Islamist militant held in the Philippines

By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: August 31, 2008

MANILA: The authorities have taken into custody a man they contend is one of the founders of an Islamic extremist group who masterminded the bombing of a passenger ship here in 2004 that killed 116 people. It was the worst terrorist attack in Southeast Asia since the Bali bombings in 2002.

Ruben Omar Pestano Lavilla Jr., who the police assert helped form the Rajah Solaiman Movement, was deported Saturday from Bahrain, where he had been detained after his arrest in July.

Officials in the Philippines said Lavilla’s arrest was a major breakthrough in the U.S.-supported war on terrorism here.

Aside from the bombing of the ship Superferry 14 in February 2004, Lavilla is also under investigation for his role in a series of attacks in Makati City, the financial center of the Philippines, and two other cities in the south on Feb. 14, 2005.

Eight people were killed and more than 150 were wounded in those attacks.

The Rajah Solaiman Movement, which seeks a separate Islamic state for Filipino Muslims, is composed of Christians who have converted to Islam.

It is on the terrorist list of both the U.S. government and the United Nations.

In June, the U.S. Treasury Department sought to tighten the financial screws on the Rajah Solaiman Movement by designating the group and its members as “global terrorists.”

It said the movement had received financial support from people in Saudi Arabia and from at least one Filipino financier there who channeled funds through Muslim charities in the Philippines.

Filipino and Western anti-terrorism officials have linked the movement to the Abu Sayyaf group and Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terror network that Western and Asian intelligence agencies have tied to Al Qaeda.

Ricardo Blancaflor, spokesman for the Philippine Anti-Terrorism Council, announced Lavilla’s arrest and deportation and described the arrest as a “big boost” in Manilla’s fight against terrorism.

It was not clear how Lavilla managed to leave the country in the first place, though officials said there had obviously been “intelligence lapses” that might have allowed him to slip away.

The Treasury Department said Lavilla “is believed to have taken over as RSM’s political, religious and strategic leader” after the arrest in 2005 of the group’s leader, Ahmed Santos.

Officials also said Saturday that four members of the Philippine Marines had been killed and 10 had been wounded in an ambush, apparently by Abu Sayyaf militants in Sulu Province, in the southern Philippines.

In addition, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Islamic separatist group in the southern Philippines, said Sunday that it might abandon the peace process because of the government’s decision not to sign a peace agreement that had been initialed by both sides.

Mohagher Iqbal, the front’s chief negotiator, said in an interview with Reuters that his group would negotiate further only if the government signed the agreement, which would have given Muslims a sizable territory.

“We’re not only disappointed and frustrated over the government’s decision to turn its back on the ancestral domain deal, we’ve completely lost trust and confidence in them,” Iqbal said Sunday. “The fate of the peace negotiation rests solely in the hands of the government.”

Violence has resumed on the southern island of Mindanao because of the failure by both sides to sign the agreement.

More than 300,000 people have been forced from their homes, officials said, and more than 150 rebels, soldiers and civilians have been killed.

As the MOA Unravels, What Now?

By Carlos H. Conde
Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project

Now that the plan to ram through the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) has unraveled, the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is trying to sweep it under the carpet.

The agreement has been in limbo ever since the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order at the request of Christian politicians against the scheduled signing in Malaysia that was planned on August 5. The agreement between the government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) would have established an effective sub-state or homeland known as the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity.

While the Supreme Court is now conducting its review, Arroyo’s factotums are now saying that, no matter what the Supreme Court eventually decides, it no longer matters since the administration no longer wants the MOA.

Just like that.

The government then segues into a supposed whole new strategy: that the peace process in Mindanao is now going to be done with communities, not armed groups, and that these communities will be consulted and will participate in the crafting of any agreement with the MILF.

The entire thing is laughable — or perhaps, more accurately, maddening — since this is what the government should have done in the first place.

In the meantime, the damage has been done. Entire communities have been obliterated, both by rogue elements of the MILF and by the military, which launched offensive actions this week supposedly aimed at the rebels but actually displaced and maimed innocent civilians, both Moro and non-Moro.

No, this regime should not be allowed to get away with its blunders, miscalculations, if not even outright deception.

It must have known that the MOA would never pass muster. So can people be blamed if they now think that this is nothing but a ruse to initiate constitutional change in Congress with the aim of extending Arroyo’s term?

