By ISAGANI DE CASTRO, JR.
abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) attack in Lanao del Norte Monday was the separatist group’s “political statement” in response to widespread opposition to the ancestral homeland agreement it had initialed with the government.

This was the common view of analysts on the recent developments in southern Philippines following the failed August 5 signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the Arroyo government and the MILF.

“These are clear indications of loss of hope in the peace process. Because what they’re seeing everyday are the anti-MOA [sentiments],” said Zainudin Malang, executive director of the Bangsamoro Center for Law and Policy, in an interview with abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.

He said the vocal opposition against the MOA-AD by politicians, business groups and other sectors, plus the Supreme Court’s decision to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the MOA-AD, are limiting the options of the MILF on the peace process.

“They are not giving the MILF any other option but to go back to their original option. So what’s the implication of this? Imagine if the war escalates, not just North Cotabato, not just Lanao Norte but all of Mindanao,” Malang said.

Show of force

Patricio Abinales, professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies in Kyoto University, told ANC’s Dateline Tuesday that the MILF’s attacks in towns such as Kolambugan, Lanao del Norte were intended to demonstrate the MILF’s strength and capability to create problems in the south.

“I think it's a political statement by the MILF. Kolambugan used to be one of their first lines of defense in the 1974-75 war. There used to be a big force of Ilagas, if you remember the war then. The Ilagas had managed to defend Kolambugan so well and demilitarized after that,” he said. “And what the MILF has done is to show that it can still attack Kolambugan and prove it can operate everywhere.”  

He said it was only the second time since 1974 that the MILF chose to attack Kolambugan.

Abinales said the actions of Commander Bravo, the head of the MILF’s 102nd base command in Lanao del Norte, could also be his way of expressing his opposition to the peace negotiations and his preference for armed struggle as a means to achieve the Moro people’s objectives.

“My sense is that he is against it [peace talks] and the only problem is to be able to show that he is still a force to reckon with inside the organization, somebody who has to be attended to,” he said.

SC petition

For their part, Malang and his lawyer-colleagues in the Muslim Legal Assistance Foundation filed last Thursday an “intervention-comment” with the Supreme Court asking it to lift the TRO on the MOA-AD and give the peace process a chance to work. (See Supreme Court petition of Muslim Legal Assistance Foundation on MOA-AD in our Research Section).

“We filed the intervention because we wanted to impress upon the public that there is a constituency that supports the peace process.  As of now, the public has only been reading and hearing the views of the anti-MOAs.  We also filed it to set the historical antecedents of the MOA, of the GRP-MILF peace process, and of the Mindanao conflict itself,” Malang told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.

In their petition, Malang and his colleagues stressed the urgency of avoiding another all-out war.

“The GRP-MILF Peace Process has already taken twelve years.  This was marked by two all-out military offensives in years 2000 and 2003, and countless major outbreaks of fighting which produced almost one million and 430,000 refugees, respectively, and thousands of homes ruined.  Human casualties, combatants and non-combatants, are indeterminate,” they said.

“The four-decade long Mindanao conflict is one of the most serious yet under-reported conflicts in the world,” Malang said, in an earlier comment sent to abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.  “Ironic because this is a conflict of Darfur and Timorese proportions. It has already cost more than 100,000 lives and millions of internally-displaced persons.”

During eleven years of the peace process with the MILF, he said “agreements and consensus points that would have led to an early successful conclusion of the talks have also been set aside due to pressure from conservatives and hawks.”

“The GRP-MILF talks are only the latest of numerous attempts to peacefully resolve, by way of negotiations, what is now the longest-running armed conflict in Asia. But precisely because past efforts have failed, this latest one may turn out to be the last one, should it fail,” Malang said.

He said even peace advocates in Mindanao are finding it harder and harder to pacify the armed groups that operate in the south. “Time will come when even the peace groups, even civil society, will lose hope. Believe me, I spend a lot of time there.”

More damage

In a phone interview Tuesday on ANC, Lanao del Norte Gov. Mohammad Khalid Dimaporo, said the MILF attack on some coastal, Christian towns was the MILF’s “political statement” in response to widespread opposition to the MOA-AD.

He said the estimated 1,500 armed MILF forces, led by Commander Bravo, who attacked towns in Lanao del Norte could have done more damage last Monday if they really wanted to.

“It was a political statement. If they really wanted to destroy the town, they could have done more damage when they had full control from 10 am to 3 pm,” Dimaporo said.

He said the new crop of MILF members is different from the MILF members in the seventies and eighties. He claimed the younger generation is engaged in criminal activities such as kidnapping, banditry, extortion, and illegal logging.

Dimaporo said the MILF takes advantage of the ceasefire so they can freely conduct these activities, and the military is constrained to respond due to the ceasefire.

Anti-Moro attitude

Peace advocate Soliman Santos, in his analysis “What the MILF is thinking (and feeling)?”, said the rebels are disappointed about the response of the various sectors to the MOA-AD.

His analysis quoted statements posted on the MILF website, www.luwaran.com, which reflect the current sentiment of the separatists. Some examples:

“This can of worms has also regurgitated another unsavory reality that has been with us ever since our forefathers fought the Spaniards and their Indio factotums [servants]:  the anti-Moro attitude of the Filipinos…. We are aghast at the way Filipino politicians, whether in and out of government, and with the help of the media, have whipped up an anti-Moro, anti-Muslim hysteria that has swept the whole country.  It is simply nauseating to see and hear on radio and TV these politicians blatantly and publicly distort the MOA-AD and turn it into propaganda to demonize the MILF, the Bangsamoro people and Islam.” – Ibrahim Canana

“The Moros will fight.  MILF Base Commander Ustadz Amirul Ombra Cato will not be alone.  A war in Mindanao will drag down this pathetic, artificial country and its government to perdition.  Perhaps this time we will no longer settle for a sub-state or a federative arrangement with the Filipinos.  It’s useless anyway because they would never grant it.  They would always insist this is ‘secession’ even if we do not have the intention to secede.  So let’s give them a dose of their own medicine.  Let’s aim for independence this time.” – Ibrahim Canana

“They [GRP] should do the final signing [of the MOA-AD].  One word is enough for a wise man.  Where’s justice?  It is they who did not keep their word.” – Commander Kato

(Read Soliman Santos’ article, “What the MILF is thinking (and feeling)?” in our website’s Views and Analysis)