips with this difficult political decision that needs to be made. It shouldn’t be that difficult to forswear violence and disassociate with this group the U.N. has declared a terrorist group. Until then, there’s not much we can do to help. And we have to support the government in dealing with violence in appropriate ways through law enforcement or military action.

Carandang: All right, understood. That was Ambassador Francis Ricciardone. Thank you very much Sir, for talking with us tonight.

Ambassador: Thank you very much Ricky.

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