The Senate should pursue an investigation into the MOA and how it was crafted. It should not buy the government’s assertion that because it no longer wants the MOA in its present form, it’s a dead issue. The agreement and the circumstances that surround it simply beg to be investigated.

And the Supreme Court should issue its decision on the MOA whether this government wants it or not.

What of the MILF? To be fair, it has always been consistent that it will not negotiate within what it sees as the rigid confines of the Philippine Constitution –- and who can blame them? The peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front was consistent with the Constitution, and look what happened to it and the Moro areas? The MNLF declared war on this same government seven years ago after it accused Arroyo of reneging on the 1996 agreement.

While our 21-year-old Constitution, such as it is, should not be tweaked just to accommodate the MOA, it is a living document. If giving justice to the Bangsamoro necessitates changing the Constitution, then by all means we should change it. The only problem, of course, is that those who wish to change the charter have a vested interest in the act. Many believe that allowing the current administration to mess around with the Constitution is a bit like giving a burglar the keys to your house.

In any case, the MILF has certainly improved its ability to negotiate over the years and saw an opportunity to pursue an agreement that would see them move beyond the Constitution. They quickly grabbed it -– and again, who can blame them? There is a confluence of different interests at play here, and I suspect the MILF decided to play along because it had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Had the signing pushed through in Kuala Lumpur with all those dignitaries and representatives of foreign governments around to witness the event, can you imagine what that can do to improve the cachet of the MILF in the international community?

But given that Arroyo doesn’t have any remaining political capital to work with, the MILF should probably think about suspending negotiations with the government. As Zachary Abuza, an American expert on terrorism in Southeast Asia who has done extensive research on the MILF, told me: “President Arroyo is such a lame duck right now that she lacks the political capital to get any constitutional amendment passed in the final year plus of her term. So the MILF could be in limbo for another two to three years until a new president is settled in.”

So does this mean that the ceasefire and peace is now at an end and that all-out war is its logical consequence? Not necessarily. If the MILF really respects human rights and adheres to international humanitarian laws and the laws of conflict, Commander Bravo and the other MILF regional leaders accused of the recent atrocities committed against civilians should stand down.

The important thing to keep in mind is that, if the MILF plays its cards well and controls its troops -– it bears repeating that the MILF gains nothing from attacking civilians — the burden of stilling the guns and keeping the peace in Mindanao lies with Arroyo.

Thankfully, while a military campaign ostensibly to hunt down the “renegade” MILF commanders continues, the government is still showing signs that it is pursuing the peace process, that it is showing some restraint (if not calibration) in dealing with the MILF, and that it promised to launch nationwide consultations on the MOA.

The government simply cannot afford to abandon the peace process in Mindanao, according to Julkipli Wadi, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of the Philippines.

To be sure, there are elements in the military and government who will try to provoke the MILF into doing something silly. I wouldn’t be surprised if bombs suddenly go off in key cities, including Metro Manila, in the days ahead. I can almost see now terrorist suspects (from the Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah, wherever) being paraded before the television cameras and for the government to claim such people were part of an MILF plot to sow terror and to distract the military from its offensive and such.

We’ve seen it all before. Already National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales declared Sunday that those behind the Lanao del Norte atrocities have links to Jemaah Islamiyah.

The MILF, however, should not take the bait and allow the Arroyo administration in its dying days to hijack the Bangsamoro’s long-standing aspirations or to try and claim the moral high ground. Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project

Fighting worsens in Philippines, displacing 300,000 on Mindanao

By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
The New York Times
Published: August 26, 2008

MANILA: Fighting in the southern Philippines between government troops and Islamic separatists is getting worse by the day, with the number of displaced people now reaching 300,000, officials and disaster volunteers said Tuesday.

Army officials estimated that 150 rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the separatist group, were killed in the past five days and that government troops overran 15 rebel camps in one of the largest military offensives since peace negotiations began 11 years ago.

The military said the offensives, which have been taking place in several provinces in the southern region of Mindanao since last week, are specifically directed at three commands of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that were responsible for attacks this month in which 33 people were killed.

Relief officials said most of the displaced were from Muslim areas.

