Surrender

When a separatist group attacks and kills 14 of your soldiers, beheads 10 and mutilates their genitals for good measure, what do you do?

Why, cry uncle and sue for peace, of course.

Asia’s Iron Lady (with a question mark) turns into marshmallow when dealing with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The administration’s bottomless forbearance surely gave the head of the MILF’s peace panel, Mohaqber Iqbal, the gall to declare that their militants opened fire last Tuesday on a Marine patrol for entering MILF territory. Since when did the MILF carve out territory in Basilan? For that matter, since when did the MILF receive territorial entitlement to any part of this archipelago?

Basilan was the jungle base of the Abu Sayyaf under the late, unlamented Janjalani brothers. Until Iqbal owned up to the ambush the other day, most people thought the Marines had run into a band of Abu Sayyaf bandits. But the heavy firepower was a dead giveaway; remnants of the Abu Sayyaf are still armed, but that kind of withering fire could have only come from the MILF, which has used the peace process to build up an armory of high-powered weapons including grenade launchers. There are reports that the separatists have obtained even surface-to-air missiles but that, fortunately for government troops, the rebels have not yet learned to use the weapons.

The MILF has always been based in the borders of Maguindanao and Cotabato, where foreign Jemaah Islamiyah militants set up training camps for bomb-making and other terrorist activities a few years back. Intelligence units in this part of the world have reported that JI continued operating training camps with MILF protection even after government forces overran the rebel group’s main base, Camp Abubakar, in 2000.

Dulmatin, the Indonesian (or Malaysian?) JI member with one name who’s wanted for the nightclub bombings in Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people, fled to Mindanao and reportedly stayed with his wife and children in a camp that serves as home to the MILF’s Al-Haj Murad.

So what’s the MILF doing in Basilan, far from its regular haunts in the lawless enclaves of Maguindanao and Cotabato?

The main speculation is that it was turning over kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi to the Abu Sayyaf before the government could verify that the MILF was indeed the group behind the abduction, as initially reported.

An unfortunate band of Marines stumbled into the Abu Sayyaf and straight into an ambush by the terrorists’ protectors.

That’s the story coming out of Mindanao, and it should at least be verified by the government before security officials jump the gun on any investigation and announce that the atrocity in Basilan would not affect peace initiatives with the MILF.

* * *

The other atrocity in that ambush in Basilan was the pitiful lack of protection for our soldiers. GMA-7 recorded the pathetic scene for posterity: Marines loading mortar rounds twice, only to find out that the artillery would not fire.

The lack of jet fighters, naval vessels and state-of-the-art helicopters for the Armed Forces of the Philippines you can understand; such equipment, though needed for national defense, can be too expensive for a developing country.

But the lack of functioning artillery, especially for ground troops battling monsters who decapitate and mutilate their enemies, is unforgivable. No wonder mutineer Antonio Trillanes IV, who denounced corruption in the AFP and substandard boots for soldiers, was sent by 11 million voters to the Senate.

Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes, under whose watch as AFP chief Camp Abubakar was overrun, told us at the time that it was the best moment to initiate peace negotiations with the MILF, when it had lost all its camps and its leaders were on the run.

It is always best, Reyes explained, to negotiate from a position of strength.

If we go by that principle, this is the worst time for the government to proceed with the peace process. Even if some AFP artillery are still functional and a handful of Vietnam War-vintage Hueys manage to remain airborne without the risk of crashing, and even if the AFP, for all its rotten apples, has enough dedicated and competent men and women of courage, the military finds its hands tied each time the MILF invokes the peace process.

The military cannot enter certain areas that are supposed to be MILF-controlled, and is compelled to release even notorious kidnappers and murderers if the MILF claims the thugs as members. The country’s tough gun laws do not apply in MILF enclaves.

This latest atrocity in Basilan is bound to go unpunished as the MILF insists that those Marines had trespassed on MILF territory. When did the MILF lay claim to territory in Basilan? There’s always a first time. The beheading and mutilation of the 10 Marines? That is bound to be dismissed merely as the media’s imagination gone wild, as usual.

* * *

Poverty, illiteracy and intolerance have fueled separatist movements and terrorism in Mindanao. The lawless areas are in dire need of development, which in turn flourishes in a secure environment. The government, assisted by the country’s allies, is trying to bring development and security at the same time to these neglected areas. Part of this effort is the peace process.

But the process can succeed only if there is a sincere desire for peace. In that ambush in Basilan, there is no indication of this sincerity on the part of the MILF.

Sometimes war must be waged to bring peace. But how can a military armed with non-functioning artillery and emasculated by its political leaders wage that kind of war?

Only boneheads with too much testosterone will choose war over peace. But there is a time for peace, and a time to get angry over the abuse of the peace process.

The President and commander-in-chief was said to be mad as hell over the Basilan ambush, but she wasn’t mad enough to order a review of her administration’s peace initiative.

A government that has lost the capacity for righteous anger is incapable of protecting its people. This is the weak republic’s response to ambush, decapitation and mutilation: surrender.