Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Media en route to bakwits held nearly an hour by military

GUINDULUNGAN, Maguindanao (MindaNews/30 June) – Around 40 journalists from Mindanao and Manila and some 20 representatives from civil society organizations traveling in a nine-van convoy en route to the evacuation centers in Datu Piang town were held at a military checkpoint along the Cotabato-General Santos highway for 46 minutes Tuesday morning. Army personnel of the Bravo Company of the 46th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Bagan here stopped the convoy at around 7:50 a.m. but declined to say why the journalists were being held. One said they were just obeying orders from their superiors and that their commander had ordered them to stop the media first and “release” them when given the go-signal."


STOPPED. Journalists en route to evacuation sites in Maguindanao province were stopped at an army checkpoint in Barangay Bagan, Guindulungan town. The journalists were held for nearly an hour. MindaNews photo by Froilan Gallardo.


MindaNews’ Froilan Gallardo, who was in the lead car, said the soldier who stopped their vehicle asked “kayo ba yung sa media?” The other vehicles who were not part of the convoy, were not stopped.

Journalists from various parts of Mindanao and Manila – from major TV, radio., newspaper and online publications -- are here for a three-day (June 29 to July 1) State Of the Bakwits (S.O.B) coverage, to look into the plight of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Maguindanao.

Maj. Gen. Alfredo Cayton, 6th Infantry Division chief, told MindaNews by telephone that Col. Medardo Gelani, commander of the 601st Infantry Brigade, informed him that the order to hold the media was because his soldiers were still conducting clearing operations, allegedly to ensure the journalists’ safety from roadside bombs.

On Monday, an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded at around 6:15 a.m. by the roadside in front of a bakery and coffee shop in Barangay Kitango, Datu Saudi Ampatuan town, killing two persons and injuring eight others. Another improvised bomb was reported to have exploded in the area shortly before noon but no one was injured.

Kitango is a village en route to Datu Piang.

Cayton said he had spoken to Geslani and had asked him to let the media pass. This was around 8:19 a.m. But instead of being told the journalists could now go, a military truck arrived with a lieutenant on board who said they were instructed by their superior to escort the media convoy to the 64th IB camp and leave them there

The journalists refused to be escorted, opting instead to remain where they were held.

Told about the proposed escorting to the 64th IB camp, Cayton asked that the mobile phone be given to the lieutenant. Cayton then gave instructions to the lieutenant, Alridzmar Sapending.

Sapending told reporters that before the call from Cayton, the instruction to them was to escort the media to the camp. He apologized for the delay before leaving the journalists to move on. It was 8:36 a.m.

Red Batario, executive director of the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD), one of the organizers of the joint coverage, said of the checkpoint incident: “While the incident highlighted the obstacles faced by journalists trying to get the story out from remote areas, the bigger story was actually waiting to be told, written on the faces of people patiently lining up for relief goods under the noonday sun, children attempting to focus on their studies in classrooms beneath which families are huddled together in a dark, dismal place they now have to call home. “

The joint coverage is intended to be a run-up to President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27, her last as President as she is supposed to step down at noon of June 30 next year.

Ms Arroyo vowed an “all-out peace” when she assumed the Presidency from the ousted president, Joseph Estrada in 2001.

At least 29,000 IDPs, better known here as “evacuees” or “bakwits” have remained in Datu Piang’s poblacion, many of them for the last ten months since the renewed skirmishes between government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after the aborted August 5, 2008 signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).

Evacuees have been complaining that relief goods have become fewer and far between.

Records also show there are more deaths from what would have been preventable diseases, especially among children in evacuation centers, than from actual armed encounters.

“The joint coverage aims to bring the issue of the IDPs to the President herself, to remind her there are still bakwits waiting to return home and hopefully, that she will act on the situation before another child dies from preventable disease or from malnutrition, in the evacuation centers,” the letter of invitation from the organizers said.

The joint coverage is being organized by the Mindanao ComStrat and Policy Alternatives, in cooperation with MindaNews, CCJD, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines, the Peace and Conflict Journalism Network, and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, with the assistance of The Asia Foundation, USAID and the Canadian International Development Agency. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)

Monday, June 29, 2009

Sunday, June 28, 2009

In Datu Piang: A family journeys the Rio Grande to bury Baby Zaida

DATU PIANG, Maguindanao (MindaNews/27 June) – Silence has fallen on everyone aboard as soon as the small motor pumpboat begins crossing the Rio Grande de Mindanao, a grim journey for the Ponso family who is going home to bury their baby Zaida, who died in an evacuation camp here, back to their village in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town.

Zaida. Dead at 7 months. MindaNews photos by Charina Sanz


The baby was wrapped inside a woven mat being carried in the arms of an uncle, her body shrouded in white linen in accordance with Islamic tradition. Her mother, Tot, heaved muffled sobs a few seats away, her right palm shielding her eyes, as her three children looked on. Still mute with grief, she could not bring herself to be near Zaida and would rather watch her seven-month-old baby from a distance.

Zaida died an hour before noon inside the Dulawan school clinic where she was rushed in the morning already weak from a night of diarrhea. Her family are evacuees from Barangay Ganta who sought refuge in the poblacion here when mortar shelling pounded their village last April.

It would be the first time the Ponso family would be going home since they sought refuge in Datu Piang, intending not to stay for long, but only to bury little Zaida before sundown. “The last time we were on this river, riding a pumpboat like this, the night was so dark,” said a woman on the boat. Her name is Bai Didu, Tot’s aunt.

On this bright June afternoon, the waters of the Rio Grande de Mindanao, also known as Pulangi, flow rapidly in a timeless cadence southwards towards Cotabato City. Clumps of hyacinths drift along the water while here and there are bamboo stands growing on the river banks, their leaves framing the water in delicate arches.

The historic Rio Grande is a long stretch of water running all the way from Bukidnon to the mouth of the Moro Gulf that is laden with stories of war, glory, violence and power. In these areas along the river once called Dulawan, the brave Rajah Buayan, a descendant of Shariff Mohammed Kabungsuwan who brought Islam in these parts, was once lord.

Dulawan, once an important trading center, had since been renamed Datu Piang, which is now host to about 30,000 internally-displaced persons fleeing from military offensives against Umbra Amberil Kato, a renegade commander of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s 105th base command.

In the journey upriver, every village the boat had passed is abandoned. No life seems to stir except for some ducks pecking on corn cobs, a dog swimming across the river, and a man bathing in solo on the river banks.

“Over there,” a man on the boat exclaimed pointing at a field, “just a week ago, soldiers and rebels fought, exchanging gunfire from both sides of the river.”

Everyone on board fell quiet at this, gripped with a sense of fear. Danger seems to lurk at every river bend, from the shrubs up to the wide plains across. On a boat trip like this, a bomb fell from a military plane killing the Mandi family in October last year who had just evacuated their home in Barangay Tee which is another village in Datu Piang.

Since August last year following the collapse of the peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF, the waves of evacuations have not ceased. Residents kept fleeing several towns in Maguindanao, North Cotabato and the two Lanao provinces where the military had launched offensives against three renegade MILF commanders blamed for alleged attacks on
civilian communities.

The fighting escalated after the Supreme Court restrained and later declared unconstitutional the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) that would have signaled a peace deal resolving the 30-year conflict.

In the ensuing “low intensity” guerilla war, the toll has been high for civilians who fled their homes from mortar shelling and aerial bombardment. More than 600,000 civilians were displaced last year, “the largest displacement in the world,” according to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.

From the start of the war, over a hundred civilians had already died, most of them dying in the evacuation centers due to hunger, illness and deprivation. About a quarter of the deaths are children. Shortage of food, medicines, potable water and poor shelter conditions, such as lack of tents that would have shielded babies from the sun’s heat, rain and the night cold, are usually the causes of the deaths.