Volunteer groups who are helping the refugees in Mindanao called on the government Tuesday to stop the offensives because of the worsening humanitarian crisis in many Muslim areas.

“We are calling for a cease-fire, for both sides to talk rather than shoot each other,” said Rexall Kaalim, an officer of Bantay Ceasefire, a volunteer group in Mindanao. He said that casualties were increasing and that refugees were dying or getting sick in evacuation centers.

Several reports since Monday indicated heavy fighting in at least two provinces, with airstrikes being carried out by the military regularly.

On its Web site, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front claimed it killed 13 soldiers since last week and also reported the downing of a helicopter gunship - assertions that the military had denied.

Gilbert Teodoro, the defense secretary, said Monday that the offensives would not stop until the three front commanders were captured. Arroyo advisers also said the peace negotiations would only resume if the commanders were turned over to the authorities. The front’s leadership said that would not happen.

The attacks followed the signing of a peace deal on Aug. 5, aborted since, that many Filipinos opposed. The fighting has left the peace process in tatters, although President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been trying to resuscitate it.

“There is no all-out war,” Arroyo said in a speech Monday. “What we are doing, we are doing to have all-out peace in Mindanao.”

Her administration, however, is exerting pressure on the 11,000-strong front, which has been fighting for Muslim self-rule since the 1970s. On Monday, Norberto Gonzales, the national security adviser, said that the front commanders responsible for the rampage this month had ties with Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terror network.

Separately, a C-130 transport plane from the Philippine Air Force carrying two pilots and seven crew members went missing Tuesday morning after taking off in Davao City.

Officials said they had recovered body parts and debris, including combat boots, from the waters of the Davao Gulf. The authorities are still verifying reports by fishermen in the area that they saw an aircraft plunging into the sea after it was hit by lightning.

Peace process fraught with peril for Arroyo

By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
The New York Times
Published: August 24, 2008

MANILA: Three weeks ago, the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was scheduled to sign a peace deal that, among other things, had promised to cede part of Mindanao, the main island in the south of the Philippines, to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Islamic separatist group.

When the signing was aborted after local officials of Christian-dominated provinces complained to the Supreme Court, the rebels went on a two-day rampage in which 33 people were killed and dozens of houses burned. The events have left the peace process in tatters.

Since then, Arroyo has been faced with a dilemma: whether to salvage the peace process, or abandon it and deal with the rebels much more forcefully, as her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, had done. Either way, according to analysts and experts, there are big political risks.

Abhoud Syed Lingga, executive director of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies, a nonprofit organization that conducts studies on issues involving Filipino Muslims, said the aborted signing had “triggered the actions of some of the front’s commanders.” What these actions suggest, Lingga explained, is that “if negotiations fail, violence will follow.”

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court began oral arguments last week on the complaint lodged by Manuel Pinol, the vice-governor of North Cotabato Province. The court is expected to make public its opinion - on whether the peace agreement was constitutional and legal - before the month ends.

Arroyo’s practical option is to proceed with the signing of the agreement - provided that the Supreme Court rules in her favor or that she manages to produce another, more acceptable draft - and pursue the peace process.

This, however, is politically tricky for her, analysts said. For the agreement to be signed, Arroyo will have to pacify a large segment of the population that is opposed to any deal that would give Muslims more territories than they already have. These opponents have made known their intention to use force - by organizing civilian militias against the front if necessary.

Moreover, Arroyo officials had said such a deal could only be implemented if the Congress amended the Constitution and shifted the system of government to federalism. Her opponents in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have vowed to block such an effort for two reasons: They do not want to divide the republic, and they do not want to give Arroyo the opportunity to extend her term, which her allies can theoretically do once the federalism proposal is under consideration in Congress.

Indeed, the suspicion that the peace deal is just a Trojan horse to extend her term, which ends in 2010, has been so overwhelming here that, according to analysts, whatever good the agreement has in store for Filipino Muslims has disappeared from the public discourse. In forging the agreement, the government did not consult the public, even refusing to release the draft to the public.

While the administration initially showed confusion in its response to the crisis, there have been indications in the past several days that it has opted to pursue the peace deal and to mollify those opposed to it.

For example, military officials, in a departure from their initial pronouncements of a widespread offensive against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, declared on Thursday that the offensives would be directed specifically at the two groups that carried out the attacks, not necessarily against the whole movement.

