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By Johnna Villaviray, Senior Reporter
FOR several weeks early this year, the forests
of Mount Banahaw in Sariaya, Quezon, provided refuge not only to
the usual communist guerrillas but to some unlikely personalities:
about 100 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The jungle rendezvous, which police intelligence
officials said they confirmed from rebel contacts, brought together
the country’s largest insurgent groups in an alliance that could
presage more trouble to a country already struggling with serious
law and order problems.
“They came in groups, through various routes,
at different times,” an intelligence officer said, describing
how the Muslim separatists had traveled from their bases in
Mindanao to trade fighting skills with their communist counterparts.
Although both rebel groups emphasize that the
alliance is limited to tactical or field combat cooperation, the
partnership presents serious implications.
The MILF has superior knowledge of jungle
warfare but would learn from the communist New People’s Army’s (NPA)
vast experience in urban combat. They could trade contacts and
networks and share jungle strongholds to confuse and evade
government troops perpetually chasing them across Mindanao.
The two groups could combine expertise in
manufacturing bombs and enhance ways of delivering them to targets.
Already thinly spread over several fronts,
government troops could
face bigger deployment problems if the NPA and
the MILF coordinate their attacks, with the communists launching
diversionary strikes whenever the Muslims are under siege.
“Whenever they attack us in Mindanao, it
leaves the forces in Luzon and the Visayas vulnerable,” MILF vice
chairman for military affairs, Al Haj Murad, told The Manila Times
in a telephone interview. Murad cited an unwritten understanding
with the NPA for diversions and sympathy attacks when the military
steps up operations against the MILF.
The training in Sariaya was scheduled to run for
two months, but the Muslim guerrillas were ordered back to Mindanao
when thousands of government troops attacked their camp in the
marshy Buliok complex last February 11, triggering fighting that
continues today.
Communist rebel spokesman Gregorio “Ka
Roger” Rosal issued a series of statements in support of the MILF
and threatened to wage sympathy strikes to ease the pressure
on their Muslim allies.
While some military officials downplay the risks
of the alliance, an assessment by police Senior Supt. Rodolfo
Mendoza, a veteran intelligence officer who is an expert on both the
MILF and NPA, is daunting.
“The alliance between the Communist Party of
the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front and
the MILF is already considered as a formal, strategic and political
alliance,” Mendoza said in the assessment he submitted to Malacañang.
“Separately, each of these organizations is
considered a potent threat to the national security of the
country. If considered collectively, they will provide a colossal
force to be reckoned with,” Mendoza said.
Armed Forces Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen.
Rodolfo Garcia disagreed. The alliance, Garcia said, is limited and
does not pose a serious threat to ongoing offensives.
“We’re used to that. The alliance is
established, but it’s not widespread and is limited to mid-level
commanders,” he said.
As early as 1973, the NDF, the communist
umbrella organization, began to establish links with Muslim
separatists, who were then led by Nur Misuari’s MILF.
The NDF’s Mindanao Commission or Kommid was
assigned to set up connections. The link was firmed up with the
signing of a mutual cooperation agreement between the communists and
Muslim insurgents in 1999.
The signatories to the agreement, a copy of
which was obtained by The Times, were Ili Maglaya and Jorge Madlos
for the NDF and Mohammad Yusof and Salman Hassan for the MILF.
“This is for the interest of the Filipinos and
the Muslims and the two movement fronts that we concentrate our whip
against the common enemy and to gain advantage in favor of the
common struggle,” the agreement stated.
It drew the parameters of cooperation:
“exchange of information, foresight and suggestions to achieve the
common ideals in the issue of joint and/or independent actions.”
Aside from urban warfare, the NPA also trains
MILF fighters in
intelligence gathering, according to the Mendoza
report. The MILF, in return, provides weapons and commando training
and instructions on the manufacture of arms and ammunition,
particularly of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).
Aside from Sariaya, intelligence sources said,
joint trainings were held last year in the provinces of Nueva Ecija,
Zambales and Bulacan, the strongholds of the NPA.
Such joint trainings have been monitored as
early as 1987. There was unconfirmed information that at one point,
the NPA allowed MILF guerrillas to be trained by its metropolitan
Manila urban hit squad, the Alex Boncayao Brigade, in assassination
missions as part of “exposure trips” in the capital.
In Mindanao, the alliance has agreed on the
joint defense of MILF and NPA camps lying close to each other, Murad
said.
The NPA is traditionally strong in the provinces
of Compostela Valley, North Cotabato, Agusan del Norte, Surigao,
Zamboanga del Norte, military officials said.
On several occasions, the MILF loaned B-40s and
RPG-7s to the NPA in South Cotabato, Davao del Norte and Davao
Oriental. There have also been reports of joint trainings in Davao
Oriental and Davao del Norte, Mendoza said.
