JUST a week ago, the Philippines was on the brink of an honorable end to four decades of bloody rebellion in Mindanao by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Yet yesterday fighting between government troops and rebels suddenly reached an intensity not seen in years and over 130,000 people from communities on both sides were desperately fleeing the renewed conflict.
The trigger for this collapse of good will was the temporary order by the Supreme Court halting the signing in Kuala Lumpur of a peace treaty between the Arroyo administration and the MILF. This would have created an autonomous Muslim area, known as the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE). The Supreme Court justices were by all accounts acting fairly. They requested the government and the plaintiffs, two Roman Catholic politicians from Mindanao, to come before them this week to present their cases. Had this been the way the dispute progressed, it might have been only a few weeks before the treaty was finally signed. The MILF, for its part, asserted it was a done deal and although frustrated, indicated that it was prepared to wait. The Arroyo administration said that it was confident that once the arguments were heard in court, the peace agreement would go ahead.
Yet something else happened plunging the region back into violence. MILF fighters in five towns in North Cotabato province were given an ultimatum by the Philippine military to withdraw. When they ignored the ultimatum, they came under air and ground attack from some 3,000 troops. Whether the MILF fighters had any right to be in these places is largely irrelevant. The negotiated treaty provided for a vote among communities to decide if they wished to be part of the new BJE or not. If the MILF were seeking to establish what the Israelis — referring to their illegal West Bank settlements — call “facts on the ground,” then talks would have to be convened to persuade the occupiers to leave. Yet that is not what happened. A deadline was given and when that expired, the Philippines’ army and air force attacked. It is worth wondering on whose orders they acted. It can hardly have been those of the president — the commander in chief of the armed forces, who has invested so much in the peace treaty. The army attacks have coincided with two other alarming developments. One has been the unleashing of anti-Muslim rhetoric by some politicians that a leading media commentator in Manila yesterday characterized as “Christian bigotry.” The second is the rumor now sweeping the capital that the Supreme Court is going to strike down the peace treaty entirely. Given that the case has not yet been argued, this would seem nonsense unless anti-peace treaty politicians are trying to influence the judiciary.
Those who, for whatever reasons, would scupper the deal that creates the BJE should remember that the Arroyo administration acted in the recognition that after 40 years of bloodshed, there was clearly no military solution to the conflict. Nothing has changed that reality. The renewed violence is thus pointless.