Arroyo’s advisers also initially said that the government was conducting a review of the agreement, possibly even a renegotiation.

But on Saturday, Arroyo’s press secretary, Jesus Dureza, declared that the government would no longer sign the agreement in its current form. Instead, it will launch “widespread consultations” on the agreement with communities and non-Muslim sectors in Mindanao - the very thing that opponents of the deal said the government should have done in the first place.

Adding pressure on the government to go back to the negotiating table is the interest shown by the international community in resolving the conflict, which has been going on for decades in the south. Malaysia, for example, has been mediating the peace negotiations in the past five years - the signing three weeks ago was to have taken place there - and its efforts have largely been credited for the progress in the talks.

Malaysian investments in Mindanao, including in Muslim areas, have been increasing the past several years.

Washington, on the other hand, is keen to end the conflict in the south as part of its war on terrorism. It has promised multimillion-dollar aid to Mindanao, particularly in Muslim areas, on the condition that a final peace agreement is signed. An undetermined number of American soldiers have been stationed in Mindanao since 2002, while U.S. corporations, like Exxon, are eyeing investments in Muslim provinces.

Clearly, said Julkipli Wadi, a professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of the Philippines, “it is not in the interest of the government to abandon the peace process.”

Arroyo, he said, should now work to repair the damage she created by failing to involve others - like Congress, local governments, nongovernment groups, the various communities in Mindanao - in the peace process.

Not forging a peace settlement, warned Lingga of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies, would be very costly. “As the conflict will be prolonged,” he said, “secession might become an option to some.”

On Saturday, the front’s chairman, Ebrahim Murad, said at his camp that “war is among the options.”

“If the Supreme Court rules against the agreement,” said Zachary Abuza, an American expert on Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia and a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, “brace yourself for a lot more fighting.”

Mindanao’s Wrecked Peace Deal

A botched agreement, domestic politics and insurgent violence threaten to renew war in the southern Philippines

By Carlos H. Conde
Asia Sentinel
21 August 2008

By many accounts, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the separatist group in the southern Philippines, should have emerged the victor in what is now widely regarded as a fiasco involving a peace deal with the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. But the ensuing violence of the last week in Mindanao may well have ended any chance for peace in the immediate future.

The peace agreement, called the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain, sought to give far more concessions to the MILF than previous administrations had offered to other Muslim groups. Among these were an expanded Muslim territory and the power and authority to exploit the rich natural resources in these areas as the autonomous Muslim rulers would see fit.

Perhaps more important for the MILF, the agreement was groundbreaking in that it did not mention the Philippine Constitution, the subtext being that the MILF or the would-be rulers of the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity, the name of the expanded Muslim region, would operate outside its framework. This would be a sort of dream come true for the MILF, whose leaders, ever since the front’s inception in the late ’70s, had always maintained that any settlement should not be under the terms of the national Constitution.

Ironically, that proved to be the agreement’s undoing, along with the longstanding fear among many in Mindanao that the concessions could threaten Christian communities. Some Christian local officials sought the intercession of the Supreme Court, which issued a restraining order stopping the government and the MILF from signing the accord in Kuala Lumpur on Aug. 6.

What followed pretty much destroyed whatever goodwill the MILF gained in the negotiations and, as a result, now threatens to return Mindanao to a state of war. Two days after the signing was scuttled, hostilities erupted when MILF elements in North Cotabato province under the command of Umbra Kato refused to vacate villages they had earlier occupied, according to the military. The military responded with force, plunging the province and nearby areas into violence and displacing more than 160,000 people from their homes.

Less than a week after that, MILF elements, this time under the leadership of one Commander Bravo, went on a rampage in several towns and villages in the province of Lanao del Norte, shooting civilians, hacking people to death, taking hostages as human shields, and burning down houses. Images of mutilated and burned bodies, including that of a two-year-old girl named Love-Love, flooded the mainstream media, eliciting an outcry from many sectors, including those who had been supportive of the peace process.

The MILF insisted that the attacks were not approved by its central leadership and promised to investigate and punish those responsible. Al Haj Murad, the MILF’s chairman, told ABS-CBN television on Wednesday that the peace process remained a paramount consideration.

