Mindanao restless despite peace

Mindanao restless despite peace

By Ruben Alabastro

MANILA (Reuter): One year after a peace pact ended a long- running Moslem separatist war in the southern Philippines and raised expectations of a "peace dividend" for the region, disillusion is setting in.

Moslem rebel chief Nur Misuari, the man who signed the pact to bring autonomy to parts of the large island of Mindanao, has come under criticism for delays in getting development projects under way and lingering lawlessness.

Even Misuari sounds disillusioned.

"I cannot brag about anything... I have not built even one kilometer of road," he said last week during one of his frequent trips to Manila to seek funds for his program to rebuild the war- battered region.

Today, the former guerrilla-turned-politician will join President Fidel Ramos in ceremonies in Misuari's hometown on the island of Jolo off Mindanao to mark the first anniversary of the signing of the peace deal.

The pact ended a 24-year rebellion by the Moro National Liberation Front that claimed 120,000 lives. It also installed Misuari as a regional governor and set up a council led by former rebels to monitor development in 14 Christian and Moslem provinces in Mindanao.

The council is to serve as the forerunner to an autonomous government Manila has agreed to set up in 1999 in the region to defuse Moslem demands for a separate Islamic state.

Despite Manila's promise to release US$1.2 billion in funds to finance development, Misuari said all he had received so far was money to pay for the operations and salaries of employees of the council and other regional structures.

Planned projects include roads, airports, power plants, an oil refinery, a cement factory and livelihood projects.

Potential donor countries have also pledged more than $400 million in aid.

Misuari said he was worried not only about the slow pace of development, but also the continuing violence in a region where two breakaway rebel groups -- the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf group -- continue to fight for independence.

About 150 people died in fighting last month between government soldiers and the MILF before a ceasefire agreement was reached. Technical disputes have stalled talks on a separate peace deal between Manila and the MILF.

Kidnap-for-ransom gangs that strike with virtual impunity in some parts of Mindanao have compounded Misuari's problems and added to criticism of him.

"I think people are rushing to judge him," Libyan Ambassador Rajab Abdulaziz Azzarouq, a member of an Islamic panel that brokered the peace pact, told Reuters.

"Misuari has a tremendous task... We have to give him some time. The man has just started...and the Moslems have to learn how to govern after many years of fighting," Azzarouq said.

He said Misuari, despite heavy odds, was committed to developing Mindanao, where many Moslems live in poverty despite the region's vast agricultural lands and mineral resources, including gold and copper.

"Before he was lecturing us about jihad (holy war). Now, no more jihad. I told him the real jihad is to make people happy, to make everyone eat, to make everyone know peace."

Officials said another big problem Misuari had to hurdle was the centuries-old distrust between Christians and Moslems.

Regarded by the five million Moslems of this largely Catholic country as their ancestral homeland, Mindanao is now dominated by Christians who began migrating to the region in the 1950s.

Last week when Misuari rode on a "peace caravan" across Mindanao to campaign for support for the autonomy plan, businessmen in predominantly Christian Iligan city snubbed a meeting with him.

"He has shown no accomplishment whatsoever... There is absolutely no prospect that Christians will join Moslems," said Iligan businessman and landowner Cesar Padilla.

Disenchantment has begun to creep in even among Moslems. "Peace must have a material content for ordinary people, but Misuari has made a historic capitulation for nothing," said Moslem professor Asiri Abubakar, who teaches Asian studies at the state-run University of the Philippines.

Abubakar said that instead of thinking up grandiose plans like building airports that could take in jumbo jets, Misuari should think of providing poor Moslem areas with potable water.

Unless development comes soon, ordinary Moslems might have no other option but violence, he said.

"That is possible," he told Reuters. "Moslems hate war, but we have always been in war and were raised in war. When have we ever known peace, or hope? We signed for peace but we got nothing."

"War is a worst case scenario, but if we don't do anything, we will be pushing Moslems to the wall."