“No wonder the baby died,” said one onlooker, pointing at the family’s makeshift tent at the back of the Notre Dame of Dulawan school grounds. “How could a baby withstand the monsoon rains with only a tarpaulin as roof and without walls to shield the children?”

Zaida died quietly that morning. There is none of the wailing, only hushed whispers, yet one remembers for long the images of restrained grief and sorrow of her parents. She was lying on the middle of the bed, her still warm body swathed in a baby blue blanket, her eyes in a fixed gaze which her grandmother gently shut closed while caressing her face.

Then there on one corner of the room was the father, Nasser, who was crouched on a bed in a fetal position, his head facing the wall, his body contorting in pain and despair. The mother, Tot, was nowhere in sight. She rushed out of the room in anguished silence soon after the baby died.

Later, the grandmother covered Zaida in white linen handed to her by Datu Piang’s parish priest, Fr. Eduardo Vasquez of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who had readied several rolls “because of so many deaths that come one after another,” he said. It is a Muslim practice to shroud the dead in white.

Soon, an uncle carried Zaida now wrapped inside a mat towards the makeshift tent and laid her down on the bamboo floor where the women were waiting. They gathered around the baby and cleansed her with water, dusted her with powder and adorned her with her finest clothes in a tender, caring ritual.

After the pandita, a religious leader, arrived and blessed the baby with a prayer, the family and their kin then headed towards the river on foot under the noon day sun, passing through the streets of Datu Piang poblacion where another death such as this one goes unnoticed
“Sometimes, I wonder what sins do we have why our babies die, why are we always on the run?” asked Bai Didu. It is the same question that lingers in the minds of countless other displaced civilians caught in a protracted war with no end in sight not unless, peace process analysts say, a ceasefire is declared or in the long-term a political settlement is negotiated that would address the Moro people’s historical grievances and clamor for justice.

“I had lost my father when I was eleven. He died in the forest where we were hiding from the Ilagas (a dreaded vigilantes group) during the 1970s,” she continued. Bai Didu’s face is creased with lines that had borne the grief from a lifetime of losing loved ones dying from hunger and disease in a vicious cycle of war and conflict. “Much later in another evacuation in Buluan, Maguindanao, it was my mother who died.”

Stories of displacements and violence such as these are embedded in the collective memory of families living along the Rio Grande. Each generation has its own story in an unending saga of conflict that Mindanao historians say are rooted on discriminatory land laws and flawed settler colonialism policies.

To the Ponso family, Zaida’s death marks another episode in a continuing narrative.
The boat suddenly jerked. A log floating on the river almost hit it and were it not for the boatman hastily steering the boat away, it would have capsized. After another half-hour, the boat finally cruised to a stop.

From the river, a small procession that included the baby’s father, mother, three young siblings, uncle, aunts, cousins, a barangay kagawad (councilor), a journalist, and Fr. Vasquez walked towards the village center.

A school stands in the middle with a streamer posted “Barangay Ganta Evacuation Center” but there is no one around. Nearby are some trees that lie fallen on the ground.
“Casualties,” a villager said, “from a howitzer bomb.”

Now on single file, the group walked towards a wide open field past through cogon grasses and a row of trees until reaching a large, deep muddy pit. Everyone removed their slippers and shoes, and sloshed through the mud on barefoot. Then to reach the other side, everyone had to clamber up a rickety bamboo pole serving as bridge over a small creek.

Another half kilometer of walking and finally there, not far away, is a cluster of nipa huts. “This is where we live,” exclaimed the baby’s uncle who had carried Zaida in his arms all the way from Datu Piang.

Without losing time, the preparation and rituals of burial begin. The men ripped out four slats of coco lumber from the benches to be used for burial while the others started digging a shallow grave.

Once the grave had been readied, the uncle unwrapped the mat and gently lifted the baby Zaida, whose white linen is now stained with a few specks of blood. He laid her down in another hole dug inside the earth, firmly placed the wooden slats over the grave and the mat over it, and finally covered it with soil.

The pandita then sprinkled water over the soil and knelt on the ground, praying over the grave as two men, one on each side, held a blanket over him, swaying it to and fro.

He began to open a page of the Koran and chanted a prayer, his melancholic voice sailing through the vast open field where only the wind stirs. In the distance, there is a kite flying.
Baby Zaida is finally laid to rest.

The mourners proceeded to her family’s hut that consists of only one tiny room abandoned since April. Only a cat lives there now whose left eye is soaked with dry blood and looks famished.

Besides the cat, there is only a worn-out baby hammock and a broken jar that spoke of how the family lived in squalor and deprivation.

“That is for the children so they could see the fields,” the father, Nasser, finally spoke, proudly pointing at a small window.

He then led us towards the back of the hut and showed a large crater on the ground. The men debated whether it came from a 105 or a 155 howitzer but on that day of the shelling sometime last April, the teenage boy Yusof was almost hit.

“It was a miracle he escaped,” his father said. But shrapnels of the bomb hit the side of the nipa hut and damaged a part. So scared of the bombs, the Ponso family fled their home to protect the children only to face tragedy later on in the evacuation camp.

Soon, it would be sundown and everyone prepared to leave. Just then, an old woman hobbled her way across the field, holding a cane, her back hunched, and struggled to walk fast. The moment she saw her son, Nasser, she wept and kissed her grandchildren.

It was only then she learned that her granddaughter Zaida was already gone. She came too late for the burial.

“That’s Balyen,” said Bai Didu. “She chose to stay behind because she’s too weak and frail to be able to join us in the journey and live in an evacuation camp. She told us she’d rather die here.”

Once again, the family bade goodbye to Balyen who stood in the fields, watching her children and grandchildren leave, until they are no longer in sight. “That is how cruel war is, particularly so for the very young and the very old,” Bai Didu said.

It was late afternoon when finally the boat arrived in the poblacion of Datu Piang. The family started making their way back to their life in the evacuation center, the couple’s two children carried on each of their backs and one walking while holding her mother’s hand.

“Sukran,” Nasser and Tot thanked everyone, extending their hands in gratitude. This time, their faces brightened. It was the only time they had ever smiled. (Charina Sanz/Special to MindaNews)

9 hurt in Tacurong bus terminal explosion

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/27 June) – An improvised explosive device (IED) blew off at the bus terminal in Tacurong City at 10:30 this morning, wounding nine persons, two of whom are now in critical condition.

Tacurong police said the explosive was manufactured from an 81-mm mortar using a cellphone as triggering device.

Tacurong police said the explosive was manufactured from an 81-mm mortar using a cellphone as triggering device.

Four of the victims were admitted at the Quijano Hospital in Tacurong City for treatment while the others with minor injuries were brought elsewhere.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, spokesperson of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said two of those injured are now in critical condition.

He claimed that the bombing could be the handiwork of what he calls the Special Operations Group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) under the command of a certain Bassit Usman, who is reportedly wanted for series of bombings and other crimes.

But Eid Kabalu, MILF civil relations officer, dismissed Ponce’s accusation, saying it has always been the military’s “style” to blame them right away even without evidence. (Malu CadeliƱa Manar / MindaNews)

2 killed, 8 injured in Datu Saudi Ampatuan blast

KITANGO, Datu Saudi Ampatuan (MindaNews/29 June) – A 65-year old tobacco vendor and a 25-year old gasoline retailer were killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded near the road in front of a bakery/coffee shop here at around 6:15 a.m. Monday. Eight others were injured, including a 13 year old boy. The explosion in front of Bai Lanang Bakery and Coffee Shop, triggered the evacuation of residents to their relatives’ houses a few kilometers away.

Killed were Malempanuk Nunokan, 65, a tobacco vendor, and Thong Hadji Omar, 25, a gasoline retailer.

Wounded were Hadji Mansor Haj Radzak, 80; Toto Mamansual, 45; Kenong Dumag, 30; Moren Musa, 42, Hadji Fatima Had Kaka and her husband Ibno Abdulkadir, 55; Hadj Akas Guiamblang, 61; and Naima Omar. 13.

