Peace without the MILF

Peace is still possible in Mindanao. But there can be no quick fixes, such as hush-hush land deals with bandits.

There is a group that legitimately represents Bangsamoro aspirations, and is willing to work within the framework of the Constitution. It’s called the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and it has control over the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) — a region that was formed with the consent of the governed.

The 1996 peace deal forged with the MNLF is not yet fully implemented — one of the reasons for the continuing periodic violent tantrums of the MNLF faction led by founding chairman Nur Misuari. The promise of prosperity through autonomy in the ARMM has not yet been realized. The region remains one of the poorest in the country.

If the government wants to make the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) irrelevant, it should make limited self-rule work in an already existing autonomous region, for both local Muslims and the global Islamic community to see.

By making the mainstream MNLF the principal catalyst for peace and development of Muslim communities, the government can afford to treat the MILF as it truly is: a terrorist group that is in partnership with the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah in staging deadly bomb attacks from Mindanao to Metro Manila, a group that uses improvised landmines and deliberately targets civilians for murder, kidnapping and armed robbery.

The MILF is a law enforcement problem, and the government must apply the full force of the law to end its reign of terror.

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To no one’s surprise, the MILF has announced that it won’t turn over its two commanders who led the pillaging of villages in three Mindanao provinces in the past weeks, leaving at least 40 people dead.

The MILF’s chief peace negotiator, Mohaqher Iqbal, said Ameril Umbra Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar, a.k.a. Commander Bravo, would be subjected to the group’s own rules. Iqbal added that the two are very much alive, contrary to spreading rumors.

If the two can be subjected to the rules of the separatist group, can they also be operating all along under the control of its leadership? This is the suspicion of certain quarters in Mindanao, especially those who have learned not to trust the MILF.

Regardless of the outcome of the manhunt for the two MILF commanders, raiding villages and killing civilians is hardly the way to win hearts and minds.

If the MILF wants to have control over vast tracts of territory in Mindanao where residents are hostile toward the MILF to start with, the prudent thing to do is to first win people to the MILF’s cause. But with the deadly raids by Kato and Bravo — whether or not they were controlled by MILF leaders — the group has blown its cause.

It didn’t help the MILF that it was assisted in its aborted attempt to dismember the country by an administration with low credibility that is now furiously trying to wash its hands of the mess.

At the rate the administration is trying to distance itself — and President Arroyo in particular — from the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), only Fr. Joaquin Bernas will soon be left to defend that document he describes as “just a piece of paper.”

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All is not lost for peace in Mindanao. The MILF has no monopoly on Bangsamoro aspirations. The government must intensify its dealings with the mainstream MNLF in bringing development to the ARMM.

At least there is always someone who is in control of the MNLF. Even when a bunch of malcontents led by Misuari broke away from the mainstream as he lost his grip on power in the ARMM, it was easy to tell who were in control of the MNLF factions.

Misuari himself must account for the deaths of over 100 people, many of them civilians, when his faction staged a “mini rebellion” from Zamboanga City to Sulu nearly a decade ago. 

There are other MNLF members who have taken over the legitimate leadership of the group. The government must work with them to make autonomy work.

The diplomatic community, caught in the crossfire of Philippine politics, has been burned by the MOA-AD but still looks willing to help in the peace process.

Though there were several diplomats on that trip to Malaysia for the signing of the MOA-AD, the one who has received the greatest flak (no big surprise) is US Ambassador Kristie Kenney.

It’s the first time since her posting in Manila about three years ago that Kenney has come under heavy criticism.

Kenney recalls that she nearly didn’t go on that trip to Malaysia, which was arranged by the office of peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. When she finally did, she was one of two diplomats who flew coach; the rest were in business class.

You’ve read her side in previous articles: she was never shown a copy of the MOA-AD, and the embassy had nothing to do with a study on the peace process prepared by a US think tank. The US, she added, has no plans of having a permanent presence, military or otherwise, in Mindanao — “not in our hopes, not in our dreams.”

But, she asked me, who wouldn’t want to witness the signing of what the Philippine government touted as a landmark peace deal?

Kenney’s problem is shared by several others in the international community, whose interaction with the government is resented by those who see the diplomatic dealings as expressions of support for the scandal-ridden Arroyo administration.

Unless the President is removed from office through constitutional means, however, the diplomatic community has no choice but to deal with her administration.

We will have to look beyond this administration and admit that development in the Muslim areas of Mindanao will be boosted by foreign assistance, particularly from the Organization of Islamic Conference.

That development does not require yielding to blackmail or tolerating the terrorism perpetrated by the MILF.