Betraying Sabah

 

 

In possibly his last redemptive hour, the beleaguered dictator Ferdinand Marcos ordered the military to disperse without shooting the millions of people that gathered on EDSA in those two fateful days of the People Power Revolution. With his raspy voice almost inaudible, the dictator’s order was captured on television while giving his instructions to General Fabian Ver, the chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

 

The Malaysian military conducts house-to-house search in Sabah for the Sultan of
Sulu's men as the sultan (Sultan  of Sulu Jamalul Kiram III, foreground) declared
unilateral ceasefire. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdvnfrkIWM4 to
view "Malaysia raids Sabah village to end stand-off."

Imagine if the soldiers had instead fired at the huge throng of demonstrators. Or the tanks deployed by the army unleashed their artillery toward the unarmed mass of protesters. Or the helicopters hovering above fired their guns on the people assembled in front of Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo. No doubt, that could have been the mother of all carnage.

 

If that tragic ending happened, would Conrado de Quiros of the Philippine Daily Inquirer be writing there was “fringe” painted all over those “revolucionarios” just like the way he described the Lapiang Malaya Massacre of 1967 and the current Sabah shootout between the Sultan of Sulu’s army and the Malaysian military?

Unarmed, some with their families and children in tow, the demonstrators in EDSA were virtually exposed to harm’s way. It would have been so easy for De Quiros to call the EDSA uprising a tragic farce if it ended tragically. But as history unfolded, the EDSA revolt had the sweetest ending one would have ever imagined, a victorious unarmed people’s uprising against a heavily geared-up Armed Forces of the Philippines. No bloodshed, no casualty, no accounts of anyone wounded, except for sunburn, hundreds of thousands of hoarse throats, and swollen toes from pounding the EDSA concrete.

 

In 1967, Valentin delos Santos and his 380 Lapiang Malaya followers, armed with bolos and wearing amulets which they believed would protect them from harm, charged at the Malacanang gates to overthrow the government of Ferdinand Marcos. A phalanx of policemen and members of the Philippine Constabulary stopped them with gunfire from their M-16s. The carnage ended with 33 dead and 47 wounded, all members of Lapiang Malaya. Their leader Valentin delos Santos was sent to the National Center for Mental Health instead of prison.

 

De Quiros wrote that the recent foray of the Sultan’s army in Sabah was no different from the Lapiang Malaya assault of Malacanang in 1967. Both tragic and farcical, he said in his column. For good measure, De Quiros should have added the Katipunan’s launching of the Philippine Revolution against Spain in Pugad Lawin in 1896. Similarly armed only with bolos and their brave hearts, the Katipuneros must also be out of their wits that they could defeat the Spanish military with what they had.

 

Or perhaps, the adventurous Argentine forces that invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands on April 2, 1982, which prompted the British government to dispatch their navy to engage the Argentines and retake the islands. The Falkland Wars lasted 74 days and ended with the surrender of the Argentine forces, which returned the islands to British control. Did the Argentines act in desperation, madly thinking they could match the naval superiority of the British?

 

Why does Hamas keep on firing missiles from the Gaza Strip to Israel knowing that would only raise the ire of the powerful Israeli army which is always prepared to launch a counteroffensive and invasion of Hamas territory? Or why on earth do Palestinians and Israelis continue to engage in an internecine war without victory for either of them or lasting peace in sight for the region?

 

Writing about the Prussian campaigns of 1793 and 1794, Carl von Clausewitz had recognized war as a political phenomenon, fought for a purpose that was political, or at least always had political consequences. The recent Sabah incursion, the 60’s Lapiang Malaya assault, the invasion of the Falkland Islands and the continuing Hamas incursions on Israeli territory are not motivated by sheer madness or led by people who were simply on the fringe as De Quiros would conveniently suggest. No matter how commentators conclude their observations after the fact, the one thing that always stands out is the political nature or consequences of these military adventures, successful or not.

 

The Lapiang Malaya massacre, for instance, brought out the brutality of disproportionate response to an attack that was doomed to fail in the first instance. Why use the heavy arsenal of lethal weapons against knife-wielding attackers when they could have been dispersed by water cannons?