The explosive was placed in a trash can made out of half a gasoline drum. The blast also destroyed the store’s signage made of tin.

Sittie Kulafong, 40, rode a tricycle with her five children and some basic needs. She told reporters they were going to spend a few days with relatives a few kilometers away and would come back when it is “safe.”

For now, she said, “takot kami” (we’re afraid).

Sittie said that since August last year, the start of the renewed skirmishes between government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), they have been evacuating and returning to their village “marami nang beses” (several times now).

Army operatives said a second IED was found across the street and that the IED was with members of the Explosives and Ordnance Disposal team. They were reportedly looking for a third IED but residents and onlookers, including reporters, were not barred from milling around.

Even the blast site was not cordoned off and evidences left on the ground.

On Saturday, an IED exploded inside a plastic trash can near a post in the bus terminal in Tacurong City, injuring nine persons. Initial reports said the bomb was fashioned out of an 81-mm mortar but a visit at the blast site Sunday showed the post was not destroyed. Tiny holes were found on the GI sheet roofing of the terminal. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)

Mindanao, Manila journalists do joint coverage on plight of bakwits

DATU PIANG, Maguindanao (MindaNews/27 June) – At least 40 Mindanao and Manila-based journalists are participating in a joint coverage on the plight of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) on June 29 to July 1 here and in Cotabato City.
Dubbed “S.O.B.” for “State Of the Bakwits,” the activity is intended to be a run-up to President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27.

This will be the last SONA of Ms Arroyo as President as she is supposed to step down at noon of June 30 next year.
Ms Arroyo vowed an “all-out peace” when she assumed the Presidency from the ousted president, Joseph Estrada in 2001.

At least 29,000 IDPs, better known here as “evacuees” or “bakwits” have remained in Datu Piang’s poblacion, many of them for the last ten months since the renewed skirmishes between government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after the aborted August 5, 2008 signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).

Evacuees have been complaining that relief goods have become fewer and far between.

Records also show there are more deaths from what would have been preventable diseases, especially among children in evacuation centers, than from actual armed encounters.

Amidst this humanitarian crisis are disturbing reports of alleged human rights violations like food blockade, illegal arrests, disappearances and summary executions.

Non-government and humanitarian organizations, even media, are also reportedly being prohibited from going to evacuation centers in the guise of protecting them from being caught in the crossfire.

The evacuee situation is likely to continue unless the government and MILF return to the negotiating table.

“The joint coverage aims to bring the issue of the IDPs to the President herself, to remind her there are still bakwits waiting to return home and hopefully, that she will act on the situation before another child dies from preventable disease or from malnutrition, in the evacuation centers,” the letter of invitation from the organizers said.

The joint coverage is being organized by the Mindanao ComStrat and Policy Alternatives in cooperation with MindaNews, the Center for Community Journalism and Development, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines, the Peace and Conflict Journalism, and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, with the assistance of The Asia Foundation. (MindaNews)

Even the cemetery has become an evacuation center

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Clinic for bakwits inaugurated

DATU PIANG (MindaNews/28 June) – The Sta. Teresita Bahay Kalinga clinic, a renovated wooden structure specifically to cater to the needs of evacuees, was inaugurated today by the Catholic parish priest and three Muslim ustadzes as bakwit children danced to the beat of the gongs and drums. Muslims raised their hands as Ustadz Guiamadil, who was with Ustadz Datukan and Ustadz Ismail, led the prayers for Muslims. After them, Father Eduardo “Ponpon” Vasquez, asked Catholics to make a sign of the cross as he blessed the rooms in Pilipino.
The blessing was capped with a kanduli (celebration), more dancing of sagayan, a Maguindanao ritual dance, and singing and feeding of arroz caldo for children evacuees.

The establishment of the clinic from what used to be a shelter for the elderly within the church compound, was triggered by “the high rate of death cases among children in the IDP (internally displaced persons) sites of Datu Piang,” Vasquez said.

“Many of them died because of severe dehydration and pneumonia while some were hit by bombs,” he said.

Vasquez cited records from the Municipal Disaster Coordinating Council early June 2009 that showed 30 children have died since August 2008 in the evacuation sites. “But I am very sure that it is more than that number because not all these cases are recorded due to lack of personnel and volunteers who will conduct the documentation,” he said.

Vasquez has only 117 Catholic families or about 600 in this predominantly Muslim town of 49,000 population.

Most of the time since he became parish priest of Sta. Teresita Catholic Church in October last year, had been spent on attending to the needs of Muslims, particularly the evacuees.

The clinic can accommodate, for now, 15 patients. It has a room for babies, complete with cribs.

Accommodation, medicines and meals for patients and watchers are for free, but patients’ relatives are “obliged to help in maintaining the cleanliness of the clinic compound” and once the vegetable garden is set up at the back of the clinic, they will also be asked to help maintain it.

Vasquez sought help from friends to set up the clinic.

Last week, Vasquez said they only had one doctor -- Dr. Merlyn Tamson, a volunteer from Midsayap in North Cotabato, and a volunteer nurse.

At least seven nurse volunteers are now helping Dr. Tamson.

Vasquez last week said he hoped Baby Boy Kureg would be the last child to die from malnutrition in the evacuation center.

The two-month old infant subsisted on a daily diet of simbug – a combination of water and sugar. Not having enough nourishment herself, his mother could not breastfeed him. He died on June 20. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)

Friday, June 26, 2009

“Gentle Giant” is now WesMinCom chief

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/25 June) -- The "Gentle Giant" now leads the powerful Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) in Zamboanga City.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino, affectionately called "Gentle Giant" by peace advocates, will assume command of the Wesmincom on July 16.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., said Dolorfino will take the place of Lt. Gen. Nelson Allaga, a fellow Marine general, who will reach the mandatory retirement age of 56 on July 16.

Dolorfino and Allaga are graduates of the Philippine Military Academy class in 1976. Both of them belong to the Philippine Marines. Their classmates include Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Victor Ibrado, AFP vice chief Lt.. Gen. Rodrigo Maclang, AFP deputy chief Vice Admiral Emilio Marayag and Navy chief Vice Admiral Ferdinand Golez.

Teodoro said that as Wesmincom chief, Dolorfino will be in charge of military operations against various threat groups in Western Mindanao, principally the Abu Sayyaf and rogue elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Dolorfino is a Muslim convert and is married to Mary Ann, a relative of Nur Misuari, former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and founder of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Dolorfino was held hostage for two days by the MNLF led by Ustadz Habier Malik in February 2007 after he went to their camp in Panamao, Sulu to dialogue on the problems on the implementation of the 1996 peace agreement between the government and the group. He was then acting as co-chair of the GRP-MILF Ad Hoc Joint Action Group.

He is one of a few Muslim officers in the Armed Forces holding a key command post.

“Military officers must know the historical roots of the conflict in Mindanao. Simply thinking that this is a simple peace and order problem will be a big mistake,” Dolorfino said in a January 2005 interview with MindaNews.

The Ilonggo considers Mindanao his home. He has spent 27 years in Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, and Basilan. A helicopter pilot as well, he was based in Zamboanga for a year, flying combatants in and out of battlefields.

Dolorfino’s unconventional military style has earned him praises from local government officials, religious leaders, and nongovernment organizations in Mindanao.

Many still remember his brigade’s stint in 2003 in Pikit, North Cotabato, then site of battles between the government and Moro rebels. “Dolorfino help eased the tension in Pikit. It helped that he understood the sensibilities of the Muslims,” said Fr. Roberto Layson, then parish priest in Pikit.

When he was in command in Pikit, the 2nd Marine Brigade was never attacked or ambushed by the guerrillas. This wasn’t the case in the past. “The Muslims [in the area] did not trust soldiers. They were used to see soldiers shooting, harassing them when they go to the mosques to pray,” Dolorfino said.

