Commentary, Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 31-June 2, 2000
From the way the media has been reporting on the war in central Mindanao, it would seem that the most recent outbreak of armed hostilities there have been precipitated mainly by efforts of the armed forces to clear the Camp Narciso Ramos highway of Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas who had been extorting money from motorists. It would also seem that the danger of renewed hostilities has now arisen from MILF plans to recapture the highway. Military spokesmen have recently claimed that the MILF is now mobilizing its forces for this objective.
There’s more than meets the eye.
Clearing the Narciso Ramos highway of mulcters and extortionists is not really the main issue at hand. The real issue is the MILF camps. What may actually be unfolding now is that the government, outsmarted by the Moro rebel group into acknowledging the MILF camps - tantamount to a de facto recognition of MILF territory - now wants to undo its big political mistake through military means.
What exactly are these “MILF camps”? Are they military camps, in the same way as Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame?
In 1985, when I was in the underground movement fighting the Marcos dictatorship, I visited Camp Abubakar in Maguindanao as a guest of Ghazzali Jaafar, MILF vice-chairman for political affairs. The camp was just a swampy, largely uninhabited area with just a few rundown huts, tall grasses, not much cultivated land. When I came back to Camp Abubakar last year as part of a research team from the University of the Philippines and the Iligan Institute of Technology, I was amazed to find a large, bustling community, with its own electricity, running tap water, with stores and carinderias, even a post office. The MILF headquarters had normal-looking offices (even a computer room with Internet facilities) and guest rooms.
Camp Abubakar was more than just a camp.
Mohagher Iqbal, MILF information chief, explained to us that when Camp Abubakar was started, they had intended to use it only for military training and other military purposes. But then they brought in non-military personnel - cooks, for instance. Then some MILF guerrillas got permission for their wives and then children to come over and stay. Then came Muslim families - ordinary Moro peasant men and women and their children - who had evacuated from war-torn areas. Despite the danger of AFP swooping down on the camp, the evacuees preferred to go to Camp Abubakar than to the congested shanty communities of Cotabato City and town centers.
According to Maoist doctrine, guerrillas are supposed to integrate into rural communities like fish in the water, and are not supposed to build entirely new communities up in the mountains - whoever heard of fish creating their own water to swim in? A totally new community rising up in the mountains where guerrillas operate would draw suspicion and invite military attack.
Somehow, Camp Abubakar survived. By the early 1990s, it was already well known as the main camp and headquarters of the MILF. In time, it became too difficult — both in military and political terms — for the government to just overrun and dismantle it.
According to Marites Danguilan Vitug and Glenda Gloria, in their book Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao, it was the policy of the government under Ramos to keep off Camp Abubakar and the MILF’s other main camp, Camp Busrah in Lanao del Sur. Vitug and Gloria quoted Ramos’ Defense Secretary, Renato de Villa, as saying: “These [Camp Abubakar and Camp Busrah] have become political symbols. If we raid Abubakar and Busrah, it would mean an all-out war against the MILF. We hit them elsewhere but never in these two camps.”
Shortly before the signing of the 1996 GRP-MNLF peace agreement, the government began informal exploratory negotiations with the MILF. After over a year of informal talks, the government and the MILF signed a general agreement for the cessation of hostilities in October 1997. The ceasefire was broken many times. On several occasions, the talks broke down, but each time, with some prodding from peace advocates, the two sides returned to the negotiating table. In October last year, amid great fanfare and publicity, the two sides officially opened “formal negotiations”.
In its negotiations with the MILF, the government insisted that the talks remain within the framework of the Philippine constitution, that the territorial integrity of the Philippines not be challenged or compromised at all. As the government was unwilling to discuss pointblank the rebel group’s demand for an independent Islamic state, the MILF tried an oblique approach. It proposed a single, somewhat cryptic, talking point for the agenda of the formal talks - “to solve the Bangsamoro problem.” Too general and vague, the government side argued. Eventually, the MILF came up with a list of nine issues - ancestral domain, displaced and landless Bangsamoro, destruction of properties and war victims, human rights issues, social and cultural discrimination, corruption of the mind and the moral fiber, economic inequities and widespread poverty, exploitation of natural resources, and agrarian-related issue. Since then, the talks have tackled a few of these specific issues but have not resulted in any concrete agreement on substantive issues.
A controversial issue that was supposed to have been settled in the informal talks but still bedevils the whole peace process is the question of the recognition and delineation of “MILF camps.” By the start of the Estrada administration, the MILF claimed to have 46 camps - thirteen main camps and 33 auxiliary camps. The MILF sought government recognition of these 46 MILF camps, arguing that this would help prevent armed encounters and confrontations between government and rebel forces. As part of “confidence-building measures”, the government acceded in February last year in “acknowledging” Camp Abubakar and Camp Busrah as MILF camps, and in October, five more camps: Camps Bilal, Rajamuda, Darapanan, Omar Ibn Al-Khattab and Badre.
