Will Philippines agreement end the Mindanao terror?

Will Philippines agreement end the Mindanao terror?

SINGAPORE: Abu Sayyaf kidnaps, beheadings and million-dollar Libyan pay-offs have been staple news out of the southern Philippines in the past two years. It will take monumental will and good security organization to change the region's image from one of endemic brigandage to one of hope and repair. Mindanao, the large southern island coveted by Muslims, has seen three decades of warfare and some 120,000 deaths over a political cause that Muslim activists themselves are squabbling over.

On Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur, under Malaysian and Libyan sponsorship, representatives of the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed a truce that seeks nominally to end the MILF's armed struggle. As significantly, the MILF on the same day signed a deal that reunited itself with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the parent movement from which it split in 1978 over disagreements about how to achieve Islamic political supremacy in the south.

On the face of it, these are substantial concessions by all parties involved, a tacit acceptance that the military approach has brought them no nearer their objective 30 years after President Ferdinand Marcos's declaration of martial law energized the Muslim rebellion. For the Manila government, preserving territorial integrity has come at a terrible price. The south has been left to degenerate, partly by design and partly out of operational necessity, until it is today a blot on the record. For the rebels, self-rule in four provinces granted to the MNLF by President Fidel Ramos in 1996 turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory as Muslim unity was in tatters.

In hindsight, the breakaway MILF under Hashim Salamat made a strategic error when it declined the Aquino government's offer of talks after Marcos was deposed in 1986. The MILF was to wander in the wilderness for another decade until it belatedly agreed to negotiations in 1997. The Abu Sayyaf, another splinter group from the MNLF, was meantime doing its best to dishonor the movement's aims by turning to kidnap for ransom.

The big question that arises is how much the Kuala Lumpur agreement can contribute to the attainment of peace between the Catholic whole and a Muslim rump. This may be getting ahead of the plot. Perhaps the smarter question to ask is: Will the ceasefire hold? Agreements made during the Ramos presidency were frequently broken. Then came President Joseph Estrada, with more truce violations. On the eve of the Kuala Lumpur signing, MILF operatives ambushed a security unit in Cotabato, with one government soldier killed. This time, the truce is to be monitored by representatives of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, including Malaysia and Indonesia. Might this exert a restraining influence on the protagonists?

But the key to a Mindanao settlement remains economic rehabilitation. Development projects and provision of basic services have been circumscribed, lately because of Abu Sayyaf bandit activity. Now, another round of talks with the MILF is scheduled next month to discuss a program of development in areas most damaged by the conflict. If plans and promises are carried to fruition and the ceasefire holds, there is no reason to suppose Mindanao will remain a backwater. The Abu Sayyaf is now the only rebel force that remains. If the reconciliation of the MNLF and MILF bears out, the few hundred Abu Sayyaf operatives can be contained more easily. But, this being the Philippines, nothing can be assumed.

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network