NO NEWS ON MINDANAO WAR?
It has been months since the non-signing of the Memo of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the Gorvernment of the Republic of the Philppines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The uproar against it led by a Christian settler in Mindanao (Pinol) , one Ilonggo senator (Roxas) and one Ilonggo former senator and Senate President (Drilon) became so great that President Arroyo backed out of the agreement and the Supreme Court declared it illegal.
Piqued by the government’s refusal to sign the agreement after almost four years of negotiations, two commanders of the MILF, Commanders Bravo and Kato allegedly went down from the hills and attacked a couple of Christian villages . The government answered with all the might and fury it could muster.
To promote the protest against the MOA-AD, the media bombarded the people with reports of the fighting in Mindanao, putting the blame on the two commanders who the government and the media called “rogue” elements of the MILF.
Funny thing is, while the MILF did not disown the two commanders, they announced that they would not join the fighting since they were still hoping for peace.
Was this another moro-moro (farcical stage play)? The government had a heyday of blowing away Moro villages and people while they claimed to hunt for the two commanders.
Now that the Supreme Court had declared the MOA unconstitutional, the media had stopped reporting on the clashes in Mindanao.
So what’s going on there now?
Here’s what the MILF website luwaran.com says:
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Government terroristic aerial bombings kill civilian, farm animals
The Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) unleashed again the brunt of her terrorism against the aggrieved and oppressed Bangsamoro people. Four innocent civilians were brutally wounded and one was killed by the indiscriminate air strikes of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in some barangays of Datu Saudi Ampatuan and Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
Killed by this inhuman state terrorism was Sindak Ismael, 30 years old. The wounded civilians were identified as Haja Bai Masla Zangkala, 45 years old, Haja Apisa Ibrahim, 47 years old, Rudy Kamsa, 23 years old and Fatima Kamsa, 12 years old elementary pupil.
Seven (7) farm animals were also killed by the government air strikes using three (3) war planes.
There was no actual ground forces encounter when the government aircrafts came to fire their bombs which killed and wounded innocent civilians.
“This government is killing us,” said Abdul Kamsa, relative of the victims.
“We are calling on the authorities and international communities to look into these government atrocities against civilians and to give justice to the victims,” he said.
Workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were witness to the brutal indiscriminate air strikes being unleashed by the government war planes against innocent civilians.
The ICRC people were distributing claim stubs for their relief assistance for the affected persons when the bombs fell at nearby village.
“Even ICRC people had been actually experiencing the deliberate violation of International Humanitarian Laws and human rights by the government,” conveyed a human rights expert to Luwaran.
“Certainly, no amount of development and relief assistance from the donor countries and agencies can make up for the deliberate killings, sufferings and devastations inflicted on more than half a million innocent civilians by the indiscriminate military actions of the government,” he said.
The aerial bombing stopped after five (5) in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, Moro civilians in Barangay Rangeban, Midsayap, Cotabato are being fired upon by the Bantay Bayan or armed civilians of Midsayap everytime they go to their farms.
Accordingly, these Muslim civilians had been complaining to authorities but no action had been made to stop the Bantay Bayan, an act construed as condoning the criminal acts against the oppressed Muslim civilians.
In Basilan, the AFP war planes bombarded the MILF forces in some barangays of Maluso. This again had proven that the military actions of the government are not only against the forces of Commander Umbra Kato and Commander Bravo but against the entire MILF.
MILF’s Umbra Kato on YouTube
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) Commander Umbra Kato is alleged by the government to be a “lost command” of the MILF and is being relentlessly pursued by the Philippine military.
In this video interview done on Sept. 23, 2008, Kato, who says he’s the Commanding officer of MILF’s 105th commans, insists that he is not a “lost command” and challenges the people who says he is to texplain or define what is “lost command.”
On July 1 of this year, he says, the soldiers invaded his colleagues who are “living silently in their own place”. He says that his friends simply fought back.
He accuses the military of terrorism, saying that driving people out of their place is a terrorist act. He says that they had to fight back because they have nowhere else to go. If they go to Luzon or Visayas (the other islands in the archipelago), the people of Luzon and Visayas would be angrier as they would not want them (Kato et al) to claim their lands.
Here, Kato is alluding to the basic cause of the conflict – the people of Luzon and Visayas have occupied Mindanao and now claims it for themselves.
The interviewer asked Kato why the government put a price on his head – 10 million pesos.
