Key religious and political leaders in Mindanao have called on the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leaderships to reconvene promptly their peace panels and restart their talks so as to jump start the mass return of over 250,000 war-displaced residents still trapped in refugee centers.

Government and MILF officials should “come together in two or three days and agree on an immediate action of collaboration” to bring the internally displaced persons (IDPs) safely to their homes before Ramadan and in “rehabilitating their homes and properties,” Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo said in www.mindanews.com.

Shariah Judge Aboali Cali, president of the Ulama League of the Philippines (ULP), Monday said he and other peace and morality advocates welcomed very much the separate declarations of truce last week by President Arroyo and MILF chairman Hadji Murad Ebrahim.

“We fervently hope the declarations would redound to the immediate reopening of the MILF-GRP peace talks, the safe return of IDPs to their homes and, more importantly, the restoration of tranquillity and harmony in Mindanao,” said Cali, a co-convenor of the influential Bishops-Ulama Conference (BUC).

Cali said he met on Sunday in Manila government peace panel chief Rafael Seguis, whom he described as very optimistic for the reopening of the MILF-GRP talks next month.

The 11-year old peace talks collapsed after the Supreme Court stopped the Aug. 6, 2008 signing of the MILF-GRP memorandum on agreement on ancestral domain (MoA-AD) and later declared the deal unconstitutional.

In protest of the aborted signing, MILF defiant guerrillas raided several villages in North Cotabato, Lanao del Norte, Maguindanao and South Cotabato, drawing fierce reaction from the military in ensuing spate of sporadic armed clashes that displaced 157,584 families or 756,544 residents, according to government reports.

More than half of the evacuees had returned home with the help of government and private humanitarian organizations, but the remaining 250,000 still languish in evacuation centers and other places of refuge where at least 24 minor refugees died of various ailments, according to health and relief officials.

Most of the remaining refugees, composed largely of Muslims, had complained of being “victims in a cycle of war displacements.”

According to reports reaching the office of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan, other remaining refugees have also complained of becoming casualties in the recent exchanges of mortar shelling between military and MILF forces in Maguindanao.

ARMM officials led by Governor Ampatuan said the recent declaration of truce by the President and the MILF leadership was a “great relief” for every peace-loving citizens of Mindanao, especially the victims of the “cycle of war displacements.”

Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Alonto-Adiong Jr. said the significance of the truce declarations would be “more meaningful” both government and MILF forces could effectively avoid any provocations.

Adiong suggested that all local government units and concerned sectors in war-affected areas be “cautiously assertive to preserve the truce” by helping pacify MILF and military forces from any “unnecessary armed engagement.”