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By Inday Espina-Varona and Johnna Villaviray
First of 3 parts
The scene still fans passions across Mindanao: A
fatigue-clad President Estrada raising the Philippine flag in Camp
Abubakar, headquarters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),
before leading soldiers in a feast of lechon (roasted pig) and San
Miguel beer.
The capture of Camp Abubakar in July 2000 capped
the Armed Forces offensive that started in March of the same year.
Better known as Estrada’s “all-out war” against “Muslim
terrorists,” it coincided with protracted negotiations for the
release of the Abu Sayyaf’s Sipadan hostages.
With the Abu Sayyaf rebels hogging broadcast air
space with their antics in Jolo, Estrada found it easy to drum up
support for his all-out war, with the public lumping all Muslim
armed groups into one “terrorist” mold. The call was for blood
— Muslim blood — and only a few dared ask the question, “What
happens after Abubakar?”
Hawks, doves
Two years after, Camp Abubakar and 47 other MILF
camps continue to hog the limelight, as hawks and doves in President
Macapagal-Arroyo’s government continue to debate on provisions of
a possible peace settlement with the country’s largest
secessionist group.
The debates rage on several fronts but largely
focus of two key issues: Is the MILF a terrorist organization? And
should the government even allow guerrillas and their supporters
back into camps that were captured at great cost of lives and to the
tune of millions of pesos?
Both sides have their share of military and
civilian advocates. The “doves” are represented by Presidential
Adviser on the Peace Process Eduardo Ermita and Presidential Adviser
on Special Concerns Norberto Gonzales — whose services include
anything from getting visas for government officials to cooling
ruffled feathers in Indonesia and Malaysia. The “hawks” most
famous members are Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, government peace
negotiator Jesus Dureza, and new Armed Forces chief of staff, Gen.
Roy Cimatu.
May agreement
Lawmakers have joined the fray, summoning
Gonzales to explain his role in the May interim peace agreement
that, among other things, would allow previous inhabitants of 48
MILF camps to “return home,” with government assistance for
rebuilding wrecked homes. The pact would also allow MILF access to
private and public development and rehabilitation funds across a
wide swathe of Mindanao.
Reyes has told congressional investigators that
the agreement surprised officials of the AFP and the defense
department. He and Cimatu have since towed Malacañang’s line —
that only civilians would be allowed back into the camps, and that
military checkpoints would ensure guerrillas do not set up base
again.
The campaign that led to Camp Abubakar’s
capture started at the turn of the millennium, when the MILF placed
roadblocks along the Talayan-Shariff Aguak National Highway and
occupied the Talayan Municipal Hall. By March 1, 2000, the AFP
started redeploying units in Mindanao. A confidential Operations
Report by the 4th Infantry Division on the fall of Camp Abubakar
acknowledges the move anticipated “the possible unfavorable
outcome of the GRP-MILF negotiations” that had a June 30, 2000
deadline.
The conflict went to high gear with the March 15
encounter between government forces and the MILF in Inudaran,
Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte. The “routine combat patrol” led to
the killing of two rebels. Swiftly, the MILF struck back with a
simultaneous attack on nine army detachments. Seven hundred men from
MILF’s 303rd Brigade, under Commander Bravo, hit army units in
Linamon, Bacolod, Kauswagan and Maigo, all in Lanao del Norte.
Battles then spread across central and northern
Mindanao, and one after another, the MILF’s 48 camps fell beneath
land and air onslaught that involved whole divisions.
Islamic community
Most Filipinos’ image of Camp Abubakar hews to
that of traditional military camps: a fortress, a wired encampment,
perhaps a few hundred hectares or even a thousand hectares in size,
protected on several sides by ravines and forests.
Camp Abubakar, however, covers 100 sq.
kilometers, and sprawls across the towns of Matanog, Barira,
Buldon and Parang in Maguindanao, and Kapatagan, Balabagan and Butig,
in Lanao del Sur. The Maguinanao-Lanao del Sur boundary lies to its
north. South of Abubakar is Mt. Bitu; to the east, Buldon; and to
the west, Matanog.
However, even the AFP acknowledges that Abubakar
“is more than a military camp.”
That is an understatement. Abubakar’s mystique
to Filipino Muslims lies in the Islamic war of life its residents
— all MILF members and supporters — practiced.
The operations report on the retaking of
Abubakar gives a clear picture of what amounted to the prized plum
among MILF pickings during the brief, turbulent Estrada
administration. The report, a copy of which was obtained by The
Manila Times, was written by Lt. Cdr. Marcelino Llorca of the
Philippine Navy, Maj. Agane C. Adriatico, Maj. Pedrito Alban, Capt.
Taharudin Ampatuan, Maj. Nilo Perfecto, Maj. Florante Malijan, and
Maj. Marcelino Tacadena.
Camp Abubakar rambles across mountain ranges and
boasts of fertile islands, thick forests, and rivers and gorges. The
forests provide a natural escape route, and caves and modified
tunnels lead from the main base to the Ambal river, which also
serves as an obstacle to an advancing enemy.
“The existence of agricultural lands on the
southeast could sustain the MILF fighters for a limited period,”
the report points out. “Camp Abubakar is self-sufficient with the
existence of small businesses, public markets and agricultural
lots.”
More than anything else, Camp Abubakar was a
thriving Muslim community, where the MILF ran a system of government
based on the Shariah law, where it could experiment on what Capt.
Ampatuan describes as “a promise of the Islamic Way of Life.”
Local government officials in the area were
“for show,” and were in every way subservient to the
revolutionary “state.”
