Eroding
peace in Mindanao
Arroyo Moving to War Policy – MILF
Fresh fighting between government troops and Moro rebels
erupted anew in the Maguindanao province of Mindanao, after a bomb blast
meant for a local official killed seven persons. The Moro Islamic
Liberation Front said that the renewed clashes could have been prevented
had the military taken control of militiamen who were suspected to be the
instigators.
BY JHONG
DELA CRUZ
Bulatlat
The Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) says the government could be again moving towards
“militarism in Mindanao.”
Fresh fighting
between government troops and Moro rebels had erupted anew in Maguindanao
on June 28, following a bomb blast which killed seven persons. The MILF
said the renewed clashes could have been prevented had the military taken
control of militiamen, who were suspected to be the instigators. Instead,
government sent more troops to reinforce the para-military forces against
the Moro rebels.
Maguindanao, an MILF-influenced province of the Autonomous Region in
Muslim Mindanao, is an embattled province serving as lair for Civilian
Volunteers Organization and the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit
who in turn, serve politicians in the province.
The
June 28 clashes was sparked by a June 23 bomb blast in Sharif Aguak
town. The bomb targeted Maguindanao Gov. Datu Andal Ampatuan, but instead
killed seven persons including Cajelo Datumanong, a nephew of 1st
district Rep. Simeon Datumanong.
The
local government unit was quick to point to MILF as the plotter.
The
week-long sporadic fire fighting in at least five towns of Maguindanao,
Sharif Aguak, Mamasapanu, Datu Unsay Ampatuan and Datu Saudi Ampatuan had
displaced 4,135 displaced families, says a report of the government’s
social welfare department.
Mohagher Iqbal, chief of MILF’s peace panel told Bulatlat,
“Even without preliminary investigation
the government has already pointed to the MILF as behind (the blast).” He
pointed out that even before the bombing, fighting were often between MILF
combatants, CAFGU or the CVO and military, “because of the deep-seated
oppression against the broad masses of the people there.”
Iqbal
said the town capital and at least five other adjoining towns were rife
with summary killings, land confiscations and other violations that
perpetuate armed rebellion.
But
even before the renewed fighting, injustices have gripped the Moro people
who had been caught in the crossfire between home-grown MILF combatants
and the army and its allied forces.
Grassroots
oppression
“Summary killings,
land confiscations, and other human excesses are numerous, and the people
have no way to get justice, so they armed themselves,” he said.
The fighting begun on
June 28 with only CAFGUs and CVOs involved in clashes against the MILF.
But on Saturday July 1, army soldiers belonging to the 57th and
64th Infantry Battalions joined the fighting.
Worse, army
commanders and members of the CAFGUs have ignored the call of the
Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team (IMT) to forego with their
June 28 assault and cease fire.
This also prompted
the IMT-led joint ceasefire monitoring center (JMCC) in Guindolongan, and
the Joint Monitoring Action Team (JMAT) in Tapikan, Sharif Aguak to
suspend their operation Saturday.
Taking initiative
On July 3, the MILF
has proposed ways to cut off the fighting reiterating four points:
- the MILF does not
consider Datu Andal Ampatuan as an enemy
- it is willing to
cooperate with the government in the joint investigation of the
explosion through the mechanism of the ceasefire
- To return the
evacuees to their places of origins as soon as possible
- and to cease fire
as soon as the Army-backed militias put a stop to their aggression on
MILF areas or positions.
Iqbal said the
proposal was seen to prevent a prolonged war that only resulted to
casualties on both sides.
“We know most of
those CAFGUs and CVOs on the side of the government do not want to fight
us; they are not our enemies; they are as oppressed and forced to fight
us,” he said adding:
“Many of them are our
relatives, friends or neighbors. Aside from the usual mechanism to address
violation of the ceasefire through the ceasefire committees and IMT, we
have a dialogue with the elders of the Ampatuans to end the war.”
Brief peace reigned
on July 6, but the fighting already left three dead and 10 wounded on the
side of MILF, while eight perished and many were wounded among government
troops.
The MILF peace panel
head said that the fighting could have ended soon should the AFP had taken
control of the CAFGUs and CVOs, who for their part, insisted, have no
operational control over these paramilitary forces.
At the brink of
war
The clashes took their toll on
Tuesday, when the AFP sent tanks to the frontlines of Maguindanao,
directly aiding CAFGU and CVO fighting the MILF.
This could have led
to a full-blown war in Mindanao, shattering the three-year old peace talks
between the government and the MILF, he said.
MILF maintained that
the primacy of the peace process still holds and that it is avoiding the
escalation of the skirmishes. The fighting nonetheless, “eroded much of
the goodwill between government and MILF negotiators earned during years
of interaction in the negotiating table,” it said in a statement.
Malacañang officials
for their part, simply dismissed the fresh skirmish between government
troops and MILF forces as “isolated case.”
In a statement on
July 3, Sec. Ignacio Bunye said the fighting “has not dented the overall
spirit of the peace process.” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo sought the
assistance from the coordinating committee on the cessation of hostilities
and the IMT, to restore peace and order in affected areas.
As to whether the
government still holds the primacy of peace, Iqbal said, “Only
the Arroyo administration can determine that, but signs are clear on the
ground that the government is gearing towards militarism in Mindanao.”
Talking peace
The MILF is awaiting
the government’s counter-proposal on territory to proceed with the peace
talks.
Iqbal said, “The
government has not responded positively or negatively to our proposal even
after more than two months since our meeting in Kuala Lumpur.”
The latest fighting,
however, said Iqbal is a bad development as it only shows that “the Arroyo
administration is steadily shifting its policy from peace to war policy in
Mindanao.”
He said the parties
would not be able to sign a peace accord in time of the observance of
Ramadan in September because for now, they are discussing the finer points
on the issue of ancestral domain.
For his
part, Ren Jalaluddin Ropeta,
vice-chairperson of the Moro-Christian Peoples Alliance (MCPA), saw the
fresh fighting as reflective of the “feeble” ground on which the GRP- MILF
peace negotiations is founded.
Ropeta expressed
fears that the conflict in Maguindanao will ultimately jeopardize the
GRP-MILF peace negotiations. He noted that displacement in the last five
years was five to six times, a vicious cycle of war and ceasefire that the
Arroyo government had so far offered the Moro people.
Data gathered by MCPA
showed an estimated number of displaced persons in Mindanao at 600,000
under Arroyo’s term. This figure sums up the number of internally
displaced persons from the most devastating all-out-wars in Mindanao from
the war in Sulu in 2005 which displaced nearly 80,000 persons; the war in
Northern and Central Mindanao in 2003 which displaced some 450,000
persons; and the State of Lawlessness in Basilan in 2001 which displaced
nearly 80,000. Bulatlat
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