 

Lapiang Malaya consisted mainly of poor peasants who were disillusioned with their perceived oppression by the government and the continuing evil influence of Western powers. When their demand that Ferdinand Marcos step down was rejected, they took the matter into their hands and launched a frenzied siege of Malacanang. Nuts, yes, but the government’s response was beyond insane and inhumane.

 

Now that the Sultan of Sulu has declared a ceasefire, although unilaterally while the United Nations has also called for peace talks instead of continued violence, the arduous task begins in deconstructing the Sultan’s frame of mind and why he went bonkers, as many would like to suggest, such as De Quiros for example. Surely the Sultan knew that his supposed invasion of Sabah will not succeed, at least in the strict military sense. But why would he sacrifice the lives of his few good men? This is what De Quiros cannot fathom, thus he dismissed the military incursion as a farcical and insane adventure. De Quiros even suggested that the Sultan’s unwise decision to dispatch his army would have the lingering effect of jeopardizing the government’s initiative to forge peace with our Muslim brothers in the South. Perhaps, even rob President Benigno Aquino III of the glitter and international admiration of a possible Nobel Peace Prize, according to De Quiros.

 

The Sultan’s military misadventure obviously has a political purpose, if not at least the political consequence of disrupting the government’s implementation of the last piece of the peace plan with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

 

Political, in two ways. One, the revival of a moribund claim to an ancestral land that had been relegated to the backburner by every Filipino president after Diosdado Macapagal, the only president who supported the Philippines’ claim over Sabah. There is both historical argument and documentary evidence that support this claim, except that the government has not pursued it either through negotiations with Malaysia or the formal filing of a claim with the international court. Consider too that the Malaysian government continues to make lease payments to the Sultan of Sulu, which my old friend and university classmate, Al Tillah, governor of Tawi-tawi, has confirmed. Although the amount paid to the Sultan every year is very minimal by today’s standards, what this means as a contractual obligation says a lot.

Map showing Sabah and the Philippines. The Sultan of Sulu's army landed in
Lahad Datu, an hour away by boat from the Sulu Archipelago.

President Aquino was caught flatfooted by the Sultan’s decision to resuscitate his family’s claim over Sabah, overreacting and even condemning the Sultan for sending his army to launch an alleged invasion. But anybody in the Sultan’s shoes would understandably be enraged with the government’s inaction, which implied the acceptance of the forgone conclusion that the Sabah claim is all dead and moot. If the Sultan was driven to commit lunacy, he could be forgiven because the present government is also largely at fault for doing nothing: for abandoning the Sabah claim which arguably could have been legitimate, until reversed by an international court, and for leaving the Sultan’s people in harm’s way and feeding them to the wolves instead of seeking a diplomatic solution. What else is new anyway with a president known for doing nothing?

 

Take a simple hostage-taking as a comparable scenario. What would the police or government do as its first response? Send in a negotiator to calm down the situation. Instead, President Aquino berated the Sultan like a child and let the Sultan’s army be annihilated by Malaysia’s military. President Aquino forgot that he was also endangering the lives of about 800,000 Filipinos in Sabah—Muslim Filipinos all of whom have escaped the on and off war between the Philippine army and Muslim secessionists which he now wanted to end through peaceful negotiations with the MILF. Forget about the Sultan’s claim over Sabah in the meantime. There is a peaceful mechanism to resolve this issue. But the situation in Sabah has deteriorated into a humanitarian crisis, a foolish war (as De Quiros is wont to call) between a heavily armed Malaysian army against a ragtag group of foot soldiers from Sulu. President Aquino should have been advised by sober minds on how to defuse the conflict.

 

The second political purpose or consequence of the Sultan’s foray in Sabah has to do with the present government’s cavalier attitude in forging a lasting solution to the Mindanao crisis. To the government, the only side that matters on the table is the MILF and the rest of the world is just a bunch of kibitzers. President Aquino’s peace panel ignored the Sultan and his historical grievance against Malaysia, the much-weakened but still alive Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the splinter group of rebel Muslims under the banner of Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), or even members of Congress and other civil society organizations who may have a stake in the peace process. There was no transparency in the government’s initiative to agree with one Muslim faction to the exclusion of others for a new Bangsamoro nation, a distinct geographical area carved out of the country’s territory and subsumed in a relationship of sovereignty association with the central government. And why has the government-friendly MILF been so quiet when their brother Muslims were being slaughtered in Sabah?

