VOA标准英语2010年-Philippines Government Urged to Addres

Thousands of Filipinos have been stuck in scores of camps in Sabah as decades of fighting continued in nearby Mindanao

With a new administration taking office in the Philippines this month, there are hopes for a renewed effort to bring peace to the country's troubled south. But human rights workers in neighboring Malaysia say to succeed, peace talks must also address the needs of tens of thousands of Filipino refugees.

Since Philippine courts struck down a peace deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2008, sporadic¹ attacks by the militants² have forced more than 400,000 from their homes in Mindanao, in the country's south.

Thousands of them joined about 100,000 compatriots who have fled to Malaysia over the past four decades as the MILF fought to create an Islamic homeland in Mindanao.

 With President-elect Benigno Aquino to take office in Manila on June 30th, there are hopes for a new effort to reach a peace deal with the MILF.

Irene Fernandez is the executive director of Tenaganita, a Malaysian organization that works to protect the rights of women and refugees.

She says any effort to find a lasting³ peace must also resolve the fate of Filipino refugees and illegal immigrants in Malaysia.

"Many of them, they have become stateless during the last 35 years that they have been here," Fernandez said. "And it will be a good way of getting as many of the Filipinos to return to Mindanao from where they originally come from."

Scores of refugee camps dot the coastline of Malaysia's Sabah state, on the tip of Borneo island.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees established most of the camps, which were originally designed to hold just a few hundred people.

The numbers have swelled⁴ as successive rounds of peace talks and ceasefires failed. The camps are poor and squalid. But many of the Filipinos have been in the camps so long that Fernandez worries they no longer identify with their own country.

"I have my concerns because we are looking at the second and third generation and sometimes even the fourth generation after so many years, who do not have any form of identity or knowledge of the Philippines and they look at themselves as more Sabahan or Malaysian rather than Filipino," she adds.

She says peace talks must help the refugees, and give those who want it a chance to remain legally and work in Malaysia.

Only then, she says, could peace talks be said to have reached a fair and just conclusion.

An international monitoring team that includes Norway, Brunei, Japan and Libya will oversee⁵ the peace process in Mindanao, and monitor any ceasefire accord struck between Mr. Aquino's government and the MILF.
 

1 sporadic   

adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的

参考例句：

• The sound of sporadic shooting could still be heard.仍能听见零星的枪声。
• You know this better than I.I received only sporadic news about it.你们比我更清楚，而我听到的只是零星消息。

2 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

3 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

4 swelled   

增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情）

参考例句：

• The infection swelled his hand. 由于感染，他的手肿了起来。
• After the heavy rain the river swelled. 大雨过后，河水猛涨。

5 oversee   

vt.监督，管理

参考例句：

• Soldiers oversee the food handouts.士兵们看管着救济食品。
• Use a surveyor or architect to oversee and inspect the different stages of the work.请一位房产检视员或建筑师来监督并检查不同阶段的工作。