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MAY 19, 2000 VOL. 27 NO. 19 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK
Estrada tries to play tough with Muslim rebels in the south. But is it working? By PENNY CRISP and ANTONIO LOPEZ Manila Briefly last week in the confines of his Manila residence, Philippine President Joseph Ejercito Estrada considered canceling his all-important May 16-21 visit to China. Two hostage crises in the south were in full swing and the European Union's security and foreign-policy chief was due in Manila the next day for a firsthand appraisal of efforts to free foreign abductees. The Philippine army was reporting mounting casualties as it faced down one set of kidnappers on the island of Basilan and a surge of bloody combat on nearby Mindanao. As the localized Muslim conflicts threatened to infect the entire region, police units were put on nationwide alert and lawmakers prepared to pump extra funds to the military. Authorities said at least 150,000 civilians fleeing the fighting needed emergency food and shelter. The stock exchange dived to a 10-month low. Could China be so important? Estrada was advised that it was. Meetings with Beijing's top leaders had been fixed. Six agreements on regional stability, agriculture and investments were to be signed, and a party of 140 Philippine businesspeople was coming along. The president turned to his personal emissary in the foreign hostage tangle, adviser Robert Aventajado. Go to Jolo, Estrada said. Get medicine to the 21 abductees snatched from the Malaysian island of Sipadan on April 23. Try to arrange the release of one of them, 57-year-old German teacher Renate Wallert, said to be seriously ill. The president's other instructions already had been delivered during a May 7 visit to the south. To the Mindanao-based Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) - which, with a government extermination vow over its head, formally bowed out of three-year-old peace talks on April 30 - Estrada was unswerving: "I offer peace to those who want peace, but I promise war to those who want war." To the Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf - a splinter faction holding the two groups of hostages - he was equally blunt: "This is a direct challenge to our government. If they persist in engaging in terrorist acts, we will give them the full might of our armed forces." So there it was. The war would continue until those two Muslim organizations were crushed. Fighters from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the "mainstream" Muslim insurgent group that signed a historic peace deal in 1996 and now administers the four-province Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), were sent in to help the army in Jolo. Lt.-Gen. Angelo Reyes, chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, made the military's position clear. "We count them as one," he said. "The MNLF is the faction that talked peace with the government, the MILF is the faction that wants to establish a separate Islamic state but wants to talk to the government, while the Abu Sayyaf is the faction that wants to establish a separate Islamic state through terror." The government started taking a hard line early this year, replacing its chief negotiator with someone considered more forceful. At the same time, Estrada laid down that MILF peace talks had to be signed and sealed by June 30. And soon the dominoes started falling. So where does the situation stand now? On Jolo, local police reported May 8 that the tourist hostages - nine Malaysians; three Germans; two nationals each from Finland, France, the Philippines and South Africa; and a Lebanese woman - had been driven through a 5,000-strong military cordon to a new jungle hideout about 20 km away. The government blamed the MNLF division, which it said had been manning the lines, but how the move was executed remains unclear. With a probable ransom in the offing, local officials said Abu Sayyaf's ad hoc numbers were increasing steadily. Although described by Manila as a youth wing and dirty-tricks brigade for the MILF, local Sulu islanders say this faction of Abu Sayyaf comprises mere bandits. Presidential adviser Aventajado said the government had a "general idea where the hostages are," but that the military units ringing the area had been requested "to stay put at the moment" so as to avoid skirmishes. According to ARMM governor Nur Misuari, sacked by Estrada as chief negotiator on May 8: "Everything is in shambles." Misuari's replacement is a former Libyan ambassador to the Philippines, Rajab Azzarouk, who helped convince Misuari and the MNLF to abandon their 24-year separatist uprising. Azzarouk's new partner is Jolo-based Muslim cleric Ghazali Ibrahim, who had to cancel a planned meeting with the Abu Sayyaf last week because of clashes between the military, police and rebels. The government has a jet on standby in Jolo to fly out the ailing German hostage if her release can be secured, a move also designed to placate E.U. emissary Javier Solana, who came to urge Manila to seek a peaceful resolution. After meeting Estrada for 45 minutes on May 9, Solana pronounced himself satisfied with the government's handling of the crisis. But an Abu Sayyaf spokesman told local radio the same day that the kidnappers would release no one. On Basilan, all but two female teachers and seven children of the original March 20 abductees are accounted for - but still being held by Abu Sayyaf's main arm. As well as the two teachers beheaded before the army special forces arrived, four were killed and 15 freed on April 29 as Abu Sayyaf escaped deeper into the jungle with the remaining hostages. The government reported that a Catholic priest had been tortured before being shot and that the breast of a woman teacher had been slashed. Local militiamen reported that Abu Sayyaf had removed the genitals of one of their fighters felled in an ambush and beheaded several others. A provincial government spokesman announced that Abu Sayyaf demanded a ransom for the teachers, who had been separated from the children. Relatives of militiamen asked the provincial governor for arms. "This is too much," said one father. "We can't just sit and wait for this Satan [Abu Sayyaf] to strike anew. You have to help us." Meanwhile in Mindanao proper, the MILF called a 48-hour ceasefire on May 5, which was duly ignored. Philippine Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado later said that government troops had encountered stiff resistance in a bid to clear a 5-km stretch of the Narciso Ramos Highway, which snakes from Cotabato City to the northern coast and defines a major perimeter of Camp Abubakar, the MILF stronghold. He said the MILF had dug a 10-km underground tunnel system connecting the camp to various towns, which showed that the group had long prepared for a major defense of Abubakar. Lost on the highway or in the tunnels, but probably dead, were 21 government soldiers. The highway remained unsecured. "If we don't move now, it'll get worse," Mercado said. In the interim, the communist New People's Army sparked up, losing eight fighters in a May 9 battle with government forces in Paete on the main island of Luzon. While Christian clergy and those displaced by the fighting plead for peace, both Estrada and the Philippines are bearing the brunt. Columnist Argee Guevarra wrote in the daily newspaper Business World that, militarily, the Estrada administration had already "crossed the Rubicon." Ordering a cessation at this juncture, he said, "will completely expose the structural weaknesses of the national leadership, possibly prompt the military to stage a coup, and lay down the opportunity for the government's violent overthrow. The problem is, the war in Mindanao is a war of quick decisions which [Estrada] may be incapable of making." Said Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo: "In the conflict with Muslim groups in Mindanao, military operations are not the solution." Another critic, Marie Hilao Enriquez, head of human-rights group Karapatan, likened the war to a "genocide of the Moro people." Unofficial estimates of the cost to Manila of daily military operations in the south range from $500,000 to $700,000. Tourism Secretary Gemma Cruz Araneta says the crisis has destroyed any hopes of a 10%-15% projected growth in tourism this year. Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara frets about a significant drop in total rice and corn output since Mindanao is the country's food basket; the government is now planning extra rice imports. Manila has also suspended a $700-million Eurobond float as the Asian Development Bank predicts Philippine GDP growth will be the lowest of all Asian countries. Estrada's tough approach is supported by large segments of the populace, which is tired of years of lingering insurgency. But the conflict is the biggest crisis Manila has faced in recent years - not to mention the costliest, in both human and material terms. Whatever the final outcome over the hostages and the southern war, it is now clearly a lose-lose situation. Write to Asiaweek at mail@web.asiaweek.com
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