“We are trying our best to restrain our commanders in order to save the situation. This can be a beginning of the war if not properly handled,” Murad said. “There is still a chance in going back to peace as long as both parties ? for us and for the side of the government ? will implement utmost restraint in order to hold back the situation.”

But to many Filipinos, the damage created by this week’s atrocities is such that, in some parts of Mindanao, people are already reliving the horrors of the 1970s, the height of the government’s so-called “pacification campaign” against the Moro National Liberation Front, which dominated the Moro movement at that time but has since largely come to terms with the government under a previous autonomy agreement. The MILF broke away from the MNLF in 1981. On Wednesday, pictures emerged of a group of Christian militias, the Ilaga (literally, rats), arming themselves against the MILF. The name is itself frightening as the Ilaga were the often-vicious militias that faced Muslims in battle a generation ago.

Senator Rodolfo Biazon, who was a Marine Corps commander in Mindanao in the 1970s, said Thursday that civilians arming themselves present “a big problem in this country.” He recalled that during the insurgency drive in the 1970s, soldiers were taken from other areas to be deployed to Mindanao to pacify civilians who were killing each other. “We do not want a repeat of that,” he said, but “that could happen if the government fails to restore peace and order and protect civilians.”

In Manila, politicians denounced the MILF and called once again for an “all-out war” against the group, similar to the one launched by then-President Joseph Estrada in 2000. Estrada himself went on national television this week to accuse the Arroyo administration of treating the MILF with kid gloves.

Almost instantly, the other aspect of the peace deal that had riled many Filipinos prior to the attacks – the allegation that the agreement was a Trojan horse designed to keep Arroyo in power beyond 2010 – was nearly forgotten.

Before the attacks, Arroyo and her officials had insisted that the agreement could only be implemented if the Constitution was amended and the form of national government changed from the present centralized system into a federal one. Her critics and allies alike concede that during deliberations by the Philippine Congress on such amendments, no one could be prevented from introducing a proposal to shift to a parliamentary form of government in which Arroyo could be elected prime minister or to abolish the constitutional provision that bans a president from standing for re-election after a single six-year term. Arroyo’s term expires in 2010.

The paranoia that greeted the peace deal can be partly explained by the fact that Arroyo, apart from being the most unpopular president since the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, has been plagued with questions over her legitimacy in office since ascending to power after Estrada was overthrown by a military-backed uprising in 2001. Matters were made worse by charges that she stole the 2004 elections through massive cheating – an allegation that prompted three impeachment complaints against her.

Also, many Filipinos still view her as ambitious and power-hungry, someone who would not hesitate to lie about her political plans if it suited her. (Prior to the 2004 elections, she promised Filipinos that she would not run for president. After being named president, she was quoted by Time magazine as saying, “God put me here.”)

Her critics believe she wants to amend the Constitution to extend her term, a fear that has had the effect of poisoning even well-meaning campaigns to improve the charter hurriedly passed in 1987 after Marcos was overthrown. Indeed, at least two of the senators who had earlier backed a Senate resolution calling for a federal system withdrew their support, saying they did not want Arroyo to ride on that issue to prolong her stay.

After the attacks, all of these issues have been pushed to the periphery, allowing Arroyo to take the moral high ground and vow to crush the MILF factions that went on a rampage in Mindanao. Arroyo, said political analyst Ramon Casiple of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms, “still wants the memorandum of agreement but the pressure is on her to deal forcefully with MILF.”

“The MILF leadership, if they are serious about achieving peace in Mindanao, should discipline their ranks and not allow them to wreak havoc on the people of Mindanao,” said Aquilino Pimentel Jr., a senator from Mindanao who is the foremost proponent of federalism as a way to end the decades of conflict in the region.

The Lanao atrocities, said Casiple, “exposed the fact that the MILF does not really respect human rights, the niceties of democratic and legal processes, and that they do not yet have the requisites of a responsible political movement and a credible aspirant for state governance.”

For Bobby Tuazon, a political analyst at the Center for People Empowerment in Governance, a Manila think tank, the atrocities were a pity because the MILF “may have gained something out of this fiasco. It was able to press the government to recognize – at least in motherhood principles – the ancestral domain claim of the Bangsamoro people.” This, he said, “is a step forward in the MILF’s jihad toward self-determination.”

