Abu Sayyaf in Basilan: A Deadly Redux

Because of Balikatan, according to the military, key leaders of the Abu Sayyaf were killed and that the number of Abu Sayyaf terrorists there had dwindled, from more than a thousand in 2000 to only about 200 last year. Both governments also said the non-military assistance provided by Washington, which built bridges, school buildings and clinics throughout the island, had likewise been successful in winning the hearts and minds of Basilan folk.

The recent resurgence of Abu Sayyaf activity there, however, raised questions about those claims, although Western officials insist, in interviews before Saturday’s fighting, that the success or failure of the Basilan theater cannot be gauged by the beheading incident alone.

But, according to experts, the Basilan experiment was half-baked because the campaign moved, in 2003, to the adjacent province of Sulu. The Sulu campaign has much more support from Washington, which maintains an undetermined number of troops on Sulu, where the Abu Sayyaf is likewise believed to be present.

Earlier this month, the Philippine military suffered its highest casualties in recent years during separate battles with suspected Abu Sayyaf members on Jolo island, the capital of Sulu. Twenty-seven soldiers were killed in these clashes. The army said it had killed more than 30 Abu Sayyaf members in these incidents but only seven bodies were recovered. The army also claimed that it killed between 30 and 40 insurgents in Saturday’s encounters but only four bodies were found.

In the past month, the government increased the number of troops on Basilan and Sulu to more than 12,000, the biggest such deployment since 2001. “The firefight is ongoing,” Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said in a press briefing on Saturday. “Our troops are now concentrating in the area. We will press on with the fight.”

The continued presence of the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan and the mayhem that the group still spreads could prove embarrassing both for Manila and Washington, according to Abhoud Syed Lingga, executive director of the Institute for Bangsamoro Studies, a non-profit group that does research and studies on issues concerning Filipino Muslims.

“Exactly what benchmark the government used in determining success in its operations against the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan?” Lingga said in an interview. “If the measure is the Abu Sayyaf’s absence, they can come back after the military operations were over,” he said.

“Even determining their absence is problematic,” Lingga added. “Do authorities know the identities of all Abu Sayyaf members? If they do not, how can the military say that there is no more Abu Sayyaf in Basilan?”

Basilan’s congressman and former governor Wahab Akbar said earlier this month that 80 percent of Muslims in Basilan support the Abu Sayyaf, although Lingga said a more accurate way to put it is that “80 percent tolerate the presence of the Abu Sayyaf” on an island that had been wracked by lawlessness and saddled by poverty and weak government presence. Akbar also pointed out that that some people on the island may have been using the Abu Sayyaf’s name to commit crime.

And in what could be a sign that the Abu Sayyaf threat in Basilan is increasing, provincial officials announced this month that they would include women in their recruitment for a military-backed militia group to fight the Abu Sayyaf better.

Western officials said Basilan is a complex issue and that the elimination of the Abu Sayyaf was not the only concern by the U.S. campaign there, which lasted only six months.

This campaign — in which the U.S. and Philippines armed forces joined forces not just in anti-terrorism operations but in such activities as digging wells, constructing bridges, curing the sick — involved as well the strengthening of government institutions, particularly law enforcement, officials said. “The government’s system in Basilan is now functioning,” said a Western senior military official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to make such assessment.

“Most people there think that they’re much better off today,” a Western aid official said in an interview, who also requested anonymity for the same reason. “Their lives are improving. They have health care.”

Zachary Abuza, an expert on Southeast Asian terrorism at Simmons College in Massachusetts who is currently writing a book on Islamic separatism in the Philippines, said the campaign’s transfer to Sulu was at the expense of Basilan. “I think the U.S. and the Armed Forces of the Philippines have thrown everything they have into Jolo,” he said in an email exchange. “They are thin elsewhere.” When in January the Philippines announced that it was pulling out troops from other provinces and send them to Basilan, Abuza said “that was a clear indication that things were not going as well there as everyone was saying.”

“I don’t think that what the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the U.S. did in Basilan was a failure,” Abuza said. “It’s just that they left so damn quickly.”

Lingga, however, said the Basilan campaign failed because Manila and Washington had the illusion that the law and order problem on the island can be solved merely by going after the Abu Sayyaf and by building roads and bridges.

“The problem in Basilan or Sulu cannot be isolated from the overall problem of the Bangsamoro people,” he said. “I have doubt on the effectiveness of the government strategy as used in Basilan because it does not address the grievances and aspirations of the people.”

The best way to fight terrorism, Lingga said, “is to address people’s grievances and to open democratic avenues where people can pursue peacefully their political aspirations.” Self-determination for Muslims in the south, he said, “will open the window of opportunity to resolve the long-drawn conflict peacefully. Davao Today / Posted by Bulatlat(Bulatlat.com)