Salam~
A long article, but worth reading insyaAllah...
It will give you an overview of the conflict in Mindanao.
'Barangsiapa yang tidak mengambil peduli tentang kesusahan saudaranya yang
lain, mereka bukan sebahagian dari umatku' (maksud hadith)
"Tak kenal maka tak cinta" (peribahasa melayu)
Ws, Mustafa
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Injustice: the Root of Conflict in Mindanao
By Archbishop Orlando B. Quevedo, OMI
(Note from MindaNews. This paper was delivered by
Cotabato Archbishop Orlando B. Quevedo, O.M.I., also president of the
Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines during the 27th General
Assembly of the Bishops' Businessmen's Conference in Taguig, Metro
Manila, on July 8).
The Roots of Insurgency - the Government's ViewThe
government's "National Strategy to Overcome Insurgency" is "restricted
information". Since government officials presented some of the contents
in at least two public conferences, I suppose I am free to speak about
it.
The Estrada government called the National Strategy to
Overcome Insurgency a "Strategy of Total Approach." A "left hand
effort" addresses the "roots of insurgency" and a "right hand effort"
aims at militarily dismantling insurgent forces. The present government
updated the national strategy and now calls it "The Strategy of
Holistic Approach" in order to "deter and resolve insurgency." By
insurgency, the government refers to the CPP/NPA-NDF, the MILF/BIAF,
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), and other insurgent threats.
The government's holistic approach has four fundamental
components: political, legal, and diplomatic component;
socio-economic-psychosocial component; the peace and order and security
component; and information. It retains the idea of a "left hand
approach" and a "right hand approach." The national strategy admits
that cutting down "the tree of discontent" will not solve the
insurgency problem. Its roots must be addressed.
It is not my purpose to critique the strategy. At the
moment it suffices for me to say that there is an outstandingly
significant alternative approach called the "Human Security" approach.
And I am glad that Mr. Paul Oquist of the UNDP will speak on this
approach at this conference later this morning.
My present interest is in the government's analysis of
the roots of insurgency. The most recent version of National Strategy
identifies four main roots of insurgency, namely:
1. Poverty, which includes low productivity, criminality, marginalization,
environmental degradation;
2. Ignorance, which includes poor resource base and low quality education;
3. Disease, which includes malnutrition, poor delivery of
health services;
4. Injustice, which includes human rights violations, graft and corruption,
land conflicts.
Following the above framework and analysis a government
briefing on injustice as the 4th root cause of insurgency would
logically proceed to tackling the issues of human rights violations,
graft and corruption, land conflicts.
An Alternative Perspective.
But my own reading and analysis of the insurgency in
the South would be substantially different. The main difference is the
place of history and culture.
Let me clarify. I am a Christian and a priest. Though
born in Ilocos Norte I grew up in Marbel, Koronadal, Cotabato in the
late 40s and early 50's. My parents were public school teachers who
migrated from the crowded North to the vast and spacious South. I
worked as a priest-educator in Cotabato City for 12 years, as a parish
priest in Jolo for almost two years, as Bishop of Kidapawan for 6
years, and as the present Archbishop of Cotabato for the past four
years.
Through the years I have gained some understanding of
the Moro viewpoint that has significantly influenced, even altered, my
Christian viewpoint.
The change came not only from reading books authored by
either Christian or Muslim scholars but most importantly from teaching,
advising, observing, conversing and being with Muslim students and
professionals for many years, even as I accompanied my fellow
Christians in their own journey through on-going history. Surely
somewhere in my subconscious I still have my own prejudices about
Muslims. But such prejudices I hope do not prevent me from entering the
worldview of Moros and striving to see reality as many of them would
see it.
The Root of Moro Conflict Injustice.
>From such a perspective then may I state my central
conviction -- that the root cause of insurgency in the South is
injustice. This injustice has several sub-roots that are the major
factors at the heart of the contemporary Moro movement for freedom. I
refer to the movement's historical, cultural, social, economic,
political, and religious dimensions. Nowhere in the national strategy
as I have read it and as government spokesmen have explained it to me
do I see these fundamental dimensions of the Moro struggle.
To clarify the thesis let me treat just three injustices among the several that
I see.
Injustice to the Moro Identity.