The report said the training was organized
primarily by the CPP-NDF’s Kommid led by Antonio Cabantan alias
Pasyo or Buktot (secretary); Jaime Lanoy alias Pagod (deputy
secretary and chief of military hardware); and executive
committee members Menandro Villanueva alias Nelson; Teddy Emano
alias Pedro; Madlos; Aurora Bisonia alias Angelina, Aurora Cayon,
Leway or Wewa; and Ludovico Gonzales alias Argo or Bren.
After the MILF lost more than 46 camps in
Mindanao following a major offensive ordered by former President
Joseph Estrada in 2000, the Muslim guerrillas relied on their
alliance with the communists in shifting from semi-conventional
positional warfare to guerrilla tactics.
The smallest MILF units have at least 50
fighters, allowing them maximum mobility.
“Our forces are everywhere, we don’t stay
put in one place,” MILF
spokesman Eid Kabalu said, explaining how his
comrades manage to slither past aerial and artillery bombardment for
a week now.
As of last December, the military placed the
MILF strength at about 12,260 fighters concentrated mainly in
Central and Western Mindanao.
“The alliance with the NPA is tactical, we put
up a common defense strategy, stage counter-attacks, share
experiences,” Murad said.
Garcia predicts the alliance would self-destruct
because of irreconcilable differences between the two groups–the
MILF is basically waging a religious war while the NPA disparages
religion as “an opium” that dulls people into subordination.
He said it would be difficult for the insurgents
to progress past their field alliance. Additionally, the communists
regard the Muslims as a minority.
The Muslims’ main objective is to secede from
an archipelago which the communists dream of turning into a Marxist
nation. Busy with war, the two groups have not publicly
touched on such contrasts.
“The most is they accommodate troops passing
through territory one group has control over, but that’s it,”
Garcia said.
The differences could be part of the reason why
some military and police officials belittle the threat posed by the
alliance.
Mendoza believed the farthest the two groups
could go at this time is political cooperation, which could explain
the support by leftwing activists to Muslim issues during street
protests.
While concerns over the potentials of the
cooperation between the NPA and the MILF are downplayed by the
police and military, there have been reports that the alliance has
moved to combat cooperation.
An October, 2002 report received by the
PNP-Intelligence Group’s Mindanao office indicated that a
joint force of MILF and NPA rebels was responsible for the
raid on the Maco PNP station in Compostela Valley a month earlier.
The raiders supposedly divided the firearms
confiscated from the attack.
A 2001 report, meanwhile, indicated that an
NPA-MILF team attacked two cargo vessels docked at the Tadeco Wharf
in San Pedro, Davao del Norte.
“Allegedly, these atrocities serve as a decoy
and [are] also designed to divert the attention of the AFP and PNP
forces from the trouble spots in Mindanao,” Medoza’s study
said.
The alliance has so far survived despite the
perceived differences between the two groups. The MILF, led by the
reclusive Hashim Salamat, has long split up with Nur Misuari’s
MNLF. The communist party, meanwhile, was rocked by internal
quarrels in the early 1990s over how to carry out the protracted
armed struggle.
Today, different factions in the communist
movement are actively courting the Muslim guerrilla leadership.
Those supporting Jose Maria Sison controls the
triboundary area of Lanao del Sur, Lanao de Norte and Maguindanao
with the assistance of MILF vice chairman for internal affairs Aleem
Abdulaziz Mimbantas. The “communist rejectionists” lord it
over North Cotabato, parts of Sultan Kudarat, the Zamboanga
peninsula, the Caraga region, Sarangani and Davao del Sur through
Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs.
The link has provided the MILF with an
alternative source of psychological support despite the stepped-up
military and police operations and the growing solidarity among
governments against terrorism, including the MILF’s long-time
backers in the Middle East, as a result of the Sept. 11 attack on
the United States.
“We give and get all assistance possible,”
Kabalu said.
“The statement of Madlos that the NPA will
stage sympathetic attacks is all propaganda,” Garcia insisted,
adding that resources and attention are being directed at
determining the location of the various MILF commands in the
Mindanao to make the most recent campaign against the Muslim rebels
effective.
The military is claiming that at least 13 MILF
fighters have been killed since the military offensive began last
week. Garcia said the operations had been effective due to accurate
intelligence reports on the positions of the MILF.
Murad appeared as dismissive of the victories
claimed by the Armed
Forces, saying more MILF rebels get killed in
chance encounters than in the bombardment.
“We can take the bombardment, we have bunkers
to hide in,” Murad said.
He acknowledged the limitations of the alliance
but stressed its potential.
“It’s always possible to go beyond classroom
training, but we haven’t reached that point yet,” he said.
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