The ongoing conflict in the southern Philippines, between the government of the Philippines and groups of Muslim insurgents, has become one of the longest-running, and perhaps most intractable internal conflicts in the Asia pacific region.Dr Ronald May is an Emeritus Professorial Fellow in the State, Society and Governance Project at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University.
The origins of the conflict may be traced back to the sixteenth century, when Spain colonised the Philippine islands and, encountering Islamic communities whom they identified as "Moors" (Moro), effectively resumed the crusades in southeast Asia. Subsequently, under the American colonial regime and successive independent Philippine governments, large-scale immigration into traditional Muslim and tribal homelands and attempts to integrate Philippine Muslims into mainstream Christian Philippine society created growing resentment in the south.
In the 1970s, during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, this resentment fuelled an armed insurgency under the leadership of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which called for a separate Moro nation (BangsaMoro). Attempts were made to resolve the conflict, notably through an agreement signed in Libya in 1976 which promised a degree of autonomy in Muslim Mindanao, but these failed, with each side accusing the other of lacking commitment to a peaceful settlement.
Autonomy and its discontents
A fundamental problem was posed by the fact that the MNLF's minimum territorial demand for autonomy comprised the thirteen provinces of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan in which Islam has been historically dominant, but by 1976, due to immigration from the north, only four provinces had a Muslim majority.
Following the People Power revolution against the Marcos regime in 1986, the new constitution provided for an Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), but negotiations between the Philippine government and the MNLF's overseas-based leader, Nur Misuari, broke down, primarily over the government's insistence that there be a referendum on which provinces should be included within the ARMM. Without Misuari's backing the ARMM lacked credibility.Also on the Philippines in toD:
Rohan Gunaratna, "A necessary act",
(26 July 2007)
Abhoud Syed M. Linga, "Determining factors",
(13 July 2007)
Ten years later, with the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) acting as broker, President Fidel Ramos succeeded in negotiating an agreement with Misuari and persuaded him to return to the Philippines to head the Southern Philippines Council of Peace and Development (SPCPD), within a Special Zone of Peace and Development (SZOPAD). Misuari was also elected to head the ARMM. But there was opposition to the 1996 agreement from non-Muslims, and the legislation authorising the new arrangements was a substantially watered-down version of the agreement initially signed between Ramos and Misuari.
The ARMM, which under Misuari was dominated by MNLF supporters, had a chequered career and after continuing complaints of inadequate funding and lack of support from the national government, Misuari returned to armed insurgency and was subsequently arrested in Malaysia. He is currently serving a prison sentence in Manila.
Meanwhile, the MNLF had split in the latter part of the 1970s, and by the 1990s the breakaway Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) - which had not been party to the 1996 agreement - had become the dominant faction of the Moro movement, though the recognition by the OIC of the MNLF's leadership in Muslim Mindanao locked the Philippine government into primary negotiations with the MNLF.
Attempts to negotiate a separate settlement with the MILF, with assistance from the government of Malaysia, have been continuing for several years, following the signing of a ceasefire in 1997. But progress has been slow and frustration has sometimes given way to military offensive, especially during the presidency of Joseph Estrada when the government of the Philippines embarked on an unproductive "all-out war" against the MILF. More recently, negotiations have achieved some success, though issues of ancestral domain and the status of what the MILF now terms the "BangsaMoro Juridical Entity" remain sticking points.
There was Muslim support in the early 2000s for proposals for the introduction of a federal system in the Philippines. It is difficult, however, to understand how federalism could resolve the problems of Muslim Mindanao when years of attempts to establish viable autonomy in the region have achieved so little.
In the early 1990s, the situation in the southern Philippines was further complicated by the emergence of another Muslim group, Abu Sayyaf, founded by a former supporter of Misuari, Abdurajik Janjalani. Although Janjalani was a religious scholar and Abu Sayyaf put forward an Islamic nationalist agenda, the group has lacked coherence (especially since Janjalani's death in 1998) and its activities have been characterized primarily by extortion and kidnapping for ransom, with a high level of violence. Both the MNLF and the MILF have tended to distance themselves from Abu Sayyaf, accusing it of lacking a political agenda and denouncing its activities as un-Islamic. The group attracted international attention in 2000-2001 when it raided a diving resort in Malaysia, taking twenty-one hostages including a number of western tourists. The group later abducted another twenty hostages from a resort on the Philippine island of Palawan.
Obstacles to peace
Following these incidents, and especially after the 9/11 attacks, the US government increased its support for counter-terrorism in the Philippines. The MNLF, MILF and Abu Sayyaf have all had links to transnational terrorism, and in the early 2000s the MILF reportedly hosted a training camp run by the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiya (JI). In 2007, a revised anti-terror law, the Human Security Act, was signed into existence by the Philippine Congress to strengthen the hand of the government in dealing with terrorist threats.
Movement towards a resolution of the Moros' separatist demands is complicated by demography. In the area covered by the Tripoli agreement of 1976 and the peace agreement of 1996, a substantial majority of the population is now non-Muslim. Thus the long-awaited referendum, mandated by the 1996 agreement with a view to expanding the ARMM to encompass the broader territory recognized in the SZOPAD, predictably failed to achieve this end - as earlier referenda had failed - leaving an ARMM comprising five provinces and one city (of the now fifteen provinces and nine cities canvassed) and compounding the Moros' feelings of grievance against the national government. The MILF's proposal for a BangsaMoro Juridical Entity is a creative attempt to deal with this issue, but the concept has yet to be clearly articulated.
Progress towards a viable solution is also frustrated by divisions within the Moro community: the MNLF, which in elections after the demise of Misuari lost its control over the ARMM, continues to insist that negotiations proceed within the framework of the 1976 Tripoli agreement and the1996 peace agreement, reminding the Philippine government that the MNLF has the backing of the OIC (it also calls for the release of Misuari); the MILF bases its demands on its present strength and effective leadership role in the Moro movement, but has its own agenda in the talks sponsored by the Malaysian government; meanwhile, traditional Muslim political families have largely regained control of the ARMM and argue that negotiations with the government of the Philippines over Muslim autonomy should take place through the ARMM. Against this background, Abu Sayyaf and smaller feuding factions continue to create disorder.
Fighting flare-up
The complexity of the situation has been highlighted in the most recent outbreak of fighting in Mindanao and Sulu. In June 2007 an Italian Roman Catholic priest was kidnapped in Zamboanga, reportedly by a "lost command" of the MILF, but more probably (and according to the priest who was later released) by members of Abu Sayyaf. Subsequently, marines of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) engaged in an operation to release the priest were ambushed on Basilan; fourteen were killed (along with a local imam) and ten of them were beheaded.
The media were quick to blame the MILF for the atrocities, though there were also claims that "Misuari loyalists" were involved. The consensus opinion now seems to be that the ambush was the work of Abu Sayyaf, and there have been reports that two JI members involved in the Bali bombings of 2002 were seen with the Abu Sayyaf forces. The MILF denies involvement in the beheading of the marines and a joint Philippine government-MILF fact-finding mission has submitted a report on the Basilan incident. The MILF also called on the media to stop using religious labels to identify groups fighting the government in Mindanao, as such branding obscures the differences of agenda and identity between the region's various insurgent and political groups.
Since late June, the number of people killed in clashes between the AFP and the Abu Sayyaf group, the MILF and possibly elements of the MNLF has approached one hundred, with thousands displaced by the fighting. Yet, there is a silver lining to this looming cloud; one positive outcome of the recent developments is a renewed commitment to resume the peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF. As fighting continues, however, in Sulu and Basilan, a lasting peace still seems a long way off.