For the moment, many sectors, afraid that Mindanao will once again burn, are calling for restraint. “The primacy of the peace process is important,” said Julkipli Wadi, an Islamic scholar at the University of the Philippines. “The government cannot afford not to have peace talks in Mindanao.”

Islamic separatists kill 28 in Philippines rampage

By Carlos H. Conde
The New York Times
International Herald Tribune
Published: August 18, 2008

MANILA: Islamic separatists attacked several towns and villages Monday in the troubled southern Philippine region of Mindanao, killing at least 28 people in a rampage that, officials said, included hacking several people with machetes and spraying bullets into buses.

The attacks came as tens of thousands of villagers in other areas of Mindanao were returning to their homes following the fighting last week between government troops and the Muslim rebels.

News reports from Mindanao said several of the victims had been hacked with machetes. The rebels, according to officials, also burned down houses. The police said that the fatalities were mostly civilians, mainly farmers, while an undetermined number were soldiers.

Officials said more than 200 rebels attacked at least four towns in two provinces in Mindanao.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called the attacks “sneaky and treacherous” and ordered the military and the police “to defend every inch of Philippine territory” against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Islamic separatist group operating in Mindanao.

“I will crush any attempt to disturb peace and development in Mindanao,” the president said in a radio address.

The civilians were killed when the rebels withdrew, said Brigadier General Hilario Atendido, a military commander in the area. “They used them as human shields,” Atendido said, speaking on the radio station DZBB. “The rebels killed them on their way out.”

According to news reports, the rebels also took several residents as hostages. A bus driver told a radio station in Mindanao that the rebels, shouting “Kill them all!” fired on his bus. The driver did not say how many of his passengers were wounded or killed.

Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo, the governor of Lanao del Sur Province, said that the rebels were moving toward Christian-dominated towns in the coastal areas and that the military was directing its forces to protect those places.

“The military is doubling its forces,” he told ABS-CBN television. “The highest priority now is to secure the coastal towns.”

Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the rebel front, said it was still checking reports that the attackers were rebels. He urged the public “not to jump to conclusions” as the front investigated the attacks.

But in case the rebels were front members, Kabalu urged them to stop the violence and to pull out of the province. He said the Moro Islamic Liberation Front did not issue any directive to carry out the attacks.

The violence this week, which began on Sunday in Lanao del Sur, where four soldiers and four military-supported militia members were killed, is certain to complicate the peace negotiations between the government and the front.

Two weeks ago, both sides had reached an agreement that they thought could end the fighting. But it was scuttled because of protests over the concessions that were to be given to the Muslim rebels. Government negotiators then said they were willing to abandon the peace agreement because of the backlash it caused in the Philippines. Analysts had said the breakdown of the talks could lead to more violence.

The new attacks, said the army chief, General Alexander Yano, were a “clear manifestation of the insincerity to the peace process of a significant portion” of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. This, he added, “is a virtual declaration of war against the duly constituted authority.”

Suspicions of Arroyo helped sink Muslim peace deal

By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: August 14, 2008

MANILA: For more than three decades, Filipino Muslims have been demanding greater autonomy in a country dominated by Christians. It is a dream that has fueled Islamic separatism in the Philippines, and embroiled Mindanao, the southern region where most Muslims live, in a cycle of violence and conflict.

Two weeks ago, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main separatist group, and the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo thought they had finally achieved a pact that would make that dream of autonomy come true and end the violence.

The agreement, which has been championed by Arroyo, would grant Filipino Muslims, in the words of one government negotiator, a Muslim “state within a state.”

The problem was that the document was not made public until two days before it was to be signed in Kuala Lumpur on Aug. 6. Once its contents were disclosed, a storm of protest brought the peace process to a halt and helped set off renewed violence in Mindanao.

Many critics felt the document gave too many concessions to the Muslims of Mindanao. Others from the region were angry that they had not been consulted.

The plan also became a lightning rod for critics of Arroyo, who see the deal as a Trojan horse designed to keep the president in power beyond her term.

Critics says the agreement violates the Constitution because it would divide the republic, in effect ceding a large chunk of Mindanao to Muslims. It seeks to give Muslims the final say in how their natural resources will be exploited, promises to expand an existing Muslim territory and, much like an independent state, would allow the Muslim government to enter into international agreements.

