What,
Really, Is This War For?
The
renewed military offensive in Central Mindanao has more to do with control over
the resource-rich Liguasan Marsh than what the government says is a campaign
against criminals. Aside from the natural gas and other resources of the Marsh
that politicians and big business have been salivating over the past years,
there is also a plan to build a dam that would submerge a number of villages in
North Cotabato.
By
Romy Elusfa
Bulatlat.com/MindaNews
Forty-eight-year-old
Akas Unsay, of Barongis, in Pikit, has evacuated his home six times now since
the 1970s. The first time, during martial law, soldiers killed his father and
brother. "We've been on the run for decades now, and we are getting tired.
I am old, you see. All I care about is my family and my farm. Do you know that
we are supposed to harvest our crops this week? But it looks like we will remain
here for a long time," he said. With him are three of his nine children. Photo
by Carlos H. Conde
PIKIT,
North Cotabato -- What, really, is the reason behind the military's latest
offensive here? To arrest criminals? To flush out the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF)? Or is it to take control of resource-rich Liguasan Marsh?
The
Army says they are running against lawless elements involved in kidnapping,
bombing and terrorism but the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) does not believe the government. The MILF claims the MILF is the
actual target of the soldiers.
In
interviews just as the war started, Maj. Gen. Narciso Abaya, Southcom chief,
Gen. Generoso Senga, chief of the 6th Infantry Division, Col. Cardozo
Luna, commander of the 602nd Brigade, whose over 2,000 troops are directly
engaged in the fighting, and even Maj. Julieto Ando, would very noticeably
mention the MILF as the forces they are running after but would later correct it
to emphasize that it is the lawless elements they want flushed out.
MILF
spokesperson Eid Kabalu said he believes the assault against them is part
of the government's plan to pressure them into signing a draft peace agreement
prepared by the government negotiating panel that has been talking peace with
the MILF since December 1993.
In
December last year, just as the peace process with the MILF reached nine years,
Irene Santiago, a member of the government peace panel, announced they
wanted the agreement signed within the first quarter of this year as dragging
the peace negotiations beyond their timeframe would "politicize the
talks" considering the 2004 Presidential elections.
Who
is the enemy?
While
military officials never fail to mention in interviews that the kidnap gang is
its objective, rank and file soldiers at the battleground say otherwise.
Not
one among 14 soldiers asked on who their enemy is, mentioned the Pentagon
kidnap-for-ransom gang. "The rebels" or "the MILF" was their
common answer.
The
Rev. Roberto Layson, parish priest of this predominantly Muslim town and head of
the Oblates of Mary Immaculate's Inter-religious Dialogue and Tri-People
Program, says soldiers in Pikit have long been aware of the presence and
movement of MILF guerrillas in the area but have never assaulted them
"because of the existing ceasefire agreement" and because the MILF
"have not been doing criminal acts or have engaged in harassment against
civilians."
Father
Layson's claim was confirmed by soldiers and government militia in the villages
of Panicupan, Nalapaan, Takepan, Dalingawen, Lagundi and Ginatilan, the six
barangays which have been declared by the communities, government, MILF and
non-government organizations as "Spaces for Peace."
"The
soldiers came"
On
their way to the evacuation centers, a number of villagers admitted there were
MILF members in their villages but they did not harass them and they were not
the cause of this most recent exodus.
For
the children, who comprise some 70 per cent of the 38,107 evacueees (as of 9
a.m. February 14) here in Pikit, and the women and the elderly evacuees, the
common response to the question on why they fled their villages is:
"Because the soldiers came.”
The
2,500-hectare "main battlefield" within the Liguasan Marsh, which Luna
said is composed of barangays Bagoinged, Buliok, Kabasalan and Bulol, is also a
known enclave of the MILF. It is in this area where government chief negotiator
Jesus Dureza usually met with MILF chair Salamat Hashim.
Luna
believes his men have not violated a single provision of the ceasefire agreement
with the MILF. He said they are only running after lawless elements who sought
refuge in the "MILF area."
Luna's
declaration that the entire 200,000-hectare Liguasan Marsh could be a
"potential" battlefield all the more strengthened the suspicion of
many non-government organizations that the war, which has seemingly established
a pattern of occurrence every three years, has been planned by the government
and foreign investors because of their development and investment in the marsh.