Dolorfino also earned the respect of the Muslims when he ordered battle-hardened Marines to fix an abandoned mosque in Barangay Gli-gli, a remote village in Pikit.

“The residents were surprised at first. They could not believe that I am a Muslim,” he narrated. He later ordered his men to help the villagers clean other mosques and harvest the coconut farms that were abandoned at the height of the fighting.

Dolorfino told MindaNews that he wants to repeat what he has done in PIkit in other provinces in Mindanao. He knows that Western Mindanao is tougher to deal with: Basilan and Sulu islands are home bases of the Abu Sayyaf.

“We will make one small step at a time. Maybe the residents will embrace peace and denounce the violence,” Dolorfino said. “We will be there to help them find peace.” (Froilan Gallardo/MindaNews)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

A PEACE ADVOCATE'S FASHION/PASSION STATEMENT

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Eight years of the GRP-MILF talks under Arroyo: Breaking the Impasse

3rd of three parts

COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/24 June) – Before the aborted signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestal Domain (MOA-AD) on August 5, 2008, ceasefire mechanisms were in place, the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team, the Joint Coordinating Committees on Cessation of Hostilitie and Ad Hoc Joint Action Group of the Philippine government (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) were functional, the armed skirmishes were getting fewer and the country was well on its way to forging a negotiated political settlement.

Records from the government’s CCCH show that from 698 armed skirmishes between the military and the MILF in 2002, the number went down to 569 in 2003 even as war broke out in February that year. Progress in the negotiations and the deployment of the IMT in 2004 was reflected in the records with only 16 incidents of armed skirmishes. The number dropped to 10 in 2005, rose to 13 in 2006, dropped to 8 in 2007, increased to 218 in 2008, most of that after the aborted signing of the MOA-AD, and as of June 1, 2009, dropped to 72.

From 8 in 2007, 12 incidents were recorded by the CCCH from January to July 2008. By August, however, the number had risen to 77.

Brig. Gen. Rey Sealana, deputy commander for peace process of the Eastern Mindanao Command (Eastmincom) and head of the government’s CCCH in a presentation in Davao City October last year said they recorded only one incident in January 2008, zero in the months of February, March and April, two in May, four in June, five in July, 77 in August and 39 in September

He said 66 of the skirmishes were initiated by the government which launched punitive operations against what the military claims to be “recalcitrant” MILF commanders Ustaz Ameril Umbra Kato, Abdullah Macapaar aka Commander Bravo and Aleem Solaiman Pangalian, while 62 incidents were initiated by the MILF.

Sealana said there was no ceasefire against the three commanders and their men but ceasefire was continuing between government forces and the 16 other base commands of the MILF.

Ten months after the aborted signing of the MOA-AD and millions of pesos’ reward money for their capture, notwithstanding, not one of the three commanders has been arrested. While the military and government peace panel refer to them as “rogue” or “recalcitrant” or “renegade,” MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal maintains they are “legitimate MILF” and “not rogue.”

Peace negotiations have not resumed even as the government had dropped its earlier precondition for the MILF to surrender the three commanders first and even when it no longer forced the issue of DDR – disarmament, demobilization and reintegration as the first step.

What contributed to the impasse was government, too, when it dissolved its peace panel on September 3 and announced a policy shift – that henceforth, it would deal with armed groups only on the basis of DDR (disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration). It also stressed “authentic dialogues” with communities.

It was only in early January when peace panel chair Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis announced that his newly-constituted peace panel would not impose any precondition for a return to the negotiating table.

“We are ready to resume talks with no preconditions,” he said.

A week earlier, on December 26, the MILF’s Central Committee issued a five-point declaration on the resumption of talks, signed by MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, calling for an “international guarantee” that both GRP and MILF will honor the agreements; that the MOA-AD issue be resolved; that the IMT be allowed to investigate all violations of ceasefire since July 1, 2008; that the Armed Forces of the Philippines “immediately cease military offensive in Mindanao against the MILF even in the guise of running after its three ‘rogue commanders,’” and that Malaysia will remain as facilitator of the peace talks.”

MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal told MindaNews “a starter stance from the government” could break the impasse.

Seguis said government is “determined to pursue the peace process with the MILF given the parameters for the negotiations.”

“While formal talks have yet to (resume), informal efforts are continuously being exerted by both sides to explore less critical areas where discussions can move on. The Philippine government is also appreciative of the continuous assistance given by other countries to support the peace process,” he said.

“Yes there are challenges but there are still hopes that the 2001 vow (for an “all-out peace”) will be realized as the President is deeply committed and determined to achieving long-term peace and stability for the region of Mindanao and we are confident that talks with the MILF will resume soon. Yes, we can because we will,” he said.

Abhoud Syed Lingga, executive director of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies in Cotabato City, has a very short proposal to break the impasse: “amend the Constitution and allow power sharing.”

While many may agree with Lingga, they say it is the wrong time given the House of Representatives’ moves to amend the Charter even without Senate participation.

Meanwhile, the Bishops-Ulama Conference’s community dialogues on the peace process are ongoing in Mindanao, as are consultations by several peace advocacy groups. What the communities’ proposed solutions or suggestions are, the organizers have yet to collate and present.

Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo could not have put it more appropriately in late December when he reiterated his call for an end to conflict and return to peace negotiations:

Quevedo said the situation has become a “chicken-egg” problem and that “action-retaliation” by both sides is merely a “symptom that inflicts massive tragedy to thousands of civilians and to its combatants.” He wondered if what was happening in Gaza was now being replicated in Mindanao.

“In contemporary history,” he said, “ever since the 1967 war, the Palestinian-Israeli problem has been one of action and retaliation” and “very often the initiator of the action to which retaliation is a response is quite blurred because of propaganda on both sides.”

“I wonder if this is now being replicated in our region... the massacres and raids by MILF elements just before Christmas being reportedly justified as a retaliation to alleged government troops’ incursion into those villages. Which happened first? Who actually did the ‘incursion’? The people in those villages would know,” he wrote.

“Individual (violent) incidents have become a problem of ‘chicken-egg,’” he said, adding that what should be denounced is “not so much individual incidents but the entire problem of conflict of which ‘action-retaliation’ is a symptom, but a symptom that inflicts massive tragedy to thousands of civilians and to its combatants.”

“What should we tirelessly promote,” he said, is “ peace: restart the talks and end the conflict.”

“How shall we promote such peace - first by not imposing preconditions that make it impossible for parties to resume talking; second, by urging the parties to go into talks by including the ‘impossible’ conditions part of the peace talks but also urging the parties to look into what is really essential (for it could be that some ‘impossible’ pre-conditions may not really be essential); third, by making sure that both parties consult their constituents before and during the peace talks; fourth, by making sure that no violent incident initiated by any hothead would distract the process,” Quevedo wrote. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Eight years of the GRP-MILF talks under Arroyo: Long-term or short-term

2nd of three parts

COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/23 June) – Nearly a year after the failed formal signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), the three commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) whom the military refers to as “lawless” or “rogue,” but “legitimate” for the MILF, are still on the loose.

“In pursuit of these three, some 600,000 persons (at its highest last year, according to the National Disaster Coordinating Council), were displaced, hundreds killed and injured and the peace process is back in limbo. Meanwhile, thousands of civilians are suffering. How do we put an end to their suffering? “ MindaNews asked the two peace panel chairs.

Both government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) agree that the suffering of civilians caught in the crossfire must end and that it would end if the panels return to the negotiating table but 10 months after August, the two panels have yet to meet.

The NDCC has reported that as of May 17, there were still 240,640 displaced villagers.

For MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal, the “final solution” is to “solve the Bangsamoro problem and the armed conflict in Mindanao. This is not happening because the government is just fooling around and the larger Filipino nation especially most of their oligarchs are not yet ready for such accommodation.”

“The short term, but a palliative, is re-declare a ceasefire and return to negotiation. This can even be tricky, because if fooling around becomes the policy, then conflict complicates and hardens,” he told MindaNews.