To make this plan work, however, the Constitution would have to be amended to transform the Philippines into a federal republic, officials said. In a speech Monday, Arroyo confirmed that her administration would now work for this shift. “I advocate federalism as a way to gain lasting peace in Mindanao,” she said.

Her press secretary, Jesus Dureza, said the administration supported a resolution in the Senate that could pave the way for this shift to federalism. Under the proposal, the Philippines would be divided into 11 federal states, each empowered to chart its development. At present, provinces and regions have to defer to the central government in Manila on major decisions, particularly those involving natural resources.

“This concentration of such enormous powers in Manila has created only one center of finance and development in the country, resulting in a highly centralized system of government,” the resolution said. Dureza said Tuesday that it was now “all systems go” for federalism - the only way, he said, that the agreement with the Muslims could be implemented.

Fearful that the agreement would make the Islamic front more powerful than it already is, several officials from the provinces that were to be included in the expanded territory denounced the pact, particularly a clause that says an existing region being run by Muslims would be expanded. One of the officials appealed to the Supreme Court, which stopped the scheduled signing of the agreement.

The aborted signing was a major embarrassment for Manila. Dignitaries, including the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie Kenney, had gone to Kuala Lumpur to witness the ceremony. It also caught the Moro Islamic Liberation Front by surprise.

In response, Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels occupied several villages in one province, even burning down Catholic chapels, by some accounts, and refused to leave when government troops arrived.

The confrontation triggered a conflict last week that killed several rebels and displaced more than 160,000 residents.

Anger over the deal came from a wide spectrum of Filipinos. Some critics complained that it was negotiated without transparency or without input from other players in the region.

Father Eliseo Mercado Jr., a Catholic priest who has mediated in the negotiations in the past, wrote in a column on the GmaNews.tv Web site last week that “the paramount flaw” in the agreement “is the absence or utter lack of consultation of stakeholders, including Christian leaders, indigenous peoples in Mindanao, and peace advocates themselves.” This flaw, he added, “contravenes the very essence of any peace process which is participative of the stakeholders.”

Adding fuel to the fire are accusations leveled by opponents of Arroyo that the president is planning to use the agreement with the Muslims to sneak a proposal to extend her rule into the deliberations on amending the Constitution.

The president is co-opting the peace process with the Muslims for her political ends, said Ramon Casiple, the executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform, based in Manila.

Renato Reyes, secretary general of Bayan, a leftist group that has led numerous anti-Arroyo protests in the past, adds that “there is nothing in the track record of this government that says it can be trusted with amending the Constitution.”

When asked Wednesday whether there was anything that could stop Arroyo’s allies from proposing a term extension for the president during the deliberations, Representative Victor Ortega, chairman of the House committee on constitutional amendments, replied: “Nothing. It can be proposed in the committee, in the plenary.” Under the present Constitution, a president is only allowed one term, and Arroyo is due to step down in 2010.

Arroyo’s advisers deny she is seeking to extend her presidency.

“We must disassociate the principle of federalism from any rumors of term extension for the president,” Anthony Golez, an Arroyo spokesman, said Wednesday.

While many are opposed to the agreement, others believe it is a step in the right direction.

Mercado, the Catholic priest, said the deal represents a “paradigm shift” in dealing with Muslim autonomy. For example, he said, the agreement could pave the way for “shared sovereignty” between Manila and the new Muslim territory.

He said it was unfortunate that the government’s failure to keep the public informed about the agreement, coupled with Arroyo’s unpopularity, now threatened to scuttle the agreement altogether.

Analysts say Filipino Muslims’ wish for a separate state may have been set back. While the Supreme Court could still allow the signing of the agreement later this month, it might be politically costly for Arroyo, they say.

130,000 Filipinos displaced as fighting escalates

By Carlos H. Conde
Interntional Herald Tribune
The New York Times
Published: August 11, 2008

MANILA: The number of Filipinos displaced from their homes since fighting began late last week between government forces and Islamic separatists in the southern Philippines reached 130,000 on Monday, officials said. The military and the police sent more troops to fight the rebels.

Social welfare officials warned of a potential humanitarian disaster as the fighting between troops and elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which had been confined to two provinces, threatened to spill over to other areas. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is a separatist group that has been fighting for an Islamic state in the southern region of Mindanao for several decades.