Although the agreements on the camps clearly stated that the effectivity of the acknowledgement was only for the duration of the GRP-MILF peace talks, the MILF had scored quite a gain. To some observers, the acknowledgement was tantamount to de facto recognition of MILF territory - a feat that neither the MNLF nor the National Democratic Front ever achieved in their negotiations with the government.
The acknowledgement agreements further stated that sizes of the camps would be limited only to “those areas where MILF forces are actually situated.” The precise area and delineation of boundaries of the “acknowledged” camps, however, were never really settled. In the case of the MILF’s main camp, Camp Abubakar, the government side insisted and still insists that it is just a few square kilometers; the MILF maintained and still maintains it is well over a thousand square kilometers - bigger than the isalnd province of Marinduque! In the MILF’s map, two other camps are each over a thousand square kilometers too.
In drawing the boundaries of its camps, the MILF claimed sections of the Narciso Ramos highway and surrounding areas as part of its “camps”, and established and maintained its own checkpoints on these sections. The government did not accept the MILF’s claims, but it tolerated the MILF checkpoints, including the “collection” or “extortion” of “contributions” or “taxes” by the MILF at these checkpoints. Was the government not de facto conceding that these sections were MILF territory? When I passed through about a dozen MILF checkpoints with “contribution” collectors along the Narciso Ramos highway last year, I had the distinct impression that I was traveling through MILF territory.
Ever since the acknowledgement of the MILF camps, certain quarters within and outside the government have viewed the move as a big mistake on the part of the government, as a step that could help the MILF in achieving “belligerency status” or international recognition. Thus, they have pushed for a reversal.
Towards the end of 1999, President Estrada announced that he was giving the MILF only up to the end of June 2000 to arrive at a peace agreement with the government. But many doubted -at least initially — that he would really stick to such a deadline. Earlier, in December 1998, he had set the end of 1999 as the deadline.
Perhaps a clear signal that government was reversing its course on the MILF camps issue was the replacement early this year of former Army and Southcom chief Orlando Soriano as head of the government panel in the peace talks with the MILF. Soriano was viewed as being too soft towards the Moro rebels. Retired Army General Edgardo Batenga took over.
With President Estrada declaring an “all-out war” against Moro rebels and vowing to take over the MILF camps, government troops overran the MILF’s Camp Omar, one of the acknowledged MILF camps. After the bombing of a passenger ferry that killed 42 people, the AFP attacked another MILF camp, Camp Bilal, claiming that suspected perpetrators were hiding in the camp. In retaliation, the MILF attacked AFP garrisons and occupied Kauswagan municipality for ten days.
After Camps Omar and Bilal, the government’s attention shifted to the MILF’s central headquarters: Camp Abubakar. Ostensibly, the issue was mulcters and extortionists on the Narciso Ramos highway.
Following the recent clearing of the Narciso Ramos highway, Batenga let the cat out of the bag. Without mincing words, he declared that the acknowledgement of MILF camps was a government blunder. “Precisely, we are correcting this mistake [of acknowledging the MILF camps] and we will never do it again,” he is quoted as saying.
Commenting on the work of GRP-MILF technical committees conducting verification of MILF camps, Batenga remarked: “This is not passing the buck, but the mode of verification and acknowledgement of the camps is short of giving the territory or area to the MILF. This is not going to happen.
“Imagine Camp Bilal in Lanao del Norte which according to the MILF covers seven towns, or Camp Abubakar in Matanog which it says involves eight towns of Maguindanao. This is not acceptable.”
Now that the government has cleared the Narciso Ramos highway of MILF guerrillas, what is going to happen next? Will not the MILF try to recover militarily the sections of the highway which it claimed to be part of its camps? Possibly. If talks resume, will not the MILF demand for recognition of all its other camps and a clear delineation of the boundaries of all camps?
Will the government stop at the highway? Will not the government push further into Camp Abubakar proper? Will it now try to correct its “mistake” in acknowledging MILF camps by simply obliterating them militarily?
The issue of the acknowledgement of the MILF camps could very well serve as the tripwire for an all-out war between the two sides.
Some observers have interpreted the AFP’s clearing of Camp Narciso highway and other military actions against the MILF in the past few months as probing actions, in preparation for a major onslaught on Camp Abubakar and Camp Busrah - the very heart of MILF territory - and for a full-scale war. “Hawks” within the government and the military, it is claimed, have capitalized on the outraged reactions to the recent Abu Sayyaf atrocities to stir up anti-Muslim sentiments and to whip up public support for an all-out war against all Moro rebels.
What happens when a government run by machos realizes that it has been one-upped at the negotiating table? It becomes pikon and wants to go on an all-out war.
Perhaps the alternative to war is to find better and more imaginative negotiators who could hammer out with the MILF a just and durable peace in Mindanao.