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The evolution of Philippine Muslim
insurgency
By Marco Garrido
MANILA - A contingent of nearly 2,000 US troops
will arrive in the Philippines next month to take part
in joint US-Philippine military exercises. The American
soldiers will find themselves with an opportunity to
help Filipinos combat a plague of banditry and terror
posing as Muslim activism. Or, if the Americans fail to
appreciate the historical, cultural, political and
religious bases for the troubles in the southern
Philippines - and how the United States itself helped
foster those troubles over the past century - the troops
will make matters even worse.
Balikatan 03-1
will be the newest in a series of at least 17 military
exercises planned between the United States and the
Philippines for 2003. Like its predecessor, last year's
Balikatan 02-1, this year's exercises will involve a
sizable deployment of US troops to Muslim areas in
Mindanao. The Balikatan exercises are aimed at
extirpating the Abu Sayyaf bandits, a group that both
the United States and the Philippines consider
terrorists.
This will not be the first time that
American soldiers have forayed into Mindanao to combat
Muslims. While the current exercises no doubt find their
justification in the ongoing international war on
terror, another, more traditional war waged a century
ago occasioned a similar influx of US troops to the
region. US incursion then played a part in fostering the
conflict justifying US incursion now.
The US
role in shaping Moro identity
The
Philippine-American War lasted from 1899 to 1902,
although the Americans kept fighting Muslims in Mindanao
until 1914. "Pious paternalism and brutal pacification"
marked US policy toward the Philippines, with the latter
predominating. Between 1903 and 1906, American soldiers
killed more than 3,000 Muslims in Mindanao. After
hostilities, the Americans sought to reinvent themselves
as a paternal power under whose tutelage progress and
prosperity for the Muslims would be brought about.
Heretofore, Philippine Muslims had remained
largely divided along ethnolinguistic clan lines.
Spanish conquistadors had arrived in the Philippines in
the 16th century, but were unable to subjugate the
Muslims in Mindanao. While nationalist history, both
Muslim and Christian, tends to depict a unified Muslim
resistance primarily motivated by religion, more recent
scholarly work suggests that Spanish incursions into
Muslim territory did not succeed in fostering in the
various ethnic groups an overarching identification as
Muslim. Instead, traditional inter-clan rivalries were
pursued, often with Spanish help.
As Thomas
McKenna argues in his book, Muslim Rulers and
Rebels, it was the Americans who set about to unify
the disparate Muslim clans. Ironically, the chief
instrument of Muslim ideological subordination proved to
be religion.
Najeeb Saleeby, a Christian,
Syrian-born doctor who had come to Mindanao as part of
the US colonial apparatus, took an interest in the
"Moros" - which was the derogation the Spanish had used
to refer to the Muslims (after "Moors"). He noted that
these Muslims "have so little religion in their heart
that it is impossible for them to get enthusiastic and
fanatic on this ground". Nevertheless, Saleeby believed
that religion could be "encouraged and promoted" as a
way to bind the Muslims to their leaders. Doing so, he
reasoned, would render the naturally fierce Muslims more
amenable to US administration, as conducted through
their datus (chiefs). A united and obedient
Muslim populace would be more receptive to civilizing
(modernizing) and nationalizing influences.
In
general, Saleeby's prescriptions were taken to heart by
the colonial administration. The historical evidence is
illustrative: Writing in regard to a young Muslim
princess he had sent to the States to be educated, Frank
Carpenter, the governor of the Department of Mindanao
and Sulu, instructs "that she not be encouraged or
permitted to abandon her at least nominal profession of
the Mohammedan religion, as she would become outcast
among the Sulu people and consequently her special
education purposeless were she to become Christian".
Likewise, Edward Kuder, the superintendent of schools
for three Muslim provinces - Cotabato, Lanao, and Sulu -
sought to "inculcate in [Filipino Muslims] the value of
cooperating with the leaders of Christian Filipinos in
working for the common welfare of the country"
(McKenna). One index of his success was the pride with
which one datu, a student of his, displayed a
cherished gift Kuder had made to him: a Richard Burton
translation of the Arabic classic A Thousand and One
Nights.
The evolution of separatism:
Grievance ...
History remade what the Americans
had worked so intently to cultivate. Three events in
particular - Christian immigration to Mindanao,
sectarian violence, and martial law - transformed the
kind of pliable, sanitized Islam the colonial
administration had propagated into a basis for
discrimination and, eventually, rebellion.
A
trickle of Christian Filipinos was encouraged southward
under a homesteader program initiated by the Americans.
It was not until after Philippine independence in 1946,
however, that the trickle approached a flood. The new
homesteaders were largely tenant farmers in search of
their own land, as well as resettled Huks (former
communist insurgents). The rate of Christian immigration
was sufficiently intense and unrelenting that, as
Jacques Bertrand notes in Pacific Affairs (Spring 2000),
whereas "in 1912 the Moros owned most of the land in
Mindanao and Sulu, [by] 1972 only 30 percent had land in
their name, [and by] 1982 the Moros represented only 17
percent of total landowners". At the same time, Filipino
Muslims became subject to increasing discrimination and
marginalization.