My understanding of the Moro struggle from the late
1960's to the present hinges on this most fundamental issue of Moro
identity. It is from this basic issue of Moro identity that the other
issues at the heart of the Moro struggle are derived. [Although I
assume responsibility for the interpretative synthesis, I acknowledge
my indebtedness for the historical data to the excellent book of Salah
Jubair, Bangsamoro: A Nation Under Endless Tyranny, 3rd edition, IQ
Marin SDN BHD, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,1999, 364 pp].
Bangsamoro (from bangsa, nation) as a term may be a
recent social and political construct, but the reality behind the term
goes back to the early 14th century when Islam was introduced to the
animist Indo-Malayan inhabitants of Mindanao and Sulu through "the
missionary activities of Arab traders and teachers or Sufis who came
along the trade routes" [Jubair, p. 6]. Toward the end of the 14th
century a Muslim community was already
flourishing in Sulu. By the middle of the 15th century
a Muslim sultanate was already established in Sulu. Islamic missionary
efforts in the 15th and 16th centuries also succeeded in establishing
sultanates in the Lanao and Cotabato areas. In the last years of the
15th century, Islam had reached out to the north, where Muslim rajahs
such as Rajah Sulaiman Mahmud, Rajah Matanda, and Rajah Lakandula ruled
over what is known as Manila today.
Islamic groups spoke different languages and
demonstrated great differences in customs and traditions. What brought
the communities together into a distinct and identifiable social group
was the common religious bond of Islam that totally governed their
social structures, their relationships, their values, their way of
life. Such unity in diversity was already a reality long before the
term "Filipinos" came to describe the indios colonized by the Spaniards
in the second half of the 16th century.
The Muslim communities shared a common political and
governmental structure based on the sultanates, with their own defined
territories. They also shared a common history of resistance against
Spain and later against the Americans. In the 16th to the 18th
centuries, the Muslim communities might not have had a sense of
distinct political "nationhood" (as understood today), but they
certainly considered themselves quite distinct from everyone else by
reason of their adherence to Islam. By the 19th century, Muslim leaders
and thinkers were convinced that the Moros constituted one nation, a
belief that they impressed on the American colonizing government always
with passion and often with violence.
One may argue about investing the Moro social and
political community with the name "nation" but one cannot escape the
fact that during the first century of Spanish colonization, the Islamic
peoples of Mindanao, Visayas, and Luzon, had a socio-cultural and
political identity distinct and separate from the Spaniards and the
Christian indios. Thus, even without pressing the argument of
nationhood, there was by the end of the 16th century among the Islamic
communities a developed sense of religious and cultural unity and
identity to which one might give at least seminally the name
bangsamoro. Such sense of "nation" certainly matured when from the very
beginning and for more than 300 years they resisted waves of military
campaigns by Spanish military forces and their Christian Indio
subordinates and later by American troops.
In contrast, Christian Filipinos asserted their
nationhood only when the revolution against Spain was launched in 1896.
When this sense of nationhood among Filipinos began to be firmed up
under American rule, the leaders and thinkers of the Muslim communities
resisted the attempts to put them under Filipino rule.
It is in the light of the above social, political, and cultural history
based on their common Islamic belief that I make the following
assertion.
The various campaigns, military and otherwise, by
Spanish, American, and Filipino governments to subjugate, assimilate
and integrate the Bangsamoro into the mainstream body politic,
apparently without regard to their historical and cultural make-up, is
an injustice to the bangsamoros' religious, cultural and political
identity [see also Jubair, pp. 123-27].
Injustice to Moro Political Sovereignty
Even before the Spaniards arrived in 16ht century the
Muslim communities in Mindanao already had their own structures of
political governance centered on their datus, rajahs, and sultans. They
had recognizable territorial boundaries. They were free to govern
themselves in their own way, according to their customs, traditions,
and the precepts of their religion. They possessed political
sovereignty. They waged numerous wars against Spanish forces to defend
their homeland and their religion. The death of Rajah Sulaiman, the
last Muslim ruler of Manila, at the battle of Bangkusay, off the shore
of Tondo in 1571, was an initial chapter of the resistance that the
Moro people waged against those that threatened their sovereignty.
The Moro-Spanish conflict would drag on for more than
320 years without any decisive result except to constrict to a little
extent the territorial boundaries of Moro sovereignty, as Spain erected
garrisons in key places in Mindanao as in Cotabato, Zamboanga and Sulu.