 

This latest Sabah episode only reveals the delicate cracks in the peace process that the present Philippine government has tried to sell to Muslim Filipinos in the South. By snubbing some Muslim groups which also have a huge stake in the peace negotiations, the Philippine government is resorting to the same deceptive schemes previously imposed by the Spanish, the American and British colonial powers on the Sultan of Sulu and his heirs to trick them in betraying their ancestral domain.

 

Since time immemorial, no foreign government, including our own Philippine government, has been fully honest in its dealing with the Sultan of Sulu, or for that matter with the whole Muslim population in the South. Is it any wonder then why the Muslims of Mindanao have always pined for their own free Bangsamoro, a nation separate and apart from the central government in Manila?

Farewell to arms

There is a popular expression in Muslim Mindanao that a Moro would rather sleep with his rifle than with his wife. You would think that’s a joke. But the bigger joke is what the recently signed Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro would try to accomplish, which according to some observers, including the government panel, is to ultimately disarm the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

 

Disarming the MILF or decommissioning its forces is envisaged in the Framework Agreement. This could happen at the tail end of the peace process or sometime during the normalization process, a fact that is totally unknown to the negotiating parties. Under the Framework agreement, the decommissioning of its forces will be undertaken by the MILF on a graduated program. Thereafter, all law enforcement functions will be transferred from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to the Bangsamoro police force.

Renegade Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) vow to continue their
armed uprising despite the peace agreement between the government and the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).Click link to to view "Philippine rebels
vow to fight" and Al Jazeera interview with BIFF leader Ameril Umbrakato,
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDJuecCL34&feature=related

In other words, there is nothing in the Framework Agreement that requires the Bangsamoro forces to surrender their arms to the government. What the Framework Agreement hopes to accomplish is to put the military forces and arsenal of the Bangsamoro army beyond its present use, i.e., all militia and firearms will be used for peacekeeping or policing purposes and not for the furtherance of military or combat objectives. This means the MILF will be recognized both as a police force and as a regular army in the Philippines.

 

In any state of belligerence, the disarming of the other side, normally the losing side of the conflict is never an easy task. Total disarmament may not be achieved since there would always be those who could hold on to their weapons and continue their resistance even as small brigands. Carl von Clausewitz in his seminal book, On War, wrote that many treaties have been concluded before one of the antagonists could be called powerless, or the balance of power has been seriously altered. In this case, it is always the victors who determine the conditions for surrender and the laying down of weapons.

 

But how much more difficult is it to achieve disarming an army when neither side of the conflict can claim victory? The Framework Agreement is being acclaimed as a road to peace, not an agreement to declare the final cessation of hostilities. We’re still a long way from there.

  

One of the many obstacles to the achievement of peace in Mindanao, not to mention the obvious legal hurdles to the formation of a Bangsamoro juridical entity, is the question of decommissioning the Bangsamoro army. Since the MILF has an equal right to determine the final terms and conditions of peace, it may insist on its army and followers to hold on to their weapons. The MILF, especially its rank and file soldiers, understands that giving up their weapons could be synonymous to giving up their struggle for self-determination.

 

The history of peace negotiations with the Philippine government is replete with instances of betrayal. Luis Taruc of the Hukbalahap and his fellow rebels, who decided to leave their armed struggle to join the Democratic Alliance in Congress during the third republic under Manuel Roxas, found their quest for parliamentary changes crushed when they were not allowed to take their elected seats. Exactly the same would be repeated during the Quirino administration when the Huks surrendered their arms in exchange for amnesty. The government accused the Huks of not presenting all their arms while the latter accused the government of bad faith.

 

Already, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), a breakaway group from the MILF, had announced that they would not recognize the peace accord between the MILF and the government. To them, the peace agreement is surrender and they vowed not to waver from their armed struggle towards a separate Muslim homeland. This declaration of continuing resistance is a realistic roadblock to disbanding the MILF army.