Seguis told MindaNews that the presence of IDPs in Mindanao is “a reality that the Philippine government fully recognizes and has always been determined to address in light of forced evacuations mostly in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, North Cotabato, and Maguindanao.”

“Residents in these areas were forced to leave their homes in August 2008 because of indiscriminate attacks by renegades of the MILF allegedly in protest over the aborted signing of the MOA-AD,” Seguis said.

Iqbal says Ustadz Ameril Umbra Kato, one of the commanders being pursued, is a “legitimate MILF commander.

“He is still MILF. He is not rogue to us. He had truce violations but those commanders of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) were worse,” he said.

Asked what sanctions had been imposed on Kato for his truce violations, Iqbal said, “that is internal to the MILF but open sanction will only happen if there is an investigation by an international body. All those guilty must be punished including from the AFP.”

Seguis said that “as of end 2008, 163 deaths and 123 injuries, many of which involved women and children, resulted from these attacks. While the government is determined to bring the criminals behind the sad plight of IDPs to justice, its responsibility to attend to the well-being of the IDPs remains.”

Seguis also noted that “the number of internally displaced families and persons in the areas cited in Mindanao has steadily decreased.”

“This gradual decrease has been attributed to the ongoing return of IDPs back to their communities, although a new set of IDPs is being anticipated as a result of the recent attacks by the same MILF rogue group,” he said.

The Philippine government, he added, “has always acted with urgency and responsiveness to the Mindanao IDP situation, delivering assistance directly to conflict-affected communities and to the evacuation centers, with the much appreciated cooperation of the international community.”

“Notwithstanding this course of action, the Philippine government will continue to seek ways to resolve these problems with finality by pursuing the peace process in Southern Philippines. For it is only in an environment of peace can we address the roots of political violence, and the issue of IDPs for that matter,” he said.
With only 12 months left in President Arroyo’s term, is there hope at all that her 2001 “all out peace” vow will be realized before she steps down at noon of 30 June 2010?

Iqbal sees “ no sign at all (that the vow will be realized). That is next to impossible; she is only less than a year in office.”
Seguis acknowledged that “despite the steady progress in the GRP-MILF talks since 2001, the non-signing of the MOA-AD resulted in difficulties in the peace process.”

“Nevertheless, some aspects of the peace process continue to hold, particularly the security arrangements and the development aspect. It is important to note that from 2000-2003, there were massive military operations against kidnap for ransom groups operating near MILF communities. The drastic decrease in such operations in the following year and succeeding years were largely due to strengthened ceasefire mechanisms. The significant increase in military operations in August last year has been due to lawless MILF groups’ reaction to the shelved MOA-AD, but it has not – and is not expected to – reach the level of hostilities in 2002 and 2003.” Seguis said.

Military officials have repeatedly said there is no ceasefire against the three commanders and their men but ceasefire continues between government forces and the 16 other base commands of the MILF. [Tomorrow: Breaking the Impasse] (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)

Eight years of the GRP-MILF talks under Arroyo: whatever happened to “all out peace?”

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Mortars fired near Datu Piang school as classes go on

DATU PIANG, Maguindanao (MindaNews/22 June) – Teachers Tatway Ebrahim, Leslie Tuvie and Balabagan Mucalam were walking towards their classrooms at the Datu Gumbay Piang Elementary School during the morning recess Sunday when a deafening explosion startled them.
“They’ve been firing since before 9 a.m.,” the teachers said, referring to the military whose firebase is just a stone’s throw away.

It is nearly 10 a.m. and on this Sunday morning, four howitzers had been fired within five minutes. How many had been fired in an hour, none of the teachers could say.

Classes in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are held Sundays to Thursdays.
Outside, at the corner of the school some 25 meters from the firebase itself, children, mostly boys, covered their ears as they watched the firing. “Bazooka, bazooka, boom,” they said.

Father Romeo Saniel, OMI, president of Notre Dame Midsayap College, spent Friday night in Datu Piang with teachers and students. As they were preparing to rest for the next day’s distribution of relief goods, they could hear the sound of 105 and 155 mm howitzers exploding “like a 21 gun salute,” he said, “every 15 to 30 minutes.”

The elementary students, their teachers said, “cannot concentrate well.” There is no telling when the next 105 or 155 mm howitzer will be fired. Sometimes, a teacher said, fright would make a student pee in class.

But fright could lead to death, too.

On April 20, students at the Jamaatul Jabar Madrasah, near the Datu Saudi Uy Ampatuan Compound evacuation center in Datu Piang saw how Ustadz Ayub Guiamlod, 53, fell to the floor trembling upon hearing the second round of artillery fired at around 10 that morning from the command post of the Army’s 54th Infantry Battalion.

Guiamlod died from cardiac arrest.

“Ang iba sanay na” (the rest are used to it), said another teacher.

Noraisa, 12, a Grade V student from Dado Elementary School, told MindaNews she has gotten used to the sound of artillery fire.

“But getting used to it is not normal,” said another teacher.

Akmad Guiamblang, principal of the Duaminanga Elementary School, said teachers cannot warn their students about the artillery firing because they are not given prior notice by the military.

Aside from hosting thousands of evacuees, Datu Gumbay Piang Elementary School (DGPES) also houses 10 “bakwit schools” from the villages of Dado, Duaminanga, Montay, Alonganen, Masigay, Balong, Ambadao, Liong, Balanaken, Kalipapa.

As of June 21, 2009, Datu Piang’s evacuees number 6,117 families or 29,746 individuals.

Since residents of these villages are still in the evacuation centers, classes in their elementary schools or primary schools are held here at the DGPES. Visitors will know what classes are going on by the chalk mark outside the door that says Dado-V or Duaminanga-1 (Grade 5, Dado Elementary School or Grade 1, Dumaninga Elementary School).

Classes started, along with the rest of the public schools, on June 1.

DGPES has 30 classrooms now shared by 2,001 students, only 597 of them from the DGPES itself, records from the Department of Education’s District 1 Planning Division showed. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)

Friday, June 19, 2009

Civilians caught in Mindanao conflict

More than 500 people have been killed in the southern Philippines since peace talks between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the government collapsed in August.

Army commanders claim to be winning the war in Mindanao but the violence has dragged on for decades and it is civilians who are caught in the middle.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Context of Moros and non-Muslims Coexistence (2)

2nd part of Bangsamoro Governance: Context of Moros and non-Muslims coexistence

By Datu Michael O. Mastura


Any national liberation front that is without Moro territorial base will come up against one regime after another Filipino government. But the emergence of the Moro Islamic movement is different. It’s not that there are few claimants to Islamic rule and governance. Far from it, Muslim contemporary thought such as the Tunisian reformist Rashid al-Ghanoushi rejects the idea that Islamic movement has “a monopoly in the interpretation of Islam” by limiting its role to “just another actor within the liberal democratic state.” The one thing people don’t understand is that the ideological dimension matters to the leading theoreticians.

Nor is the case for the Moro Islamic movement the lack of what is desirable as an Islamic state model. Whether we like or not change of condition in the people is inevitable, which is the principle of movement within a social organism. Can Moros who are Muslims and non-Muslim Groups Coexist? The fundamental institutions of political life—the state, government, and citizenship—have both a past and future. Satellite ideas such as civil rights, civil society and status of non-Muslims in governance are justificatory modalities in contemporary discourse. Twenty-first century de-Christianization of public life has penetrated through a civic religion of ideas reached by reason alone. Secular humanism is a faith of educated Filipinos imbibed from America’s elite; it asserts the separation of church and state. This civil libertarian agenda is not concealed: “The separation of ideology and state are imperatives.”
The usual debate about “interpreted shari’a” fits those who think of the anomaly in the mode of “liberal Islam” to be contesting revelation itself. That’s why the Luwaran website cautions Eliseo Mercado, OMI about the imperatives of traditional tafsir (or exegetical commentary). Specialists focusing on textual construction of reality are keen to import epistemological skepticism of the theorists of today only to erode scriptural reading in social contexts. The true shari’a as an organizing principle of society is far more concise than the legal structure evolved through the centuries by the fiqh (or jurisprudence) of the various schools of thought. But it is the province of the mujtahids (i.e. scholars so learned they have a right to engage in independent original rule decisions) and the ulama that are closely tied to the masses.

