The most visible political casualty in the ongoing kidnap crisis in Mindanao is Nur Misuari. The 21 mostly foreign hostages who were taken from Malaysia more than two months ago are being held in Sulu. This province is Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) territory. The maintenance of peace and order there is Misuari’s responsibility. Yet Misuari has not been assigned any role nor has he taken any worthwhile initiative to secure the immediate release of the hostages.
The MNLF is the only entity officially recognized by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to represent the interests of the Bangsamoro community in Mindanao. This recognition and the peace agreement it signed with the Philippine government in September 1996 are however all it can show to justify its claim to authority. In the three years that he has tried to be governor of the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Misuari has left no evidence of palpable leadership or of professional ability. The ARMM experiment has been a dismal failure. It has destroyed Misuari and the MNLF.
The government has signaled that it no longer needs Misuari or the MNLF. It has, moreover, pounced on Misuari’s failure in order to discredit any talk of Mindanao autonomy other than of the very limited type. But what about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front – how should we deal with the MILF?
Setting aside for a moment the legitimate historic claims of the Moro people to a homeland of their own, and the pleas for peace from various sectors of our society, I think the question we should ask ourselves is whether there is any compelling need to crush the MILF. What do we gain and what do we lose by doing this?
Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado recently claimed victory for the national government in the Mindanao war. We take this to mean that our soldiers have now successfully “degraded” the military capability of the MILF. Let us assume that all the MILF camps have been destroyed, and all the Muslim rebels have been forced to go on the run, how do we benefit from this? For now, we are told, there will be no more checkpoints along the Narciso Ramos Highway, no more “extortionists” to victimize travelers, no more lawless elements seeking safe havens in MILF camps.
But what about when the soldiers leave? Muslim Mindanao will remain a land of loose firearms. Armed groups known generically as “lost commands” will continue to sprout and operate as extortionist and kidnap-for-ransom gangs so long as there are no effective local governments and professional police units in the area. Remnants of both the MNLF and MILF will always find reason to re-group and take up the secessionist cause. They will recruit a new generation of young Moro warriors. The wall separating plain bandits and politicized rebels will remain as porous as ever, allowing instant conversions to either side. The aspiration to be free will not die with the present batch of Islamic rebels.
The national leadership knows that a continuing military presence in Mindanao is a big drain in public resources. Even the military knows that it cannot stay in Mindanao forever. Yet both the politicians and the generals seem to believe that an enduring peace can be bought by economic effort, without the need to address the political aspirations of the Muslim and indigenous peoples of the island. They think that the emancipatory aims of the Moro people may be satisfied simply by establishing more Sharia’h courts, more Islamic schools, and bigger mosques.
Nothing can be more mistaken. The all-out offensive against the MILF will only serve to galvanize Moro nationalism. More than anything in the recent past, the war has become for Moros the clearest confirmation of Manila colonialism.
If it is true that the Armed Forces of the Philippines has degraded the military capability of the MILF, is there a reason for the peace talks other than to accept their ignominious surrender? On the other hand, if the goal is to co-opt the MILF in another half-baked experiment with autonomy, what gives us reason to hope that the result may be different from that of the MNLF? Why would the Moro people continue to respect leaders who are easily bought by the national government? Could it be that the object of the whole exercise is to show that Mindanao cannot survive other than by direct rule from Manila?
The MILF has put up a fight to defend its camps in a one-sided war because it has to show its leadership of a free Mindanao. But while it can mount a formidable resistance, it has also shown that it cannot win the war. On the other hand, the Philippine government, obliged by its constitutional mandate to protect its citizens and preserve the integrity of its territory, has shown that it can crush the MILF anytime. But I think it has also begun to realize that it will not be able to maintain peace and order in this contested region without the cooperation of the MILF, which continues to enjoy broad support from the Moro people. To destroy the MILF completely is to lose what may be the only viable unit of self-government available in the region at the moment.
The MILF has earned the right to sit at the negotiating table. The government demands that it may only do so if it renounces its secessionist goal and “terrorist” activities. To attempt to further degrade the MILF by making it submit to preconditions that define it as an undeserving loser is, I believe, to strip it of the legitimacy it needs to remain a credible partner of government in the establishment of peace in Mindanao. Reconciliation need not mean, nor require, capitulation.
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