By Patricia H. Kushlis
The New York Times’ article “Curbed in Island Towns, Islamists in
Philippines Take to Forests” published on September 26, 2009 by
Norimitsu Onishi reporting from Lamitan, a small Christian enclave on the largely Muslim island
of Basilan, is just additional evidence that not much has changed since the
Bush administration sent 600 US troops, $100 million in military and
counter-terrorism assistance and $55 million in economic and social assistance
to the southern Philippines in 2002 to help the Philippine government eliminate
Abu Sayyaf, a lethal band of Islamist kidnap-for-ransom extortionists, based in this
mostly Muslim part of the country.
Although this kidnap-for-ransom crew of perhaps no more than
20 no longer operates freely in the main towns, Abu Sayyaf has not closed up shop or
put down its guns. Far from it: the
fighters have just moved to the hills.
Since 2002, the US
government has provided the Philippines
with $1.6 billion in military and economic aid of which $400 million from USAID
has gone to the Muslim provinces, the poorest parts of Mindanao, in the Philippines.
The Obama administration has also just extended the stay of
600 US “elite counter-insurgency troops” in the southern Philippines to
continue to deal with the problem - to the consternation of Filipino
left-leaning politicians and news media.
The fact that the US and Philippine defense agreement permits
American soldiers to be in the country only to support the Philippine military but
not engage in combat, is, in my view, sensible. The US military’s role is to provide
intelligence, training and technology to Filipino counterparts.
But even so is this working? Can it work? And if not, why not? What are the impediments? What would make the difference?
Why is there still a problem?
I don’t think that the impediments to success lie in the objections
to the presence of US troops on Philippine soil from the Filipino left. These cries of anguish emanate – as usual - from
Manila-ensconced left wing politicians and news media. They are noisy, vocal, disruptive, and can likely
block a two-thirds majority vote in the Philippine Senate.
They are foremost nationalists - some with a Communist or Socialist
tinge. They are Christians or
fallen-away Christians. They are not, repeat, not Muslims. Furthermore, regardless of the decibels, their
anti-American nationalist views do not represent the majority of Filipinos who
- public opinion polls showed in 1992 - never wanted the US bases to leave
in the first place.
A Different Magnitude
Yet the problems that impede the elimination of Abu Sayyaf are of
a different magnitude.
Eliminating Abu Sayyaf, after all, was the rationale for the
return of a small, supposedly temporary, US
military presence to the Philippines
in 2002. The first two American soldiers were killed on the island of Jolo this
week since US troops arrived over seven years ago - an amazingly low
number of casualties given the time frame - but still this certainly
suggests that the insurgency lives.
True, Abu Sayyaf claims a relationship to Al Qaeda. Its apparent initial
goal was to create a pan Islamic caliphate that includes the southern Philippines, Malaysia
and Indonesia
in conjunction with the much larger and deadlier Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah
Islamiya which is both far more Islamist and likely closer to Al Qaeda.
For years, Abu Sayyaf has lived off booty obtained from
ransoms for kidnapping while it has relied on protection from the local Muslim community,
friendly politicians and even, according to Onishi, military officials for its
safety.
Yet as Major Armel Tolado, the head of the commander of the Philippine
Marine battalion on Basilan, told Onishi, Abu Sayyaf – despite its tiny numbers
– cannot be eradicated by military force alone. The major added that the
Philippine military deals only with one part of the organization, its armed
elements. Meanwhile, the political, cultural,
religious, and economic dynamics at work in the country are complex and laced with a lengthy history of
violence, clan warfare and corruption.
US Government Assistance
USAID has focused its funds and attention on Mindanao for a good twenty years – well before Abu Sayyaf
became a factor. The region has long
been the economically poorest and least educated part of the country –
especially the parts that form the Muslim Southwest. Far too many men are subsistence farmers.
Families live in abject poverty, birthrates are high and the literacy rate is
the worst in the country.
Throughout 350 years of Spanish rule, the Spanish were never
strong enough to Christianize or colonize
Mindanao.
The influx of Filipino Christians from the
north which the US encouraged during the early part of the 20
th century
when the Philippines was America’s only colony pushed poorer and poorer Muslims
onto less and less land.
The Philippine government has battled Muslim separatists
since the early 1970s. The government signed
a peace agreement in 1996 with the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front), the largest
of the Muslim insurgent groups with some 45,000 fighters at the time but the
government subsequently reneged on important economic terms of the agreement. The MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front), a MNLF
spin-off group which had about 12,000 armed fighters in 2002 never signed the
peace agreement. The MILF continues to engage
in sporadic negotiations with the Philippine government. It has been suggested that the MILF cooperates
with Al Qaeda but the MILF denies it.
The government’s long standing policies that extracted more economically
from Mindanao than it gave back has done nothing to quell popular resentment
against both the US
and the Philippine governments.
Toss in the complex cultural, social and historical brew and
it should come as no surprise that the Muslim population views the Philippine Army
as an occupying force.
Several years ago President Gloria Arroyo said that she
would rebalance the lopsided economic equation.
But did she? If so, it has yet to
make a difference. Meanwhile, statistics
show strong growth in the northern part of Mindanao
but this hasn’t translated into economic growth in the Muslim regions long at the bottom
of the economic heap.
American aid whether delivered through USAID or a US
military involved in delivering development assistance on Basilan – from road
and bridge building to improving cell phone service and educational access and
quality – doesn’t hurt but the US can’t change the picture alone. This needs to come from Manila.
Real political autonomy, a peace agreement with the MILF, economic and
educational development and increased trade would help.