In this sense, can one appreciate Muhammad Assad writing a pamphlet on Islamic Constitution Making prior to the partition of India. Does Islam demand for Muslims a duty to strive for the establishment of an Islamic state? Or is the desire for an Islamic state based only on their historical memories? Thus, it is for the Muslims to decide whether to subordinate their polity to modern concept modeled in the West, which deny to religion the means to shape the nation’s public life.

I’m convinced that the fear of Islamists coming to power boils down to the secular liberals’ intellectual preference to settle for regimes that have captured the cultural institutions of the republic. Why is it that a person who does not belong to the Anglican Church cannot be ruler of the English monarchy? Islamist strategies co-opt popular religious sentiment hewed strictly to the creation of social conditions that postulate the enjoining of what is right and forbidding of what is wrong (al-amr bi ‘l-maruf wa ‘nahy ‘an al-munkar) mainly from the viewpoint of public morality than on the political democratic argument.

This framework of equity and justice—toward Muslims and non-Muslims alike—situates us at the intersection on which the political instrument of the ideal (Islamic state) stands and falls. A corollary basic principle is incumbent on an individual to tell the truth and expose fasiq (or transgression) even when this entails opposing the ruling authorities.

I find it is a misplaced context for Fr. Mercado to craft political authority of “the head/chief of a community/state” for the enforcement of Islamic law lodged on the premise relating to the Qur’an verse we are now considering. Our critical public intellectuals have missed out the conceptual constants of dhu ‘l-amr (or layers of holders of authority). Without falling aground to secularism, the liberation theology tact spins in new or postmodern discourse that can be grafted on to an old content, or an old (traditional) discourse can be grafted into a new base. This is a negative salvation in “fundamentalism” in regard to the virtuous community model making up the Islamist “restorative vision” an element of instability in current discourses on political Islam. Behind any laicism establishment, harking back in “fanaticism” to the cultural hand of the church and clergy who compete for power (pure and simple) within the hierarchic power-state is a problem of instability of the original republican model.

Once we look at the Muslim homeland with paramount political importance it does not take much fresh political thought, for historical replica, to follow or not the lead of the theoretician Abul al-Maududi to preserve the unity of millat al-islamiyyah (nation cum community of believers). The major architects of that “Islamic republic” were not unmindful of the presence of non-Muslims in Pakistan. Instead theoretical reflection aroused apprehensions to a point of obstructions of the nass (or textual ordinances) of the Qur’an and Sunnah. The Qur’an commentators include also the prohibition of sabb or insult to non-Muslims with enormity. But the act of blasphemy has generally been subsumed under riddah (apostasy) overlapping with kufr (disbelief) and zandaqah (heresy) being treated as part thereof. Provocative offense to sensibilities of believers constitutes legal and moral restraints in Islamic law.

As a digression, talk of “medieval practices” and bigotry for my reading covers an obscure crime of blasphemy, which is still extant in English statute. In any case, we know the struggle for the Filipino Christian soul is not fading away, if we go by the TV bible debates with polemical vectors of influence.

Without proposing a context, the terms “people of the book” and “protected people” are construed in their distinction from the polytheists (or idolaters). But the context for the Qur’an verses on ideological struggle has given rise to the idiom of ahl al-jiza (or those subject to poll tax) ‘an-yad (out of hand) in exchange for protection. Thus MILF’s leadership is careful to avoid explicit reference to Islamic terminology because it does not advocate autocratic strictures of the state. Moreover, MILF theoreticians downplay pietism rhetoric that cuts the ties between culture and religion to prevent the alienation of indigenous peoples.


Our general public may now have only begun to glimpse Islamic observant party across the Arab and Muslim world. What can one learn from this compressed summary? If readers of the Qur’an can grasp the political ordinances, they will discern the ordered major transitions toward the Islamic systems of individual and community (societal) identity, social structure, governance, and conduct towards outsiders. We know that not just matters of ideology are at stake in the debate over movement versus party, not to mention da’wah versus politics. The role of the ulama was underestimated by the nascent nationalist movement but the influence of this Moro internal debates go back to the 1960s and 1970s.

Beginning 30 years ago, since I first got a close look at the workings of the Philippine unitary state at the Constitutional Convention of 1971, I have discerned that as the failings of politics and public policy in Mindanao. Our problem arises from the way the governmental system is constituted in the constitution. We believe a political compact could unite us so I wrote, The Moro Problem, an approach constitutional reform (unpublished, 1971). Ideas can become also part of the public culture. It’s the claim of political ideologues that their present-day use of ideas shaped from the history of political thought can be a source of answers to questions that could enhance contemporary political thought.

The troubling Bangsamoro nationalism articulates the beliefs and values of freedom as a study in Islamic contemporary political thought, not history. The “nationalism” I’m speaking of developed not where the Filipino “nation-statism” (is) was conceived in seeds of idea as a country. That is why the Constitution is not central to the identity of Moros resembling the way German-speaking peoples came as multitude of principalities and kingdoms under a Basic Law. Our Bangsamoro juridical entity has the so-called volkgeist or “people” congealing with a spiritual essence and heroic resistance shared in common in Muslim-inhabited soil. Whereas in America’s model of union multitudes of individuals could become “a people” by virtue of shared principles and allegiance to a process, the Constitution. Historians hold that ideas are the products of particular circumstances (and moments in time), so that using them for present purposes distorts their original historical meaning.

Leading MILF theoreticians are aware of the Christian Filipino governing elites and Mindanao settler colons that have never been more openly hostile than when they felt intimidated by the MOA-AD. Yes, it was Napoleon who said that “God is on the side of the big battalions”; and so, are the Catholics supposed to be on God’s side? Just the same the episodes mentioned by Fr. Mercado are instructive. The Turkish constitutional movement (1905-1911) had “historical antecedents” embodied in the nineteenth-century Tanzimat (reorganization measures) from 1816 that led to the reform edict of 1839. The notion of nationalism that seeped into the Ottoman world had corrosive effect. Imperial edicts worked directly against the interest of the ulama. The demands of the Young Turks from about 1860 emerged from the French paradigm of progressive bourgeoisie preceding the Kemalist revolution. The French movement was no doubt secular with an ideological expression in nonreligious terms.

When the Republic of the Philippines is categorized as a secular state, it synchronizes political legitimacy within a polity and society. Sovereign authority emanating from “the people” is founded on the rejection of absolutism ordained in the non-establishment clause of “official religion” in the constitution. That in such a religiously neutral ideology the downside is its weakness as foundation for public morality. There’s no way I know that the fundamentally different impulses could be addressed by the Filipino propensity for “politics as usual”. The Indonesian pancasila and the Malaysian rukun negara are amalgam models of the practicability of religious and social conservatism with modernity.

(Datu Michael O. Mastura is a lawyer, historian, former congressman and now a senior member of the peace negotiating panel of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front).

Bangsamoro Governance: Culture of Co-existence in Islam (1)

By Datu Michael O. Mastura

Candor compels one to say this country has come to a fork in the road, take it. This may sound too harsh. But the single inclusive unitary construct of the Philippine Republic has become fragile. “We need to stop pretending,” says one specialist, “that fragile states are just less-developed versions of Western states.” Let’s start recognizing then Mindanao realities, building on the Bangsamoro capacities so as to enable indigenous and Muslim societies to chart their own development paths within modern “state-nations” framework.

The earlier modernity gripping Islamic countries paced on that of nation-state trajectory was conducted on the European model. This was the case for Attaturk in Turkey and Bourguiba in Tunisia modeled on the juridical spirit of the French Third Republic.