A number of violent incidents,
perceived at least to be motivated by religious
discrimination, likewise fostered a growing sense of
grievance among Filipino Muslims. Two events in
particular do well to represent a series of violent
outbreaks during the late 1960s and throughout the '70s.
In 1968, 14 to as many as 28 Muslim military trainees
were executed on the island of Jabidah. It soon came out
that they were part of a secret military operation to
invade the Malaysian island of Sabah. While the reasons
behind their execution remain unclear, the Jabidah
Massacre became for Muslims "both a provocation and
metaphor" (McKenna). It figured centrally in an emerging
Moro oppositional consciousness.
The emergence
of the Ilaga ("rats"), a Christian group that
terrorized Muslims, also fueled Muslim grievance.
Ilaga violence reached its bloodiest in June 1971
with the massacre of 65 men, women, and children in a
mosque.
Martial law provided a third and more
sustained source of grievance. President Ferdinand
Marcos justified declaring martial law on September 21,
1972, by purporting that the Muslim secessionist
movement threatened the country's stability. However, as
McKenna argues, martial law turned out to be more a
cause of the separatist movement than its consequence.
The brutality of the military under martial law fomented
resentment among the Muslim populace. As the government
military campaign intensified, ordinary Muslim
solidarity with the rebellion solidified.
...
and opportunity
Certain opportunities provided
growing Muslim grievance an outlet. By so doing, they
enabled the emergence of the Filipino Muslim insurgency
movement.
Educational opportunities in the form
of scholarships positioned the leaders of the Moro
separatist movement by enabling them to articulate the
frustrations of the larger Muslim community. Nur
Misuari, founder of the Moro National Liberation Front
(MNLF), was awarded a scholarship from the Commission on
National Integration, which, ironically, was created to
incorporate young Muslims into the larger Christian
nation. The University of the Philippines in the late
'60s no doubt also provided Misuari an education in
political activism, especially since the Jabidah
Massacre had become a rallying point for protest.
Hashim Salamat was similarly molded by his
educational experience. Salamat received a scholarship
from Al Azhar University in Cairo as part of Egyptian
president Gamel Abdul Nasser's program to promote
pan-Islamism. In Salamat's case, the scholarship seemed
to have worked as intended. First collaborating with
Misuari in the founding of the MNLF, Salamat later split
to form the Islamic-oriented Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF) in 1982.
A specific political
opportunity allowed for the development of the MNLF. In
1968 Datu Udtug Matalam founded the Mindanao
Independence Movement. The MIM was originally intended
as a form of retaliation against establishment political
powers that had sidestepped Matalam in his re-election
bid for governor of Mindanao and had personally insulted
him by failing to pay him condolences after the killing
of his son by a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)
agent. Publicly, however, the MIM was represented as a
direct response to the Jabidah Massacre. Despite
Matalam's intentions, the MIM, which only someone with
Matalam's political cachet could have founded, became a
lightning rod and platform for young, disenchanted
Muslims. Both Misuari and Salamat associated with it in
various capacities.
Finally, a number of
resource opportunities, mostly through international
connections, enabled the emergence of the various Moro
rebel groups. Malaysia, furious at Marcos for having
tried to invade Sabah, readily lent its support to rebel
groups. An MIM detachment trained for guerrilla warfare
in Sabah. After the Jabidah Massacre, Libyan leader
Moammar Gaddafi provided weapons to the rebels through
Sabah. Cigarette smugglers with a bone to pick with
Marcos provided financial, logistical, and military
support to the rebels. And, of course, the war in
Afghanistan spawned Abu Sayyaf founder Abdurajack
Janjalani, providing him with a supply of weapons and
perhaps even a funding source in Osama bin Laden.
The value of insurgency
While the
combination of grievance and opportunity may explain the
emergence of Muslim rebel groups, other factors account
for their staying power. After all, the Muslim
secessionist movement has persisted in one form or
another for the better part of three decades. It would
seem that while Muslim insurgency may be a way of
expressing grievance, it is also a means of capitalizing
on and creating opportunities. This is how insurgency
sustains itself.
Muslim insurgency can be seen
as an innovative way of continuing patrimonial politics
on a local level. The emergence of the rebel movement
had created an elite to counter-balance the datu
(chieftain) establishment. Traditional datu
politicking could now be contrasted with a politics
"employing Islamic renewal as a cultural frame for
political behavior" (McKenna). In this vein, the MILF
has proved to be particularly effective, exerting its
influence through an underground "shadow government"
and, above ground, through a body of clerics, the
ulama. Religious identity has become a source of
political power for the MILF.
This dynamic was
amply displayed in the elections of 1986, the first
"free" elections since martial law had been declared.
While the MILF officially boycotted the elections, its
network was nonetheless utilized. Rebels doubled as
party representatives for UNIDO (the United National
Democratic Organization), a coalition organized around
Corazon Aquino, and voting Cory suddenly became Islamic.