Particularly in the 17th century, the Sultanate of Maguindanao headed
by Sultan Dipatuan Muhammad Qudarat wielded power and influence over a
wide swath of Mindanao territory, including Cotabato, Lanao, Davao,
Misamis, Bukidnon and Zamboanga (Salah Jubair, p. 44). Even after his
defeat by Gov. General Hurtado de Corcuera in Lamitan [now Baras,
Malabang, Lanao del Sur according to Cesar Adib Majul, see Jubair,
chapter 3, ftnote 17, p. 272] in 1637, Sultan Qudarat held sovereignty
over his territory as did the Sultan of Sulu over his. For the next two
centuries, the Spaniards could not gain any victory decisive enough to
wrest this sovereignty.
Dynastic dissensions weakened the Sultanates of Sulu
and Maguindanao in the 18th and 19th century. The decline of the
Sultanates, the political symbol of Moro sovereignty, reached its nadir
with the final Spanish assault on Jolo in 1876. Other Sultanates
continued to flourish such as in Lanao, Buayan, Talayan, Buluan, and
Kabuntalan. Meanwhile, though weakened, the Sulu Sultanate maintained
its sovereignty.
Before American troops landed in Mindanao and Sulu,
Moro military forces strengthened Moro sovereignty by attacking Spanish
garrisons in Cotabato, Zamboanga, Sulu, and Lanao. They also dislodged
Katipuneros in Cotabato who tried to fill the political vacuum that the
Spanish evacuation from Mindanao created.
In 1899 Brigadier Gen. John C. Bates and Sultan Jamalul
Kiran II of Sulu successfully negotiated the Kiram-Bates Treaty.
Informal agreements were also made with the other Moro leaders of
Mindanao. The treaty gave due recognition to the Moro religion,
customs, and traditions. On sovereignty, two versions of the treaty
exist. The English version states: "The sovereignty of the United
States over the archipelago of Jolo, and its dependencies is declared
and acknowledged." The Moro version says otherwise: "The support, the
aid, and the protection of the Sulu Island and archipelago are in the
American nation" [see Juabair, p. 61].
However, the Kiram-Bates treaty paved the way for the
American occupation of Mindanao and Sulu. In 1903 the Moro Province
consisting of the districts of Sulu, Zamboanga, Lanao, Cotabato and
Davao was created and was placed under the direct supervision of the
Civil Governor of the Philippine Islands and the Philippine Commission.
In 1904 Pres. Theodore Roosevelt unilaterally declared the treaty null
and void. In 1912, Brig. Gen. John C. Pershing, head of the Moro
Province, created the first Christian colony of settlers in Mindanao.
He was also responsible for the disarmament of the Moros, but not
without a fight as the massacre at Bud Bagsak in 1913 demonstrates.
>From 1899 to 1941 there were many Moro military
uprisings against the Americans. But through military, political and
educational stratagems the American government gradually gained de
facto sovereignty over the Moro people. Moreover, the introduction of
Christian settlers to Mindanao that began under General Pershing in
1912 eventually made the once dominant Moro population into a minority
and marginalized them [In 1913, the estimated population of Mindanao
was the following: 324,816 Moros; 193,882 non-Moros. The Moro people
constituted a 76% majority. Twenty-six years later, in 1939, the Moro
population was only 34% of the total Mindanao population; in 1990, only
19% of the total Mindanao population of 14,269,456; see Jubair, pp.
130-31, using 1990 Census of Population and Housing]. Many Moro leaders
vehemently resisted being called Filipinos.
They protested against the independence movement of the
Filipinos, preferring even to remain under the American flag rather
than be independent and yet be under "Christian Filipinos" [see Jubair,
pp. 86-94, 108-10].
It is on the basis of the historical record that I come
to the following conclusion: for the bangsamoro the gradual loss of
their sovereignty to the American government and later to the
Philippine government was a fundamental injustice, even though some of
their leaders who served in government might have acquiesced [For this
acquiescence, see Jubair, pp. 115-16].
Injustice to Moro Integral Development.