Last month, I travelled to Turkey with Mohagher Iqbal and two other lobby volunteers for whom it was like coming in from the cold. We’ve been catching up with substantial changes to the way foreign policy is conducted around the world on armed conflicts and peace initiatives. In Istanbul, our research team was hosted by civil society and foundations. With uncanny chance, we met Ebubekir Dogan, a journalist who translated into Turkish the original thin version of Salah Jubair’s “Bangsamoro, A Nation Under Endless Tyranny” (1983). In the new political life of the Turkish nation, Muslim politics evolves with younger Islamists driven by realistic political discourse; they have established think tanks and social research institutions. More interestingly, we’re told that the onus of finding a long-term solution to the Kurdish problem remains with Turkey as a sovereign country through national consensus.

The Undersecretary in the Prime Ministry received our MILF delegation. Ankara’s public diplomacy does not remain hostage to history, however, it takes pride as heir to the legacy of the Ottoman Empire. As a dynamic modern Republic, Turkey has made substantial inroads in mediating roles (or back channel talks) to initiate strategic partnership in key issues in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Recep Tayyip Erogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey and leader of the post-Islamist movement AKP, want “a constitution that is going to provide and protect a state that is a democratic, secular, and social state of law.” The Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) oscillates in ideology then shifts from Islamism to ‘Muslimhood’ activism; so for theoreticians, it has become the pendulum: Turkish ‘polyarchy’.

On our last night in Istanbul we were treated to a public forum of women volunteers group. We got interested to know the heritage of the Ottoman millet system. Historically, this millet was a self-governing community curved as sphere of autonomy. This community system in dealing with people of different cultures and religions under the same political order and social domain enabled the culture of co-existence in Islam as a natural human condition. When we look at the current context of relationships between the Muslim majority and non-Muslim minorities, the millet provided freedom not only in the field of religion and worship, also in the areas of civil law and politics. How far modern Turkey inherited the culture co-existence? Which new instruments it has developed to consolidate this culture within its national boundaries under the Westphalian system?

And my take is each nation has “constants” it adheres to and from which it does not deviate. But whether summons to striving would bring about a cultural revolution or not, civic religion appeals to equality as its core principle under the constitutional canopy. When the revolutionaries created “citizens” from the new republican “nation-states” they put premium on common culture for social cohesiveness. There was instability in the pre-modern republics. To follow Montesquieu, conventional wisdom dictated that republics should be small in size and similar in character.

Twenty-first century global realities trump competing powerful “nation-states” because there’s something to just being small. That is, if we just want earned sovereignty and settle for “state-nations” model. Who needs governance that denies the existence of autonomous politics? Should Muslims suffer any longer to allow the modern concept of territorial state sovereignty to imprison groups within a unitary scheme that stifles all diversity? Withering states can survive only by signifying representation of citizenry from geographic areas—with a myriad of ethnic backgrounds and cultural ethos—but with common claims on the state-nations.

This is not the early 19th century when Moro proto-states (sultanates) signed most treaties with the European powers; it is now the first decade of the 21st century. Indeed, most modern constitution originated from a treaty devised between the monarchy and nobility (English model) to lay down the rules for political conduct. States union (American model) is a kind of ‘negarchy’ to moderate interstate territorial conflict by compromises in multi-sided agreements to combat threats of anarchic state of war among foreign powers. By writing ‘citizens’ into a declaration (French model), the Jacobins cut monarchy from public life essential to the survival of the republic and its ideals. The Bolshiviks reinvented also the ‘people’ by organizing them along ‘class’ lines (Russian model) followed by the Maoists (Chinese model). Sukarno in Indonesia, Gamal Abd al-Nasir in Egypt, and Riza Shah in Iran were working in a nation-state political context such that Islam did not provide the political matrix.

Who needs an Islamic State? (2008) is the very title of a small book published by the Malaysia Think Tank London. To the author, Dr. Abdelwahab El-Affendi, “the central value governing the Islamic polity and giving it meaning is freedom.” It posits that shar’ia can rule only when the community in observance of it perceives this as a liberating act and self-fulfillment. And when only coercion underpins sharia, it becomes hypocrisy. That word “freedom” was the give away for a democratic model of governance, which the GRP sought to drop from MOA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain). To be sure, in the MILF leaders’ thinking an Islamic polity only deserves that name if it is governed by shari’a though it may be founded on co-existing communities.

But why do modern thinkers of the Muslim polity call for an Islamist agenda without an Islamist vocabulary? They argue that an individual does not need the state to be Muslim; he creates the state as a Muslim to enhance his Islamic life. And so, why relegate the Moro individual to a status of non-entity in terms of the fardu jamai (or collective duty)? The polity constructed by the Prophet based on the sahifat al-Madina was a framework treaty. (I shall shortly revert to this point in part 2 of my commentary).

God-and-country people are raised to respect and obey their rulers while politicians invoke “the people’s trust.” This has to be placed in the context of foundational authority in Islam. In contemporary Islamic movements, there’s stress on wala (obedience) to vet ‘those in authority’ balanced with indices against resisting it. Theory and practice attempt to reconcile the revolutionary content inherent only in the caliphal ‘righteous successors’ and in dealing with the reality of present power state. Normative orthodoxy by which the ruler’s removal weighs against the collapse of religious life and the community’s peaceful existence is a well-considered hierarchy of values.

I have read with interest Eliseo Mercado’s write up posing the need for any group or Liberation Front insisting on Islamic rule and government “to spell out in clear terms the status of non-Muslims in such situation.” After attributing the articulated MILF position on the fact that the people of the book are given as “protected people” (ahl-dhimmah), Mercado then takes issue that a simple reference to dhimmah does not capture the essence and praxis of the concept through the centuries.

Qur’anic scriptural verses on protected peoples were revealed in the course of war with the “polytheistic” Quraysh when tyranny was the sole obstacle in the face of the call for justice. But I find it important that the critical writer proceeds to jot down factual conditions for the protection and to check circumstances of praxis in the time of Umar ibn Khattab, the 2nd Caliph. The Muslim rules of engagement and their applications to non-Muslims were highly flexible. It has to be said that when Islam expanded into Iran and India these conditions were tailored to match public policy considerations.

Whenever multiculturalism dominates our contemporary discourses, we’ve grounds to be suspicious of any attempt to read it back into the past. There’s always a tendency to extract from Islam in history as culture for some kind of bearing on contemporary problems to reflect on it (or de-construct) familiar aspect of it. This present-mindedness needs “critical control” to avoid “grafting” that could cause errors of perception and mistaken judgments. It matters not whether the graft is religious or secular. The schematics of ahl-kitab and ahl-dhimmah are quite extensive which appears in the large literature on just-war theory in Islam in three stages.

The dhimmah status which justifies the jizya (poll tax) levy explains the legal order appropriate for non-Muslims who defied living among Muslims and waged war and were defeated. By definition the dhimmah as the pact (‘ahd) and the dhimmi as a person who has the compact of the Islamic polity is the non-Muslim domicile of the Muslim country. As for those who belong to different religions or beliefs living among Muslims are safe and secured people according to the general principles of the agreement they have signed. In conjunction with this theory, a “mu’ahid” is a citizen of a non-Muslim state which has a compact with the Muslim country. [To be continued]

(Datu Michael O. Mastura is a lawyer, historian, a former representative of Maguindanao to Congress and now a senior member of the MILF peace panel.)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

PROTECT THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS

Initiatives for International Dialogue
3 June 2009

The Initiatives for International Dialogue expresses grave concern over the blatant violation of human rights of the internally displaced persons in Maguindanao who continue to receive the blow in the obsession for a military solution to the conflict in Mindanao. Maguindanao is one of the five provinces under the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The question on how best to protect civilians from forced displacement continues to be an issue of grave concern to all of us. Apparently, the situation in the conflict affected areas in Mindanao showcases the lack of effective national and international responses to the issue.

