JEDDAH, 20 March 2005 — The violent end to the siege of the Camp Bagong Diwa prison facility in Taguig, in which 22 Muslim inmates and a policeman were killed as security forces stormed the facility on Tuesday, leaves one wondering whether things could have been done differently.
The siege began on Monday when a group of Abu Sayyaf suspects overpowered and stabbed their guards, taking away their firearms and ammunition. They were allegedly protesting the horrible and overcrowded conditions in the prison, something that is all too common in Philippine jails.
Negotiators were quickly brought in, including Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes and ARMM Gov. Parouk Hussin, to talk to the siege leaders. But the inmates kept changing their demands, something that tested the patience of the police. It seems that a demand for food and water finally blew it and caused the police to launch their bloody assault.
After the smoke had settled from the barrage of gunfire and assorted weaponry that was used in the assault, 22 inmates were dead, including three notorious Abu Sayyaf leaders: Alhamzar Manatad Limbong, known as Commander Kosovo; Ghalib Andang, known as Commander Robot, and Nadzamie Sabtulah, alias Commander Global.
For sure, no tears are being shed over their deaths. All three were ruthless murderers, responsible for the kidnapping and deaths of many people, many by decapitation. They all claimed to be shedding people’s blood in the name of Islam, something any right thinking Muslim would never accept.
We all know about the grinding poverty of Mindanao, and the neglect shown to it by Manila and the central government. These are still not enough excuses for some Muslims in Mindanao to go on kidnapping, looting and killing sprees.
An ex-hostage of Commander Robot, Callie Strydom of South Africa, told the Agence France Presse that his captor had suffered a fate he richly deserved.
Strydom and his wife were kidnapped along with 20 others from a resort in Malaysia in April 2000 by Robot and his cohorts and taken to Jolo. They were held for 121 days, and Strydom recalled how Robot prayed five times a day while also raping several women over the course of their imprisonment.
While the three Abu Sayyaf members probably deserved to die in the barrage of bullets on Tuesday, how about the 19 other dead inmates?
Another question arises: Why didn’t the police try negotiating for a few more days? Twenty-four hours of negotiating hardly seems enough, unless the inmates were threatening to kill hostages or detonate a nuclear device, something they were not.
The only logical conclusion is that the police decided pretty early on that if the inmates didn’t surrender early on a rubout would the easiest and fastest way to resolve the standoff. Comments by Ignacio Bunye, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s spokesman, that the inmates had it coming to them, lends credence to the rubout scenario.
There is a growing polarization between Christian and Muslim Filipinos. If only the siege in Taguig had been handled more sensitively, then perhaps the bloodbath could have been avoided as well as the tensions now being felt in the Muslim community.
Filipino Muslims for their part also have to stop buying into this culture of victimization, where every perceived slight done to them by the government is turned into a case of alleged anti-Muslim bias.
Upright Muslim leaders have to stand up and reclaim leadership of their community from the Abu Sayyaf gangsters who I’m sure are often looked up to by misguided youth because of the money and exploits that they brag about.
Kidnapping and beheading innocent civilians is nothing to be proud of. Yet these acts, and the large sums of money they earn from them, work to build up Abu Sayyaf members into legendary “heroes” among some in the Muslim community. This is unfortunate and wrong.
The youth of Mindanao have to be shown that there is another road to success that does not include doing what the bandits do. More Muslim leaders, both male and female, have to speak out against the Abu Sayyaf. If they don’t we risk losing a whole generation of youth who will have been seduced by the glint of easy money and power achieved in a very immoral and bloody way.
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