Local media reported that thousands of residents, the majority of them Muslims, had been fleeing their homes since Friday, many in carts pulled by water buffaloes.

Thousands of refugees had been housed in more than 40 refugee centers, officials said, but most of them had chosen to leave their communities and seek shelter with relatives in other provinces.

As of Monday, officials said two soldiers and at least 15 rebels had been killed in the fighting, which erupted on Thursday after separatist forces refused to vacate nine villages in North Cotabato Province.

Two days earlier, the Philippine Supreme Court ruled in favor of a petition that prevented the government and the rebel group from signing an agreement that both sides had thought could help end the decades-old separatist war.

The petition was filed by officials of North Cotabato, who feared that the agreement would allow the rebel group to encroach into Christian territories, a charge that the group and the government denied.

The court is set to make a final decision later this month on whether to allow the agreement to be signed.

Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the rebels, blamed government-backed civilian militias for the conflict. He said the front had wanted to “reposition its forces” but was attacked by militias opposed to the peace agreement.

The administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been severely criticized for the way it handled the negotiations that led to the peace agreement. Many officials, including allies of the president as well as Filipino Muslims, have complained that they were not consulted and that details of the agreement were deliberately withheld from the public.

“The renewed fighting in North Cotabato goes to show that when the government bungles the peace negotiation, it is the citizens who suffer,” Risa Hontiveros, a congresswoman, said Monday. “The peace process is turning into a humanitarian mess.”

The renewed fighting coincided with elections on Monday in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which comprises seven predominantly Muslim provinces. Past elections have been violent but officials said the latest voting was largely peaceful, although there were reports of sporadic violence, including the bombing of electric towers in one province.

People escaping the violence fled along a major national highway that had been ordered closed to traffic on Sunday after separatists had commandeered a passenger bus.

“We are tired, but we have to move on,” Farida Dimalangan, a 47-year-old refugee, told MindaNews, a news agency in Mindanao.

Hundreds of refugees sought shelter in sheds and warehouses along the highway.

Murders of 2 Filipino journalists alarm media groups

By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: August 10, 2008

MANILA: Two Filipino journalists were shot and killed in a span of four days last week, their murders once again highlighting the “culture of impunity” that prevails in the Philippines, media groups said Sunday.

Dennis Cuesta, who was shot last Monday in General Santos, a city in the southern Philippines, died in the hospital on Saturday after lapsing into a coma, colleagues and the police said.

On Thursday, Martin Roxas, another journalist, had just concluded his radio show in the central Philippine province of Panay when two men shot him in the back. He died an hour later in the hospital.

Cuesta and Roxas had been working as news anchors and commentators for their respective stations, both owned by Radio Mindanao Network, the country’s largest radio network.

While the two murders were believed to be unrelated, both journalists were known for their scathing commentary on the air, often tackling corruption allegations against politicians and airing complaints from residents in their communities, colleagues said.

Their deaths brought to five the number of Filipino journalists killed so far this year. According to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, 5 were killed last year and 13 in 2006.

The killings of Filipino journalists have received considerable international attention and even prompted an investigation by the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists and other international press freedom groups, the Philippines was next only to Iraq as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. Unlike in Iraq, however, almost all media killings in the Philippines were premeditated.

Although the killings seem to have declined in the last two years, journalists insist that the Philippine authorities had done little toward arresting or successfully prosecuting the perpetrators.

The killings of Cuesta and Roxas and the way they were carried out - in public and in broad daylight - “merely show that the culture of impunity the government has helped nurture by its inaction, apathy and even its outright attempts to stifle press freedom, continues to thrive,” the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said in a statement Sunday.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York, said “two attacks against outspoken radio commentators in the space of a week is of grave concern to us and our colleagues in the Philippines.” Journalists in the Philippines, said Elisabeth Witchel, the coordinator of the committee’s impunity campaign, “are frequently killed and assaulted with impunity, all for doing their jobs.”

Witchel said the murders this year were “an alarming sign that violence against Philippine journalists may be on the rise.”

The police have arrested several suspects in three other cases this year but released some of them for lack of evidence. The force has also set up a special unit to investigate the murders of journalists, but an overwhelming majority of the 60 killings since 2001 remain unsolved.