Kilusan.Net

In its so far unsuccessful pursuit of a small band of ASG bandits who kidnapped Italian priest Fr. Giancarlo Bossi and beheaded 10 Marines, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is getting into exchanges of fire with the MILF and the MNLF – groups that have peace talks with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP). The escalation of conflict in the war-torn island of Mindanao threatens all peace negotiations and agreements addressing the Moro war, and risks bringing the elusive dream of peace farther from the reach of its peoples.

The latest wave of clashes between the AFP and the MNLF began on Aug. 7, when soldiers belonging to the Philippine Army’s 33rd Infantry Battalion – claiming to be pursuing ASG bandits – ended up getting into a firefight with MNLF men. This was followed by AFP-MNLF encounters the next day in the towns of Maimbung and Indanan.

In an interview with Bulatlat, Temogen “Cocoy” Tulawie, a convener of the Concerned Citizens of Sulu, said a band of ASG bandits escaping from the military had slipped through Barangay (village) Sampunay, Parang at dawn on Aug. 7. At around the same time, government troops belonging to the Philippine Army’s 33rd Infantry Battalion were noticed massing up in the same area.

“The MNLF’s Commander Jihli had even called up his men in the area to alert them regarding the presence of the ASG and the military,” Tulawie said.

Commander Jihli, whose full name is Jihli Habby, was the MNLF’s municipal coordinator in Parang, Tulawie said.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres said the Aug. 7 encounter began when an “undetermined number of gunmen” opened fire on a group of soldiers on board a military truck on the way to buy groceries.

“Initial indication shows combined groups were behind the ambush, because there are indications of participation by the Abu Sayyaf under Radullan Sahiron, lawless elements and rogue elements of the MNLF,” said Torres in a recent radio interview. The Army spokesman added that the types of firearms used in the “attack” were known to be used by the group of Sahiron – who was identified by the military as the ASG leader in Sulu.

MNLF vice chairman Hatimil Hassan has given a different account. He said it was the military that started the fighting on Aug. 7, shelling the MNLF position in Brgy. Sampunay.

“It was not Abu Sayyaf,” Hassan told media. “It was our troops. The problem is with the military. They initiated the attacks.”

Hassan’s statement is bolstered by reports from Tulawie’s group, which went on a fact-finding mission to Parang, Maimbung, and Indanan a few days after the fighting erupted. “The military was on the offensive (on Aug. 7),” Tulawie told Bulatlat.

The encounter left nine soldiers and four MNLF men dead. Among those killed on the MNLF side was Commander Jihli. Also killed was Commander Jihli’s son.

On Aug. 8, MNLF men attacked government troops in Brgy. Lanut Balanjah, Maimbung in retaliation for the previous day’s attack by soldiers. The AFP claimed 10 of its men were killed in the Maimbung encounter, while Hassan said their men were able to kill 13 soldiers in the same encounter.

A separate encounter occurred in Brgy. Carawan, Indanan – in which 15-30 soldiers were reportedly killed.

April 2007

The AFP-MNLF encounters of Aug. 7-8 are not the first to take place this year.

Last Feb. 17, MNLF state chairman Khaid Ajibun sent two grandsons of his on an errand to the market in Indanan, Sulu. Upon their return, soldiers fired at them. One of the children was killed.

Eight days later, Scout Rangers bombarded the MNLF headquarters in Indanan, where Ajibun is based.

In early April, Scout Rangers massacred a family of 10 in Brgy. Timpuok, Patikul, Sulu. Only one of the family’s members managed to survive.

At around 6 a.m. on April 14, MNLF forces led by Malik attacked the detachment of the 11th Marine Battalion Landing Team in Tayungan, Panamao, Sulu. The assault left two soldiers dead and eight others wounded.

Before the series of massacres that provoked the latest wave of clashes, Malik and his men had “detained” a group led by Muslim convert Marine Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino in Jolo, Sulu. That was on Feb. 2-4.

Dolorfino, who also uses the name Ben Muhammad, went with Undersecretary for Peace Ramon Santos and 13 others to the MNLF’s Camp Jabal Ubod in Panamao, Sulu in the morning of Feb. 2 to talk with MNLF representatives headed by Malik. The group included two colonels, a junior officer, nine enlisted men, and several members of Santos’ staff.

The talks were to tackle the holding of a tripartite meeting, proposed late last year by the MNLF, with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Organization of Islamic Conference.

In the afternoon of that same day, Dolorfino and his group were prevented from leaving the camp.

The proposed tripartite meeting was to tackle issues related to the 1996 Final Peace Agreement between the GRP and the MNLF.

Deep-rooted strife

The MNLF traces its origins to a massacre of between 28 and 64 Moro fighters recruited by the government in 1968 for a scheme to occupy Sabah, an island near Mindanao to which the Philippines has a historic claim.

Sabah ended up in the hands of the Malaysian government during the presidency of Diosdado Macapagal (1961-1965). His successor Ferdinand Marcos conceived a scheme involving the recruitment of Moro fighters to occupy the island.

The recruits were summarily executed by their military superiors in 1968, in what is now known as the infamous Jabidah Massacre.

The Jabidah Massacre triggered widespread outrage among the Moros and led to the formation of the MNLF that same year. The MNLF waged an armed revolutionary struggle against the GRP for an independent Muslim state in Mindanao.

The Marcos government, weighed down by the costs of the Mindanao war, negotiated for peace and signed an agreement with the MNLF in Tripoli, Libya in the mid-1970s. The pact involved the grant of autonomy to the Mindanao Muslims.

Negotiations between the GRP and the MNLF went on and off until 1996, when the two parties signed a Final Peace Agreement which created the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) as a concession to the group.

Sulu is one of six provinces presently comprising the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM): the others are Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, and Shariff Kabunsuan. The ARMM originally included only Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, and Maguindanao.

In October 2001, hostilities broke out anew between the GRP and the MNLF. The military was in hot pursuit of Abu Sayyaf bandits who had abducted tourists in Sipadan, Malaysia. At one point, the military had announced the defeat of an “Abu Sayyaf” contingent in Talipao, Sulu.

The MNLF, however, said that it was its guerrillas, not ASG bandits, who were killed by the military.

The massacre in Talipao led the MNLF, just five years after signing a peace agreement with the government, to once more take up arms. MNLF founding chairman Nur Misuari, a former political science professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) who was then ARMM governor, said the Talipao Massacre was a “violation” of the 1996 Peace Agreement.

Misuari, who was then in Malaysia, ended up being arrested and subsequently detained in a military camp in Sta. Rosa, Laguna (38 kms south of Manila) and charged with rebellion. He is currently under house arrest in New Manila, Quezon City while still facing rebellion charges. Misuari ran for ARMM governor last May, but lost amid allegations of cheating.

Since 2001, there has been sporadic fighting between the AFP and the MNLF. The fighting is feared to further escalate, with the MNLF having recently threatened to declare independence on the heels of the Aug. 7-8 encounters with the AFP.

“As long as the Muslims in the South are not given the justice due them, we are entitled to divorce in Islam,” MNLF spokesman Almarin Tillah said in a recent TV interview. “We'll go for independence. I want to say it very clearly here in no unmistakable terms; the Muslims in this country are prepared to go independent if this government, in this political administration, and those before and even in the forthcoming administration in 2010 will not give us justice.” Bulatlat