With the loss of political sovereignty came the loss of
great chunks of Moro ancestral lands. Much of the loss resulted from a
long series of legal enactments by the Philippine Commission, the
Commonwealth government, and the post-independence government. Moro
writers call this "legalized land grabbing." Land registration,
declaration of public land, mining, cadastral surveys, creation of
agricultural colonies, procedures for land ownership, land settlements
all these legal realities, often without the proper understanding of
the Moro people, drastically reduced the areas of ancestral domain and
benefited the Christian population [see Jubair, pp. 95-97, 102-04,
119-24]. By 1976 Moros owned less than 17% of the Mindanao land they
once owned almost exclusively before the Spaniards came [see Jubair, p.
121, quoting Aijaz Ahmad (1982), p. 7].
The loss of land was compounded by government neglect
of the Moro right to integral development during the Commonwealth and
post-independence governments. In all dimensions of human development,
political, economic, educational, and cultural, the Moro population
continues to lag far behind its Christian Filipino counterparts. The
latest national census bears this out in terms of educational
improvement, political participation, and economic development. This is
truly a tragic plight.
Indeed the bangsamoro is at the lowest tier of
Philippine development when one uses the framework that the Estrada
government used to portray the root causes of insurgency. These root
causes are maldistribution of wealth and poverty (double standard of
justice, low quality education, low productivity, malnutrition, low
purchasing power, criminality, and disease; maldistribution of the
fruits of the land (land conflicts, marginalization, socio-eco
mainstream, environmental degradation, poor resource base; plutocracy
or government of, by, and for the few (poor delivery of services,
patronage politics, government inefficiency, human rights violations,
rigged elections, graft and corruption, cronyism).
The central government in Manila can be justly faulted
for this underdevelopment. But one cannot escape the impression that
through the years many Moro leaders who served in the government have
also failed their own people [For confirmation of this impression, see
Jubair, pp. 257-59].
Today's Prospects for Peace
Given the injustices that I have described, where do we
go from here? Will the fighting ever stop? Will the evacuees ever
return home? Will integral development of the bangsamoro ever seriously
start?
The root answer to those questions is simple. Justice
to the Moro identity and sovereignty must be seriously respected. But
this task is far from simple. Prejudices and biases have to be
overcome. Muslim and Christian religious leaders have a major role in
this. Both the Koran and the Bible teach respect, understanding,
reconciliation, and love.
On May 5, 2003 the Permanent Council of the Catholic
Bishops' Conference of the Philippines issued on an open letter of
appeal to President Macapagal-Arroyo and Chairman Salamat Hashim to
declare a ceasefire and to resume peace negotiations. The Bishops'
immediate concern was the worsening humanitarian crisis afflicting more
than 300,000 evacuees, mostly Moros, in various evacuation camps in
Central and Southern Mindanao.
Supported by other peace advocates, notably Tabang
Mindanaw, the Bishops' letter started a flurry of communications
between the Bishops, the MILF leadership, and key government officials
mandated by the President to explore the avenues of peace. As of today
despite the provocative rhetoric that various officials spout in the
media, the prospects for peace in Mindanao are real. New negotiations
have reopened at least informally.
Unless terrorism manages to sabotage the peace process,
I believe that soon the two parties will resume discussions on
substantive peace agenda.
I am particularly encouraged by one of the concluding reflections of Salah
Jubair:
The Moros are not asking for the whole of Mindanao, because
circumstances have superseded some facts of history. They just want a
parcel of it, especially where they predominate. This will enable
generations after them to live in peace and piety, as Islam enjoins all
believers. The indigenous peoples, whom the Visayans call Lumads may
opt to join their blood-brothers, the Moros, and they are welcome.
After all, the two peoples are inseparable in the history of Mindanao
and Sulu. Is this too much a price for peace, development and
prosperity for all? [p. 263].
It is the what and the how of this just and fundamental
Moro aspiration for freedom within the context of circumstances that
"have superseded some facts of history" that must be at the heart of
all political negotiations for a lasting peace.
[Note: After I completed writing this talk, I noticed
that Salah Jubair has a note near the front of his book: "No part of
this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means
without permission from the author." It is too late for me to contact
the author. I hope he understands. But once again let me note that I
assume full responsibility for the interpretation that I give to the
historical data].
(NOTE FROM MINDANEWS: MindaNews was
able to reach Salah Jubair and he said he does not mind Archbishop
Quevedo's quoting parts of his book).
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Dato' Hj. Mustafa Kamal b. Mohd Zaini (hp: +60192149345)
blogspot: http://datomustafakamal.blogspot.com/
Humanitarian Activist
Pohon anda support program:
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