The Comparative Study on the Participation of Civil Society Organizations on the Peace Process: The Cases of Southern Philippines and Southern Thailand

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to compare the involvements of civil society organizations from Mindanao, southern Philippines and southern Thailand on the peace process. The concept and method applied in this paper are the role of civil society on the peace process in the global perspective and Civil Society Index (CSI). In this study predominantly research articles and secondary data publications were applied. The study found that CSOs in Mindanao and southern Thailand have been playing various important roles on many dimensions of the peace processes which are more different than similar. The major difference is the grounding of the six basic principles since 1990s which emerging the political settlement on the negotiation with different rebel groups while the reluctant of Thai government to previously address the separatism problem and mention on rebel groups since 2004, caused the retarded political solution and less CSOs participation the on peace process. Even if the initiation of Mindanao civil society organizations in the peace talk went earlier since the late 1990s, while the awakening and involvement of civil society organizations in the southern Thailand recently initiated during 2013 peace talk. However, this study help us understand the significant steps of the civil society from both countries involving the peace processes in order to learn their weaknesses and strengths from each country, and especially would be beneficial to civil society organizations movement in southern Thailand.

Keywords: civil society organizations, Mindanao, southern Thailand, peace process, Civil Society Index