 

Accept it or not, most MILF jihadists are hoping peace doesn’t come.

 

An MILF jihadist posted on the Internet the concerns of a Moro fighter named Abdullah. A young man in his early 20s, Abdullah is a veteran of many jungle battles and he says he is ready to die for the cause of a separate Bangsamoro nation while he clutches a rusty M-60 machine gun.

 

Abdullah says, “I sleep with my machine gun and never go anywhere without it. I cannot part with my weapon.” He said he is not prepared to lay down his weapon even if a final peace deal is signed. “It’s not in my blood to be a farmer,” he said.

 

The veteran Filipino journalist, Emil Jurado, wrote that “many Muslims believe that power emanates from the barrel of a gun. From childhood, they are taught how to handle a gun—it protects them from rival clans. Clan wars in Muslim Mindanao are a way of life.”

 

Perhaps, that’s the primary reason why the Americans tried to neutralize the Muslims in Mindanao after the Spaniards failed to subjugate them. The Americans started their pacification of Mindanao by giving concessions to the Sultan of Jolo, such as allowing the Sultan to collect customs duties in places not occupied by the Americans, paying the Sultan and his leading datus monthly salaries, and not interfering with religious matters. Nonetheless, the Muslims in Mindanao have never been colonized by the Spaniards, the Americans and the Japanese.

 

What does the present Aquino government promise the MILF leaders that this time, the Framework Agreement will work? Does President Aquino think that it is enough to allow the MILF insurgents to form a political party and run in democratic elections so they can have the chance at leading the proposed autonomous region?

 

President Aquino is said to be seriously considering the idea of getting the Muslim rebels to surrender their guns in exchange for cash. Aquino believes this will extend livelihood benefits to the MILF. MILF members who voluntarily disarm themselves by turning their firearms will be included in the government list of beneficiaries of a livelihood assistance program.

 

President Aquino, however, refuses to call his proposal as buying of MILF firearms. He insists that it is a process of providing benefits to the rebels who will voluntarily surrender their weapons. But no matter how one looks at the President’s proposal, it is still exchanging cash for guns. The only problem with this idea is it has been tried in the past and it did not work.

 

It reminds me of Toronto’s Pixel for Pistols, when the city police tried to attract those who have handguns to turn them in for a Nikon camera. Or Saudi Arabia’s deradicalization program for jihadists that includes material inducements like giving thousands of dollars to pamper its graduates, or paying for weddings, furniture or a new Toyota. One thing they have in common: both were failures.

 

The right to bear arms by Muslims could be likened to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. When the Philippines was formulating its Constitution in 1935 for the Commonwealth government which was to be a transition government before independence, the United States made sure that the right to bear arms would not be included in the bill of rights that was copied from the U.S. Constitution. The fear of the U.S. was that giving the same right to bear arms to Filipinos would enable them to form their militias that could rebel and overrun the U.S. colonial government.

 

Although the Muslims in Mindanao were never pacified and conquered by the Americans and the ensuing independent Philippine government, their relationship with weapons has long been an integral part of their history and culture. Much deeper than their right to bear arms is their fundamental right to be free in running their own government, free from colonizers or from the central government in Manila.

 

Disarming the MILF or the Muslim in general might take more than a Framework Agreement for peace. The Framework Agreement stipulates that “It is through normalization that communities can return to conditions where they can achieve their desired quality of life, which includes the pursuit of sustainable livelihoods and political participation within a peaceful deliberative society.” If this particular paragraph of the Framework Agreement means that all Muslims must give up their arms in order to achieve normalization, no Muslim in his or her right mind would give up now what they have been fighting for decades or even for more than a century.

 

If the national government is willing to cede local autonomy to a Bangsamoro entity, then it should also be prepared to accept the right of this new entity to establish its own army. Demanding that Muslims surrender their weapons as a precondition for peace seems a nonnegotiable issue. The matter of control of the jurisdiction of the Bangsamoro army lies on a strict delineation of lines which should not be crossed. Otherwise, the truce will be broken and both sides will be back to square one.