We, the Initiatives for International Dialogue firmly believe that government should be in the forefront of addressing the protection rights of the internally displaced persons.

Under Principle 3 of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement to which the country is a signatory, "national authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons within their jurisdiction."

It also states that "internally displaced persons have the right to request and to receive protection and humanitarian assistance from these authorities. They shall not be persecuted or punished for making such as request."

We believe that internally displaced persons are not merely casualties of war but persons entitled to human rights protection. We call on the government to do a better job of listening and consulting with displaced communities to gain better understanding of what the people need.

It is the position of the Initiatives for International Dialogue that in ensuring that all facets of the protection issue are addressed in a sustainable manner, genuine consultations should be undertaken to provide input on alternative plans for their security situation, and to incorporate grassroots concerns into the national and international protection policies and programs.

We take grave concern on the inhuman situation of IDPs in evacuation centers who are confronted with heath crisis, lack of food, disruption of education, rise of tension, psychological effects brought by war, violence against women and children and the elderly and the rising frustration among the youth.

In light of the above, we call upon all national and local authorities to uphold the rights of internally displaced persons. In particular, investigate and immediately act on the reported food blockade allegedly perpetrated by the military against affected communities.

We also call on the government to provide support for protecting civilians against arbitrary displacement, and take measures for both the military and the MILF to recognize and respect early warning systems in the community, peace zones and inter-community conflict prevention efforts.

We call on the international community to take strong immediate political actions to urge and encourage the national leadership to protect the interest of the displaced protection as their public responsibility. If the government continues to renege in its responsibility to protect the civilians in times of war, then the international community must intervene on behalf of the internally displaced.

IID will continue to take into account the importance of consulting with, integrating and supporting war affected communities and other community based initiatives to ensure a more responsive and effective protection response.

We believe that by listening to the internally displaced and at risk communities, we could gain a collective understanding on how they perceive their condition, and on how best could humanitarian agencies and the national government assist them to help themselves.

We will continue to work with the youth, women and the whole community in developing effective and constructive dialogue as a conflict prevention and peace building mechanism to ensure that their views in constructing peace is taken into account in governance.

In solidarity.

STATEMENT of UNYPAD: Respect the Civilians, Resume the Peace Talks

5 June 2009

The United Youth for Peace and Development, (UNYPAD) Inc., a Philippine-wide youth organization, expresses its serious concern over the unending and unjustified military operations in Moro communities. More than 10-month military operations against MILF commanders resulted to nothing but indescribable humanitarian crisis in Mindanao.

For almost every day, we are being greeted by news reports on armed encounters between troops of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Sad to note, in every armed encounter, those who suffer most are the hapless non-combatants among the Moro, Lumads and Christian Settlers. They have always been forced to flee their homes leaving behind them their sources of livelihood and hard-earned properties. What is worse is that there are times that these fleeing non-combatants are being caught in the crossfire.

Amidst this unending anxiety, the UNYPAD, a peace advocate organization based in Cotabato City, Mindanao, cannot afford to remain as a mere spectator.

It is for this reason that in the 4th General Assembly of UNYPAD, held in Cotabato City on June 5-7, 2009, the following urgent calls were come up:

* For the government to stop its military solution against MILF Commanders. It should instead maximize the present peace and ceasefire mechanisms established in and by the GRP-MILF peace process;

* For the AFP and BIAF to respect and adhere to the principles of International Humanitarian Law, Geneva Convention IV and Additional Protocol II;

* For the concerned authorities to conduct investigation and immediate action on the reported food blockade allegedly perpetrated by the military against affected communities and that the inhumane conditions of the IDPs in their respective evacuation centers must be taken seriously;

* For the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and other human rights groups to look into the reported cases of illegal and forced abduction of civilians in the evacuation centers allegedly committed by the Philippine soldiers;

* For the GRP and the MILF to honor, in letter and spirit, the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) that their respective peace panels have already initialed;

* For the Government of Malaysia and other international communities to do the utmost effort in pushing the GRP-MILF peace process forward;

* For the GRP and the MILF to hearken the cry for peace of the more than half a million people who have always been suffering the most in times of war, and
That the GRP and the MILF immediately return to the negotiating table.

The UNYPAD strongly believes that without the GRP and the MILF resuming the peace negotiations immediately, their gains in the peace process as well as gains achieved by other peace advocates will ultimately be brought to naught to the detriment of the people that both the GRP and the MILF vow to serve and represent.

The UNYPAD reiterates its call that the GRP and the MILF should now listen to the cry of the people for peace and it also calls on its fellow peace advocates to exert more efforts in urging the GRP and the MILF to sign Peace Agreement that will finally place the Mindanao conflict into total closure.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Please help us circulate this ASAP

Hereunder is a consolidated report of the OMI Disaster Response Team, Peacebuilders Community, Initiatives for International Dialogue, Bantay Ceasefire and the Mindanao Peoples Caucus which conducted consultations among evacuees in various refugee camps of Datu Piang, Maguindanao from June 2-4, 2009. This is being submitted to Secretary Rafael Seguis of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process

A. In Datu Gumbay Elementary School and High School

General Situation and the Problems of Evacuees:
1. There is a general feeling of insecurity caused by:
a. Cases of indiscriminate firing by soldiers
b. Continues artillery shelling
c. Threat from the 54th Infantry Battalion, relayed by the Barangay Captain to the evacuees who said the soldiers will get back on civilians at the evacuation center once their detachment, which is near the school, is again harassed by rebels

2. There is lack of food supply as evacuees could not work and are just depending of food rations of non-government organizations

3. The evacuees fear of going back home due to:
a. Cases of disappearances and summary execution of civilians by soldiers
b. Military operatives cover their name-clothe and the markings that serve to identify the Army unit during military operations

4. Classes are disrupted by the artillery shelling as pupils get out of their classrooms whenever they hear of artillery shelling or their parents would fetch them home

5. Children and the aged are getting ill and dying at the evacuation center. When they request medicine, the Health Center would tell them they have none.

Their calls:
1. Urged the international community to intervene and help resolve the conflict and in addressing the needs of evacuees
2. Call on the barangay captains to go back home to their respective barangays so they can help the civilians feel secure and encourage them to go back home
3. Stop the war and for the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to go back to the negotiating table to resume the peace talks

B. In GLACI school

General Situation and the Problems of Evacuees:
1. Evacuees are illegally arrested by soldiers
2. Children and youth have stopped schooling
3. Pregnant mothers are delivering babies in evacuation center, some
of them prematurely
4. Insufficient food and medicine supply

Their Needs:
1. Regular and enough food ration
2. Plastic laminated sacks (trapal)
3. Medicines, including dental supply
4. Toilet, and,
5. Potable water

Their Calls:
1. Immediate resumption of the peace talks
2. Signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain
3. Pull the military back to their barracks
4. Stop to the Human Rights Violations
5. Regular and enough Food Supply
6. Respect the Bangsamoro Peoples Right to self-determination

C. IN MAKASENDEG

General Situation and Problems of Evacuees:
1. Children are being sick
2. Lack of food supply
3. They could not sleep at night due to the bombing
4. Fear that the presence of armed Civilian Volunteer Organization members may invite armed encounter with the rebels
5. The evacuation area is being flooded
6. Need for plastic laminated sacks (trapal)
7. Houses were burned
8. They could not harvest their produce
9. The number of evacuees is continuously increasing. From over 200 families on May 31, there are already over 400 families as of June 4, 2009.
10. Need for toilets and source of potable water
11. Need for food support and fishing gears

Their calls:
1. Resolve the rido (family feud) that led to the armed encounter which drove them to evacuate.
2. Stop the artillery shelling
3. Resumption of the peace talks between the government and the MILF. They say that once the peace talks resume, it would be easier to resolve the rido since it would be the government and the MILF that will help each other in addressing the problem. They believe Mayor Samer Uy can also help in resolving the rido.