This also allowed the rebels to reap the political
payoff of having supported the winning candidate. The
MILF also levied its religious cachet to win political
recognition. Feeling snubbed by the newly-elected Cory
administration, Hashim Salamat called for a "prayer
rally", which successfully tapped the root of Islamic
populism in order to prop Salamat as a serious political
force.
As the case of the Abu Sayyaf
illustrates, Muslim insurgency can also be used as a
cover for banditry. The Abu Sayyaf make a point of
gesturing toward an oppositional Moro identity, by, for
instance, demanding that crosses be removed from public
view or by interpreting one method in their arsenal of
terror-decapitation as rooted in Islam. But their modus
operandi - kidnapping for ransom - suggests that profit,
rather than Islam, is the predominant motivation for
their activities.
On the one hand, the MNLF and
MILF seem to acknowledge this. They try to distance
themselves from the Abu Sayyaf and have even pledged to
cooperate with the government in its pursuit of the
group's eradication. Still, the links among the groups
remain unclear. Considered a "lost command" of the MILF,
the Abu Sayyaf may not be lost at all. There has been
speculation that the group merely provides a cover for
"legitimate" rebels moonlighting for profit. Moreover,
charges of military collaboration with the Abu Sayyaf -
that the military is being paid a part of the ransom
money to allow the Abu Sayyaf to continue their
operations - have delegitimized the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) in a way that conflict with the
"legitimate" rebels, the MILF and MNLF, never has.
Thus American soldiers have been brought in
under the Balikatan agreements to do what the AFP has
been unable to do: neutralize a nettlesome band of no
more than a few hundred brigands.
A larger
problem
The first round of Balikatan military
exercises (02-1) was somewhat of a success. While the
Abu Sayyaf remained at large, they also ended up largely
decimated, with one of their top commanders, Abu Sabaya,
left to the crocodiles. The joint operations managed to
kick the Abu Sayyaf out of Basilan, their former base.
More important, thanks to the civic and humanitarian
projects that accompanied the operations, a sense not
only of peace but of order was re-established on the
island.
However, even if continued Balikatan
operations succeed in wiping out the Abu Sayyaf, what is
to stop another group from taking its place? There is
certainly no shortage of groups whose activities and
connections could get them labeled "terrorist". The
Pentagon Gang is one such group. Like the Abu Sayyaf, it
appears to have splintered from the MILF. The real
question, therefore, is whether terrorist activity can
be substantially reduced without addressing the Muslim
insurgency movement.
While the MILF may remain a
"legitimate" insurgency group, its membership is
particularly volatile. A string of attacks in the past
week illustrate this point. The explosion of a car bomb
outside an airport, the massacre of 14 villagers in a
farming community, another bomb attack in an open-air
market, and the destruction (through rocket-propelled
grenades) of two power-transmission towers and five
power pylons all took place in areas of traditional MILF
activity. And on Tuesday, a blast ripped through Davao
airport, killing at least 21. Since the attacks followed
the military bombardment of an MILF stronghold in Pikit,
Cotabato, which left close to 200 rebels dead, the
military has fingered the MILF for the rampage. However,
the group has denied responsibility for the attacks.
Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu has alleged that the
attacks were the work of "other interested groups". Datu
Norodin Alonto Lucman, chairman of the Muslim
Multi-Sectoral Movement for Peace and Development,
claims that the attack on Pikit severed the rebel chain
of command. "The MILF leadership has already lost
control over its guerrilla fronts; the government is now
dealing with hundreds of independent guerrilla fronts."
A limited role for the US
So far the
administration of Philippine President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo has resisted US pressure to brand the
MILF a terrorist organization. The administration fears,
quite rightly, that a terror tag will only drive the
rebel group from the peace table and incite retaliatory
attacks. More significant, the MILF is not only
broad-based, with a fighting force about 12,000 strong,
but it has succeeded in establishing deep roots within
Filipino Muslim communities. This reality limits the
utility of a strictly military approach.
Unlike
the Abu Sayyaf, the MILF cannot be extirpated without
enormous, perhaps unbearable, cost: the upheaval of
numerous Muslim communities and the alienation of
innumerable others that sympathize, if not identify,
with the aspirations the group represents. The Balikatan
operations will be more effective against groups that do
not enjoy such popular legitimacy - such as the Abu
Sayyaf.
The history of the Bangsamoro separatist
movement suggests that a better way to contain the rebel
groups may be by targeting the political and economic
opportunity structures that sustain them. This means
putting the squeeze on the insurgency's financing by
identifying its international backers, thwarting its
local fundraising rackets such as smuggling and
extortion, and making sure that the tremendous quantity
of humanitarian and development aid being poured into
the region is not being diverted to the insurgency's
coffers.
The Americans can help with this. They
should not, however, be permitted to engage in direct
combat with the MILF or other insurgency groups. Moro
nationalism has replaced the history of America's role
as one of the movement's inadvertent founding fathers
with its current image as an inveterate enemy of Islam.
Anti-Americanism has become one basis of a new
pan-Islamic solidarity. If the Balikatan operations are
expanded to include the MILF, the Americans will only
find themselves with a war they cannot win. Victory
would only encourage further resentment and lay the
groundwork for future conflict.
(©2003 Asia
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