ASIA
HAND Widening the war in the southern
Philippines By Shawn W Crispin
Just when it seemed the Philippines was
getting a handle on its terrorist problem on its
southern island of Mindanao, a sudden shift in
military strategy threatens to widen drastically
the region's grinding conflict against Muslim
insurgent groups.
The Armed Forces of the
Philippines' operations last year were widely
hailed for decapitating the leadership of the Abu
Sayyaf Group (ASG), hobbling the insurgent group's
estimated 2,000 foot
soldiers and bringing a
modicum of stability to the violence-prone
underdeveloped areas of Sulu province.
The
United States has linked the ASG to al-Qaeda's
global terror network - though Washington has
never produced any hard evidence to substantiate
that claim. Since September 11, 2001, Washington
has poured hundreds of millions of dollars in
military assistance toward the Philippine Army to
help combat the ASG, including the use of Predator
drones to track the Islamic insurgent group's
movements.
The United States' 200 or so
troops now stationed in the restive region have on
occasion played a role in pursuing and combating
the insurgent group, including in operations that
killed top leaders, according to on-the-ground
conflict monitors.
Now, what has been
widely considered one of the few military
successes in the United States' "global war on
terror" campaign is at risk of going badly awry.
With US backing, the Philippine Army has under the
guise of combating the ASG started to attack
positions held by the Moro National Liberation
Front (MNLF), which through a 1996 ceasefire
agreement is allowed to control territory
contiguous to areas where the ASG is active in and
around Sulu.
The ceasefire deal included
provisions for the 56-member Organization of the
Islamic Conference to play a role in tripartite
negotiations toward a final autonomy settlement.
However, that agreement was never fully
implemented and the MNLF has maintained armed
control over territories it considers to be the
ancestral homeland of the ethnic Moro.
As
of early last month, Manila and the MNLF were
still officially engaged in that peace process,
and the two sides held negotiations on social and
economic issues as recently as February. After
nearly 11 years of relative calm, since mid-April
the Philippine Army has renewed armed hostilities
with the MNLF, reasserting old government claims
that the MNLF is secretly supporting the ASG.
The government initially denied that it
had launched assaults against the MNLF. But at
least 10 communities in MNLF-controlled areas have
been involved in the recent fighting, which has
claimed up to 40 army and MNLF personnel,
according to one international organization
monitoring the conflict. Most recently, four MNLF
soldiers were killed in a firefight with the
Philippine Marine Corps near Sulu's Kalingalan
Caluang township on May 8.
Significantly,
the Philippine Army has openly accused MNLF
commander Ustadz Habier Malik of being a
"terrorist", and late last month government troops
overran his camp in Sulu's Bihtanag area and the
rebel leader went underground. The US has in
recent weeks reportedly put a P1 million
(US$21,000) bounty out for his capture.
Ustadz, formerly the head of the so-called
Regional Reconciliation and Reunification
Commission, in an April 30 interview with the
local GMA TV refuted the army's allegations,
including the charges that the MNLF was in any way
in league with the ASG. He also indicated a
willingness to abandon the 1996 ceasefire
agreement and resume the group's long suspended
armed struggle.
"We are abiding by the
wishes of the president [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo],
that it is better that there is no ceasefire,"
said Ustadz. "We are not on the offensive ... we
are on the defensive." He later in the interview
referred to the ASG as "bandits", "terrorists" and
"unprofessional" soldiers.
A broken
MNLF-government peace deal would threaten to
regionalize what until now was a mainly localized
conflict against the ASG. The spike in violence
has notably coincided with hotly contested
elections for governor of Sulu, which were held
this week; hand-counted official results are
expected this or early next month. The MNLF's
founder and chairman, Nur Misuari, contested the
electoral seat from prison, where he is being held
on rebellion charges dating back to 2001.
The Philippine Army has relied on a
two-pronged strategy to neutralize the ASG, which
logistically has relied on the relative peace in
areas controlled by the MNLF. First, US-backed
military operations provided the Philippine Army
with the satellite technology and modern firepower
Manila previously lacked in fighting in the ASG.
Second, millions of dollars' worth of US-financed
development projects have to some degree helped
win hearts and minds in the war-torn impoverished
areas previously controlled by the ASG.
By
opening a new front against the MNLF,
international monitors contend, the Philippine
Army is at serious risk of reversing those
strategic gains. They say Sulu's local population
distinctly separates the MNLF's and ASG's agendas,
with widespread support for the MNLF's more
peaceful quest for a Moro homeland, and less so
for the smaller ASG's often violent tactics,
including grisly beheadings and the burning of
their victims' bodies. Already about 63,000 people
of Sulu's 600,000 population are internally
displaced because of the Philippine Army-ASG
violence.
While the Philippine Army and
the US are both apparently convinced that the MNLF
is in league with the ASG, those government
allegations are unlikely to wash with the local
population. If, as threatened, full-blown
hostilities were to resume, Sulu's conflict would
quadruple in size, and the Philippine Army would
be opposed by a popular and charismatic leader and
would lose the goodwill of the local population,
according to the representative of an
international organization monitoring the
conflict.
So why would the Philippine Army
make such a tactical blunder after notching
significant military victories in the region? Some
Mindanao-based analysts contend that the United
States is at least partly to blame.
One
explanation goes that the Philippine Army is under
constant pressure from both Manila and Washington
to show quantifiable results from its
counterinsurgency operations, including caches of
seized weapons and rebel body counts. With the
mopping up of the ASG, those numbers had recently
reduced significantly and hence created motivation
to open a new military front.
Moreover, a
total victory over the ASG and a stable peace deal
with the MNLF would in effect eliminate the United
States' raison d'etre for maintaining a
military presence in the Sulu region - a
disagreeable prospect for the many Philippine Army
military commanders who over the past five years
have relied on US assistance for their livelihoods
and who, with their substantially improved combat
capabilities, apparently no longer view peace as
their best option for dealing with the MNLF.
As such, violence replaces peace in yet
another sad chapter of the United States' failed
global counter-terrorism policy.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times
Online's Southeast Asia Editor.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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