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2 Autonomy hopes for southern
Philippines By Noel Tarrazona
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently extended an
autonomy and self-determination offer in
behind-the-scenes talks with the insurgent Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a fig-leaf
gesture that some hope could bring an Aceh-like
solution to a nearly three-decade-old conflict
that has consumed as many as 140,000 lives.
While a peace settlement would no doubt
give the natural-resource-rich southern
Philippines a much-needed economic boost, critics
say the embattled president has likely dangled a
hollow offer to the rebel
groups to win swing votes in minority Muslim
territories in the run-up to crucial Senate
elections her party is poised to lose. And the
offer appears to have come just as a ceasefire
between the two sides was breaking down.
The MILF has long insisted that it is
fighting to establish an Islamic state in what it
considers ancestral homelands in the southern
island of Mindanao, where the majority of the
country's estimated 5 million Muslims reside. The
movement's founder, Salamat Hashim, advocates a
conservative brand of Islam for the region, and
after breaking with the more secular Moro National
Liberation Front, in 1978 he launched a jihad
against the Christian-dominated Philippine
government in response to what he considered
state-sanctioned crimes against Muslims.
Salamat died in 2003 and was replaced as
the insurgent group's chairman by the more
accommodating Al Haj Murad Ebrahim. Soon
thereafter, the two sides entered a bilateral
truce in 2003 predicated on the MILF's agreement
to sever ties with regional terror groups,
including its known past links to the
Indonesia-based regional terror group Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI).
Quid pro quo, Manila and
Washington agreed not to include the MILF on their
respective lists of terror organizations. But it
ha been a rocky truce, with frequent outbreaks of
violence on both sides of the battle line. And
before Arroyo's apparent autonomy offer, the
ceasefire was at risk of breaking down altogether
as talks mediated by Malaysia bogged down last
September.
Some here, significantly
including rebel leaders, are pointing to the
successful autonomy deal Indonesia's government
granted in 2005 to Islamic insurgents as a hopeful
example. "It can be a breakthrough," MILF chairman
Al Haj Murad Ebrahim recently told reporters in
his military camp deep in the jungles of Mindanao.
"We appreciate this development. We feel it is an
advancement in the search for peace in Mindanao."
While the US has assisted the Philippine
Army in combating other Muslim insurgent groups,
including the Abu Sayyaf, which Washington claims
has links with global terror group al-Qaeda,
Washington has maintained an official hands-off
policy toward MILF-government clashes, which it
views as an internal affair. Still, the amorphous
MILF has been caught up in, and its members killed
during, recent government offensives against the
smaller, ragtag Abu Sayyaf, which operates in
territories contiguous with MILF-controlled areas.
Philippine military intelligence officials
have recently claimed that armed groups involved
in kidnapping and other low-grade terror
activities continue to refer to themselves as MILF
members in certain remote areas. They recently
said that as many as 33 JI-linked militants were
until recently training in bomb-making in camps
maintained in Mindanao, some apparently near MILF
territories.
Such claims, of course, could
be Manila's way of staking out a tough negotiating
position, which no doubt will require strong MILF
assurances that it does not support any
transnational terror group, particularly if an
autonomy deal is on the negotiating table.
Meanwhile, the MILF is expected to drive a hard
bargain in connection with the amount of territory
it will insist be included in an autonomy
arrangement.
Crucial political juncture
The new autonomy proposal will be
discussed at formal talks scheduled for this month
in Kuala Lumpur. Arroyo's apparent concession
notably comes at a crucial juncture in her
beleaguered administration. By most measures, her
party is poised to lose Senate elections scheduled
for May 14, where half the 24-member body's seats
are up for grabs. Some cynical observers believe
the autonomy offer has been manufactured to win
votes in swing Muslim constituencies.
Meanwhile, her government's image has been
badly blemished by recent revelations that under
her watch the military has been involved in a rash
of extrajudicial killings of both leftist and
Muslim civilian activists. Facing possible
sanction from the United Nations, which recently
conducted an independent probe into the
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