Kato answered that it is an indication that the government has already run out of tactics to employ against him. They (the military) used air strikes, artiller, ground forces with heavy weapons and armored vehicles. “But we are still here,” he says.
Putting a bounty on somebody’s head is an old tactic used by the “enemies of Islam”, Kato says. He explained that even the enemies of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) had put a bounty on the prophets head worth say, 100 camels.
When asked why the conflict escalated to other parts of Maguindanao, Kato answered that he thinks it has been the plan of President Arroyo to start trouble in Mindanao to justify the non-signing of the MOA.
PHIL. ARMED FORCES BURN MORO HOUSES, KILL CIVILIANS
September 11, 2008
Some seven houses of civilians were reportedly burned down by the government forces in Barangay Sambulawan, Datu Piang, Maguindanao last September 9, 2008 at 4pm . Owners hit government soldiers “direct and indirect” involvement in this atrocities.
Makmod, one of the victims, chided on the unabated burning of houses that had took place right before the eyes of the military.
Hundreds of houses had been charred down in the provinces of North Cotabato and Maguindanao since the government launched joint police and military actions against the MILF in early August this year.
But these government operations had not been yielding decisive success despite employing excessive forces and incurring big deficits to national coffer.
Now, not less than a hundred thousands of Muslim civilians, to include children and aged, are still staying and severely suffering inside more one hundred evacuation sites and makeshifts along the roads and under the trees.
This poor constituency from this part of the country had long been deprived of government basic services and now what they are getting from the government are bombs and bullets in the wake of brutal indiscriminate ferocious military onslaught.
Cases of various illnesses had been rising and many more will meet their death at evacuation, according to reports of social and health workers.
Displaced communities are afraid to go back to their residences due to absence of security assurance yet the government has not indicated when to stop its operations.
Six civilians were hit and killed by the air strikes of the Armed Forces of the Philippines at Barangay Tee, Datu Piang, Maguindanao. Two other civilians were also wounded during the air strikes.
That incident clouded even further the desire of the civilians to go back to their respective communities.
Hundred of farmers in Maguindanao are calling on the government to allow them to go back to their farms to harvest what remains to their produce. But unfortunately, the military had been ignoring the plea. Accordingly, the military are avoiding exposure of the extent of damages on civilian properties and sources of livelihood created by the gruesome government operations.
All concerned institutions, to include international bodies, must immediately look into to the prevailing plight of the civilians in the middle of ongoing military operations particularly in Maguindanao in order to avert occurrence of impending humanitarian crisis.
Media outfits being the “fiscalizers” are urged to document, report and expose the excesses, conduct unbecoming and human rights violations being committed by militaries and government authorities against Muslim communities down south of Philippines.
Certainly, the government is failing, if not the ultimate cause, of the looming humanitarian problem during this blessed month of Ramadhan.
MILF – GRP AGREEMENT: DEATH TO PEACE AGREEMENTS
From Reflections on the Bangsa Moro
“Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let loose the dogs of war.”
Now that the cat is out of the bag, the dogs are let loose. For years, the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have been hammering out a peace agreement that would satisfy both parties. This has been done under the auspices of the Malaysian government with the blessings and cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).
But was it really done to satisfy both parties? Or was the MILF merely hoodwinked into believing that the Philippine government was sincere? Because of the so-called peace process, which is what the GRP-MILF negotiations is called, the MILF has been co-opted into a “non-revolutionary” existence and abiding by the Ceasefire Agreement.
Yet while the ‘peace process’ was going on, the government’s propaganda machine continually picture the MILF as a band of bandits, allied with the Abu Sayyaf, responsible for killings and bombings including beheading 10 Marines. At least twice, Philippine courts issued warrants of arrests for MILF leaders, including the top leadership, as if they were ordinary criminals subject to Philippine laws.
But the MILF persevered in the ‘peace process’. And just when they were about to cross the finish line, the cat was let out of the bag, and the dogs are everywhere ready to tear it to pieces.
TRIPOLI AGREEMENT ET AL
The MILF should have learned from the Tripoli Agreement. The Moros were winning the war in the 1970s. President Marcos begged for a Ceasefire. The Tripoli Agreement was signed. Then Marcos distorted the Agreement by claiming “constitutional process”. Everything the Moros fought for was turned upside down by the government which gave the Moros a non-autonomous “autonomous government” instead.
