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