Formidable enemy
The MILF, in the first place, was no ragtag
army. As the report notes, “Previous to the hostilities in Central
Mindanao, the National Guard and GHQ Divisions had a combined
strength of 1,743 men armed with 1,891 firearms. However, the MILF
reportedly maintained a standby force of 3,000 in anticipation of
government attacks to Camp Abubakar.”
The MILF wasn’t short of weapons. It had
RPG-20s, B40 anti-tank guns, 60mm machine guns, 81mms, howitzers,
and recoilless rifles. It even had, the military admits, “four
surface-to-air missiles.”
Military officers who protest the camp
provisions of the May accord have been dismissed as blood-thirsty,
gung-ho warriors. The criticism may be unfair, glossing over the
toll the four-month campaign exacted on the AFP.
The casualty count, according to the 4th ID
report, was 53 killed and 220 wounded. The AFP had to unleash every
weapon and equipment at its disposal on the rebels. But in the end,
they were able to finally “liberate” Narciso Ramos Highway and
other strategic arteries, where guerrillas had put up checkpoints,
causing jitters across Mindanao’s business and agriculture
communities.
Where the boys are
But the debate on the MILF camps has ignored
some basic issue.
Has the MILF really lost control of its camps?
And, if Estrada’s all-out war ended in the
rout of Abubakar and other camps, whatever happened to the MILF’s
15,690 (by AFP estimates) guerrillas, not to mention their firearms?
Gonzales, after an interview yesterday,
mentioned a coming meeting with MILF leaders in Camp Bushra, the
former training base that was overran on May 29, 2000. How, could
MILF peace negotiator and Lanao chief, and reported central
committee member, Aleem Mimbantas be in Bushra if it’s under AFP
control?
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu explains that
victorious troops left the MILF camps soon after they raised the
Philippine flag. “And besides, except from Camp Abubakar, the AFP
only entered the mouths of the camp. They never got the nerve
centers.”
That is not what the authors of the 4th Infantry
Division’s after-campaign report claim. Bushra, they note, fell
the easiest among the MILF camps, mainly due to heavy artillery
bombardment and close air support.
Several attempts to call Mimbantas in recent
weeks, however, have elicited the answer: “He is in Camp Bushra.”
And a year after the capture of Camp Abubakar on July 9, 2000 The
Times attended a press conference of MILF military chief Al
Hadj Murad Ibrahim, where he pointed the spot where troops raised
the flag.
‘Real estate’
“The only reason they wanted the camps was to
take away the element of belligerency in the peace talks,” Kabalu
notes.
“They just wanted real estate,” says
Gonzales. “The total war policy was a failure because the military
only managed to neutralize five percent of the MILF.”
Kabalu claims the MILF continues to maintain six
divisions or around 35,000 men, two-thirds of these armed.
“Training is ongoing, which is a basic
requirement in any military,” the MILF spokesman boasts. “There
is nothing that prohibits us from undertaking training of our
guerrillas.”
Kabalu denies an earlier report, quoting Western
Mindanao chairman Ustadz Shariff Jullabi, on the training of 50,000
new recruits. There are no recruits, he says, “because we don’t
need additional forces.”
In an earlier interview, Murad announced the
MILF has already replenished its arsenal, which includes missiles
that can take out low-flying aircraft.
Murad said the latest arms acquisitions were
made over the last year, even as MILF representatives negotiated
peace with the Arroyo administration.
He said that as long as a peace agreement has
not been signed, the MILF has the right to stockpile arms in case
negotiations collapse.
Citing recent Armed Forces attacks against MILF
positions, Murad said the decision to replenish its arsenal was a
“wise move.”
Among the new arms are surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)
capable of downing helicopters and low-flying planes, he said.
Aside from SAMs, the MILF also has anti-tank
weapons and new artillery supplies, Murad said.
‘Bitter pill’
Recently replaced AFP spokesman, Col. Jose
Mabanta has refuted the MILF’s claim. Although he acknowledges the
rebels may still occupy the fringes of their old camps, they have
had to continuously move around, preventing them from gaining
military force.
This situation, Mabanta said, places the
military at a great advantage.
Gonzales disagrees. The camps, he insists,
allowed “a balance of terror” in Mindanao.
Without these bases, monitoring the MILF,
especially its younger, more radical leaders, has become harder.
But Estrada’s biggest crime, he says, was to
foist a “dirty trick” on Filipinos, by convincing many that the
MILF was no better than the Abu Sayyaf.
“The greatest, most damaging effect of the
all-out war was the return of the bias against Muslims, the
encouragement of a belief that Mindanao would be best solved by
‘finishing off the Muslims’,” Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo’s
special adviser notes.
He defends the May agreement, saying it is an
improvement over the 1996 peace settlement with the Moro National
Liberation Front (MNLF). While the MNLF peace agreement allowed Nur
Misuari’s men to keep their arms and bases, Gonzales says the
government will insist that any agreement with the MILF involves the
laying down of arms.
But that, he admits, is a long way off. Gonzales
says there is little possibility of any final settlement being
signed before 2004.
In the meantime, bitterness over Camp Abubakar
simmers among Mindanao’s Muslims, already caught in the general
Southeast Asian Islamic revival that began in the 1990s.
The authors of the 4th ID report agree. They
stress the point in four sentences into the report.
Military action against the MILF headquarters,
they point, “may mark the beginning of a long, painful Islamic
fanaticism and belief in Jihad.”
Second of three parts
| Conclusion
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