BY RYAN D. ROSAURO, PECOJON
When gov’t, MILF returned to clashes Sound of guns, mortars drown classes
AROUND mid-June, classes at the Datu Gumbay Piang Central Elementary School in Datu Piang, Maguindanao broke up as rounds of howitzers were unleashed in an Army firebase about 25 meters away.
Teacher Noime Pua complained that each time ‘interdiction fires’ are let loose, “our pupils would go out of the classroom; some will go home to the evacuation center; others will be fetched by their parents. Those who would be left (behind) could no longer concentrate with our lessons.”
Seeing its disruption to classes, school officials requested the transfer of the artillery machines. But the Army played hard on giving up a strategic position for the weapons, and so one of its officials advised that a new school location be sought instead.
This case depicts the supremacy of military ends over all others in how government dealt with the bloody fallout of the widely unpopular Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), too, is equally guilty. Sore at the aborted signing of the MOA-AD, its forces attacked Kolambugan and Kauswagan towns of Lanao del Norte on Aug. 18 last year. This re-ignited large-scale armed clashes with government troops after a five-year silence of their guns.
The violent response to unfolding events last year had nearly thrown to the dustbin the significant strides in the 11-year peace process.
Boiling point
Tensions started boiling around June last year when ranking officials of local governments issued warnings of political backlash from communities whose people supposedly feared being gobbled into a Moro homeland outlined in the proposed deal.
This followed announcement of a breakthrough in exploratory talks over the contentious ancestral domain agenda. More than a year prior to this, several of the points both parties agreed on became public when a document from the negotiations leaked to the press.
Hence, news of the breakthrough only served as notice for staunch critics to start their campaign to thwart the grant of supposedly juicy concessions to the Moro rebels.
While the Lanao del Norte attacks triggered the widened hostilities, the non-government Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society Organizations (CBCSO), along with Bantay Ceasefire monitors, documented low-level skirmishes provoked by government militias in Midsayap, North Cotabato seven weeks earlier.
And the series of attacks and counter-attacks were simply treated as a problem of law enforcement. This made an opening for interior and local government secretary Ronaldo Puno to enter into the fray by issuing an ultimatum on the MILF to cease its aggressive troop movements. This was uncharacteristic of the established protocols in the peace process.
The CBCSO also noted a local government move to oust an official leading the Armed Forces contingent in the ceasefire coordinating body who is known for having successfully steered efforts to prevent the escalation of skirmishes.
In more than a month, the North Cotabato clashes heightened with the Armed Forces already using bomber planes in its offensives.
Mea culpa
By Aug. 18, the theater of fighting widened to include Lanao del Norte and Maasim, Sarangani.
“We are man enough to acknowledge that we started the fighting in Lanao del Norte,” MILF peace negotiating panel chair Mohagher Iqbal admitted to reporters.
Iqbal felt sorry that the succeeding armed clashes turned out to be “worse than what was started.” But he brushed aside accusations of rebel involvement in the series of bombings in major Mindanao localities that victimized civilians.
“We don’t have the motive to do that. These do not contribute to the legitimacy of the MILF,” stressed the soft-spoken Iqbal.
“We have violated the ceasefire especially in Lanao del Norte,” Iqbal further admits.
He said the MILF is open to any probe by an independent body mandated by both parties, most preferably the multinational International Monitoring Team (IMT) headed by Malaysia which is also acting as third party facilitator in the peace negotiations.
“And we will abide by whatever reasonable sanctions meted on us,” Iqbal added while also urging the Armed Forces to submit to the same process.
Ceasefire foregone
These pronouncements by the MILF provide a fresh view on how their military relationship with the Armed Forces can be threshed out.
Confining the matter within the joint ceasefire committee was a mechanism open for both of them to tap even at the onset of the armed encounters. Yet, the parties conveniently forego this as government and the Moro rebels were bent on speaking through their weapons. They were content at venting their ire on each other through gunfire exchanges.
Both parties are not naïve at how the ceasefire mechanism, which evolved since 1997, had worked to effectively prevent skirmishes and to de-escalate tensions between their respective forces on the ground. This mechanism was boosted by the presence, starting in 2004, of IMT forces which act as third-party monitors in the implementation of a 1997 ceasefire pact.
This same mechanism saved the peace process in mid-2007 when the Armed Forces accused the Moro rebels of beheading Marine soldiers in Al-Barkha, Basilan. As the parties edged closer to war, the findings of an independent probe of the joint ceasefire committee diffused tensions.
Because of the parties’ adherence to the ceasefire, the number of armed encounters from 2004 up to July 2008 have radically gone down--the highest at 16 for the entire 2004. This provided a very healthy environment for the peace talks.
Unjustified
Government justified its war campaign in the name of law enforcement. First, to pacify the Moro guerillas from skirmishes with government militias in North Cotabato, and later, to have the three so-called ‘rogue’ MILF commanders answer for alleged atrocities against civilians. The search for them had taken the Armed Forces into a 10-month battle in Lanao del Norte and the Liguasan Marsh towns of Maguindanao and North Cotabato, perhaps the longest in recent memory.
For that purpose, government unilaterally lifted the ceasefire regime in three of 19 Mindanao areas where the MILF have troop presence. It even disbanded its peace panel to show disgust over the MILF’s military offensives.
As usual, the MILF justified its military actions on right to self-defense.
But the humanitarian tragedy that befell those who fled their homes and communities to escape the crossfire, which reached nearly 600,000 at its height, has put to naught all imaginable justifications for war.
In Maguindanao’s Datu Piang town, which has served both as a major evacuation site and as theater of fighting since fresh hostilities erupted, the deafening sounds of war has been an uncomfortable feature of daily community life for almost a year.
For now, as a result of truce declarations by government and the MILF, the Datu Gumbay teachers are spared the burden of carrying out lessons amid mortar fires.