Liguasan
Marsh
Liguasan
Marsh, believed to have "unlimited oil deposits," has been a subject
of development plans since the days of Ferdinand Marcos. It was Marcos who
organized the Southern Philippines Development Authority (SPDA) to spearhead,
among others, a study on the potentials of the marsh that covers four provinces
in Mindanao.
Adel
Nayal, coordinator of the Immaculate Conception Parish Integrated Rehabilitation
Program, believes that the assault at identified MILF enclaves in this town has
long been planned as she recalled a military announcement that said: "After
Basilan, Pikit is next," referring to the Army assault against the Abu
Sayyaf in Basilan.
The
war started here on February 11 but the evacuation commenced almost simultaneous
with the positioning of government troops in the area last February 8.
At
press time, the war has spread to the provinces of Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao,
South Cotabato, completing the four provinces, including North Cotabato, that
share the marshland.
The
National Economic Development Authority (NEDA-12), in the late 1990s, made a
Comprehensive Development Plan for the Marsh and organized the Liguasan Marsh
Development Council headed by Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Pinol.
In
July 2000, shortly after the military declared it had overrun the MILF's Camp
Abubakar, residents told a fact-finding mission organized by the Federation of
Reporters for Empowerment and Equality and the Mindanao Institute of Journalism,
that they feared the Estrada administration's "all-out war" was
intended to drive them away from the marsh so the development plan could be
implemented unhampered.
The
first of the every-three-year war that started in this municipality in 1997 was
triggered by a reported MILF harassment against an oil exploration team of the
National Power Corporation. The MILF has been very vocal against the marsh's
development plan claiming it will not only displace the Bangsamoro people whose
livelihood is very much dependent of the marsh's resources, but may also kill
all vanishing species of plants, fishes, birds and other animals endemic only in
the marsh.
Local
agriculture officials say the marsh serves as nesting place not only of the
famous Philippine eagle but also other rare birds. In fact, a good part of
the Marsh is a game and bird sanctuary.
Against
the dam
Meanwhile,
two people's organizations have spearheaded protest actions against the
development plans in the Marsh.
Late
last year, the groups staged a rally at the Cotabato City Plaza, protesting the
plan to build the Pulangi Dam in Pulangi river, a major tributary of the Rio
Grande de Mindanao, the longest river in Mindanao.
Mike
Haron, spokesperson of the Integrated Mindanaons Association of Natives, said
they are opposed to the construction of the Pulangi Dam as their study shows it
would submerge 3,000 hectares of productive agricultural land and flood some
70,000 hectares covering portions of Pikit, Kabacan, and Carmen towns of
Cotabato province and Pagalungan and Pagagawan towns of Maguindanao if it
overflows.
Haron
said the dam will also serve "the main purpose because it will dry up the
portion that will be needed for the oil drilling."
International
airport and more
Beside
the Pulangi Dam, the development plan for Liguasan Marsh that NEDA-12 drafted,
includes a fish cannery, a fish port and eco-tourism. The Marsh is the
biggest source of freshwater fish in Mindanao and the rare species and wildlife
offer "unlimited potentials for eco-tourism."
Haron
says an international airport that would be built in a portion of Pinol's
hometown, Mlang (part of the marshland) is also among the plans. He said a
private organization conducted an exploration and concluded that the best source
of mineral water could also be found within the 200,000-hectare marsh.
Father
Layson considers the campaign against lawless elements as one of the reasons for
the assault on the MILF area, but he says the development plan in the Liguasan
Marsh and the need to pressure the MILF into signing the draft peace agreement
with the government -- are among the reasons for this war that has already
displaced at least 65,000 in all the four provinces sharing Liguasan Marsh.
The
peace advocates and the evacuees, whom Father Layson said have already
"learned the art of evacuation," said the war in Pikit "may stop
tomorrow," but no one can tell when it will erupt again.
Until
the development plans are implemented, the war is yet to be over, they said.
But,
asked Haron, "by then, who will enjoy that so-called development if the
people within the marsh will all be displaced? For whom is the development that
they are talking about?" Bulatlat.com/MindaNews
(Posted
with permission from MindaNews)
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