Arroyo downplays MILF as terrorist body

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

At a get-together with reporters in Hanoi, Vietnam last week, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo played the nuance game. Discussing the possible blacklisting of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) by the United States, she carefully made a distinction between the "MILF organization itself" and "MILF elements."

She said that several months ago she told the U.S. Embassy in Manila that some elements of the largest insurgency movement in the Philippines were indeed implicated in acts of terrorism, but the organization itself was not. She merely said -- another tweak of nuance -- that the MILF had denied any involvement in the terrorist attacks.

Her remarks were meant to downplay the comments of presidential adviser for special concerns Norberto Gonzales, who had said that the United States was thinking of including the MILF in its list of terrorist organizations. The U.S. State Department had already done so with the Abu Sayyaf bandit group, the Pentagon kidnap gang and, controversially, the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People's Army. Now, Gonzales said, it was prepared to add the MILF to the list.

But Gonzales' information was tangential at best -- yet another twist of nuance. It was conveyed only, and deliberately, in passing, as part of a discussion Gonzales said he had with the MILF's military chief, Ibrahim Murad. He said he had told Murad about the U.S. plan, because of alleged links between the Muslim separatist group and Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), the radical Islamic movement with ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

The notice, he claimed, moved Murad and other MILF leaders to agree to help the Philippine government.

Gonzales, the President's "back-channel" negotiator with the MILF, is playing the game of carrot and stick. Whether he played this game with the President's permission, using the alleged U.S. plan as the stick to beat Murad with, with the promise of cooperation as the carrot, is another question (or another game).

Obviously the military and the police are following yet another script. Police general Edgardo Aglipay said he would welcome such a blacklisting of the MILF, for crassly practical reasons: "The U.S. government would surely give us more support, training and logistics with this new development."

Retired general Eduardo Purificacion, spokesperson for the Armed Forces, said that the Islamic holy season of Ramadhan wouldn't stop the armed forces from retaliating against the MILF.

Sadly for the peace process, the difference between the calibrated response of the Palace and the categorical statements of the security establishment is no mere matter of nuance.

The MILF must be more forthcoming about its entanglement in the worldwide web of terror. A confidential military report obtained by the Associated Press last week revealed that one of the three main territorial cells JI operates used to be based in Camp Abubakar, the sprawling MILF base in Central Mindanao. When the armed forces captured the camp in 2000, JI relocated its cell to Indonesia.

Other damning details do not give the MILF any leeway for nuance. If MILF leaders think they can finesse their offer last week to help arrest the operatives, they will walk right into the military-police trap.

MILF leaders had pledged to capture Abu Sayyaf bandits, or Pentagon gang kidnappers, or other criminals, to no effect. If they do not deliver now, they may hasten the end of the biggest nuance game of all: The on-again, off-again peace talks.