When Marcos left, Cory Aquino completed Marcos’s “constitutional process” via the 1987 Constitution and Organic Act (RA 6734) to systemically destroy the Tripoli Agreement. Together with my brother and other Moros, we filed a petition at the Supreme Court (GR 89651) questioning the Organic Act. Of course, the court ruled against us.
Our prime argument was that the Tripoli Agreement was an international treaty and binding to the Philippine government. It was thus part of the law of the land.
And since the Tripoli Agreement was in conflict with the Organic Act, the Organic Act should be deemed invalid.
The Supreme Court did not rule on the validity of the Tripoli Agreement but it declared:
Assuming for the sake of argument that the Tripoli Agreement is a binding treaty or international agreement, it would then constitute part of the law of the land. But as internal law it would not be superior to R.A. No. 6734, an enactment of the Congress of the Philippines, rather it would be in the same class as the latter … Thus, if at all, R.A. No. 6734 would be amendatory of the Tripoli Agreement, being a subsequent law.
From this ruling, it would seem that the government can sign any treaty or agreement with the Moros, and simply pass a subsequent law that would radically amend it. As simple as that.
The Organic Act was the final straw that broke the Tripoli Agreement. Because of the Organic Act, the Bangsa Moro homeland was reduced to a handful of provinces and did not even include Cotabato City. At first, even Marawi City opted out but joined the ARMM later.
JAKARTA ACCORD AND MISUARI’S FALL
In 1996, Misuari was persuaded (some say strong-armed) to sign the Jakarta Accord and to come back to the Philippines. And so he did amidst the applause of Filipinos, OIC leaders and some Moros.
But the honeymoon was short-lived. From a virtual head-of-state recognized by many Muslim countries, Nur Misuari was ignominiously arrested and imprisoned by the Philippine government for years. Only recently, Misuari was released on bail and is now drumming up support in Mindanao.
Misuari, presumably, opposes the GRP-MILF pact. He says he has nothing to do with it.
AN END TO ALL AGREEMENTS
The recent developments have shown to all and sundry – including foreign observers – that the Philippine government cannot be trusted with peace agreements. The Philippine government will sign a million peace agreements but it will never abide by them. This has been proven by the Tripoli Agreement, the Jakarta Accord, the Final Peace Agreement and now, the Agreement on Ancestral Domain.
It is high time that the Bangsa Moro people wake up to reality.
NO WAR – NO PEACE
The no peace-no war situation is Mindanao should stop as it has been hindering the growth of the country and hampering the lives of the people. While our Asian neighbors leapfrog into 21st century as newly industrialized countries and world’s leading economies, the Philippine government last year trumpeted as its greatest achievement a GDP growth of 7.3 % — its highest since 1976, the year the Tripoli Agreement was signed and the country was in the grip of Martial Law.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Philippines was the second most progressive economy in Asia (next only to Japan). But then the Mindanao war erupted. And from then on the Philippines has become “the sick man of Asia.” Isn’t there a clear connection?
From the 1970s to today, the standard of living of our Asian neighbors – Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, etc. have improved hundreds-fold. While the poor Filipino standard of living has even declined such that the government last year was so happy to have reached a GDP growth it hasn’t had since the 1970s. This is a crime to the people of the Philippines.
And the only reason that that GDP growth was achieved was because millions of Filipinos have to slave away abroad, working hard to earn precious dollars and send them to their relatives back home.
A stop to the no-war no-peace situation in Mindanao is the only way for the country to develop as it will stop the billions of pesos spent on military spending, encourage foreign investments in the country and promote tourism in Mindanao and elsewhere.
But there will be no peace if the Bangsa Moro peoples will be deprived of their heritage, culture, lands and resources as well as the opportunities for a decent way of life.
The RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION
It is the right of every nation, every people to determine its own destiny, its own path. The Bangsa Moro cannot rely on the other party’s good faith.
One peaceful way for the Bangsa Moro people is to petition the United Nations to conduct a clean and honest Referendum for and by the Moro people to determine what they want – Independence, Greater Autonomy in a Federal State or Integration with the dominant Filipino people in one nation-state. And everybody should abide by the results.
The alternative to real peace is real war.
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The Lebanon-Israeli war through the eyes of CNN and BBC
From the CMFR (Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility blog
For the full story, go to http://www.cmfr.com.ph/pjr_reports/sept_2006/sept2006abbas.html
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