In the Philippines' war on terrorism the spotlight has been cast upon communist rebels and Islamic jihadis but violence, especially in Mindanao, is also due to clan wars and rido.
Those settlements are within the past year. In 2009 a camera crew filmed PNP Col. Julasirim Kasim attempting to enforce a peace agreement between clans based in Sulu.
Sadly it was only a little over a week after this video was posted that he died while engaging Abu Sayyaf.
After the collapse of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain the CHD helped create the International Contact Group. This group has the following objectives:
What the endgame and real interests of these NGOs are I do not know nor will I attempt to guess. One thing is certain: clan wars are a major source of violence in Mindanao and they are not going to be stopping anytime soon despite the interference of international peace groups. Clan wars are a way of life in Mindanao.
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| https://www.kalinawnews.com/government-troops-clash-with-the-armed-lawless-group-in-north-cotabato/ |
Combined troops of 34th Infantry Battalion and Midsayap MPS encountered with the armed lawless group (ALG) in Barangay Kapinpilan, Midsayap, North Cotabato on Tuesday afternoon, April 30, 2019.
The security forces responded to the reported gunfires believed to be a rido between the ALG under Mama Macalimbol and Dule Dulua, member of 105th Base Command.
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1068770 |
Intermittent clashes between two warring clans in Midsayap, North Cotabato, has forced the evacuation of some 417 families from two villages.
Maj. Arvin John Encinas, Army’s 6th Infantry Division spokesperson, said sporadic clashes in Barangays Tumbras and Kapinpilan have been going on starting April 30.
“Our security forces have secured the evacuees as local officials and elders are pacifying the quarreling families,” Encinas assured.
Encinas identified the warring families like those of Mama Macalimbol, an alleged leader of an armed lawless group, as against the Dule Dulua and Taha clans that are affiliated with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front 105th Base Command.
Army officials said the opposing families, locked in deep-seated political and land dispute, have both suffered casualties over the past three days of retaliatory fighting.
It's a little ironic that one of these families is affiliated with the MILF because the MILF is now responsible for securing the region with the BARMM being praised as the way for peace. It's also a little confusing that this article does not mention that Mama Macalimbol is associated with the ISIS-affiliated BIFF.
“The armed men withdrew toward the marshy area of Barangay Tumbras en route to the Maguindanao marshland,” he said, adding that the state forces encountered the group of Mama Macalimbol, a bomber and a known member of the terror group Dawlah Islamiyah-BIFF faction.
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1051280Is this a clan war, a rido, or is it a confrontation between the MILF and BIFF? It could be both! The reasons given for violence in Mindanao inevitably include the canard "historical injustices" which really translates to colonisation of Mindanao by Christians and which can only be rectified by independence. But here we get a peek behind the scenes at infighting between Moro families over politics and land. Truly they can say, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
The head of the BARMM, Murad, recognises the importance of ending these clan wars and has made it a priority to do so.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/03/03/1898226/palace-barmm-resolve-clan-wars |
Major Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in central Mindanao and Chief Supt. Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-BARMM have said in separate statements that they are ready to help Ebrahim broker the settlement of conflicts involving big Moro clans and groups identified with local MILF leaders.
“There is a need to settle as early as possible some rido (clan wars) involving MILF commanders, conflicts involving certain families, in preparation for the decommissioning process,” Ebrahim said.
Ebrahim said the BTA is aware that unsettled family feuds can cause reluctance among protagonists to lay down their firearms and be reintegrated into mainstream communities in the BARMM.
The 6th ID and the Maguindanao Task Force Reconciliation and Unification under the office of Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu have settled more than a hundred clan wars since 2011, some of them involving MILF field commanders.
The conflicts stemmed from landownership issues, affronts to clan honor and political rivalries.
Peace advocacy groups, some operating with the help of foreign benefactors, blame the weak judicial system in Moro areas due to lack of prosecutors and judges as the main cause of the proliferation of clan wars.
The AFP and PNP say they are ready to help settle these clan wars but they are more than ready. They have been brokering miniature peace deals between warring families consistently over the years.
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1068521 |
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1066712 |
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| https://www.rappler.com/nation/216427-army-battalion-ending-clan-wars-mindanao |
Sadly it was only a little over a week after this video was posted that he died while engaging Abu Sayyaf.
[It is sad to lose Col. Kasim, considering he is nearing retirement age at 55 yet stayed at the frontlines. That shows how hardworking and active he is]," Bartolome said in an interview on dzXL radio. Kasim and four of his men were killed in an encounter with the Abu Sayyaf Thursday. Bartolome insisted the incident was an encounter and not an ambush, adding Kasim had several reinforcements with him at the time. He added Kasim took to heart PNP chief Director General Jesus Verzosa's directive to stomp out crime in their areas of responsibility.
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/regions/160401/pnp-mourns-death-of-sulu-police-chief/story/BARMM leader Murad says clan wars make the decommissioning and normalisation process much more difficult. If families are warring why would anyone make themselves vulnerable by laying down their arms? From the video above:
Most people when they talk about insecurity it's insecurity from a fellow clan. From armed members of rival clans. That's where people's number one threat comes from. Whether they be in the police, whether they be in the military, the local government, even in the Abu Sayyaf group. Their number one enemy, chances are, is a rival clan.
David Gorman - Centre for Humanitarian DialogueThe Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue is most certainly one of the "foreign benefactors" mentioned above. They have been involved in the Philippines since 2005 helping negotiate a deal between the MNLF and the PNP over the detention of Misuari.
HD first became involved in the province of Sulu after a serious outbreak of fighting between the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Philippines Armed Forces in February 2005. HD facilitated a series of talks between representatives of the MNLF Chairman, Nur Misuari, and the Government, represented by the then Secretary Teresita ‘Ging’ Deles. The parties met for five rounds of talks and agreed to resolve the detention of Nur Misuari. Under HD’s guidance, a GPH-MNLF Peace Working Group (PWG) was set up in Sulu to address security issues in the region.
The Peace Working Group was a bold experiment in local third party mediation in an active conflict zone. It worked initially, but with the lack of political progress in implementing the 1996 agreement, continuing violence perpetrated by lawless groups such as Abu Sayyaf, and explosive clan conflicts, the two armed forces continued to be drawn into conflict.
It soon became evident that the violence and dislocation was occurring for much more complex factors relating to clan conflicts within indigenous Tausug (ethnic group in Sulu) society. These conflicts were in turn exploited or exacerbated by local politics and the underlying Bangsamoro struggle.
The Peace Working Group was therefore transformed into a more locally-anchored body, the Tumikang Sama Sama – which means “Together we move forward” in Sinug, the language spoken by Tausugs.
The group is composed of a small body of well-respected local individuals including from the security sector and the Office of the Mufti, and is assisted by a secretariat drawn from the local community. Based on experiences from specific conflicts, the TSS derived an approach to conflict resolution that combines the influence of local tradition with international third party presence.
https://www.hdcentre.org/activities/philippines-mindanao/The CHD appears to be engaged in productive work which has helped gradually bring peace to the region. With the in-depth commitment they have put into the peace process they surely understand just what is at stake. Right?
HD began providing advice to the Malaysian facilitator, the MILF and the Government on the peace process in 2007. Following the collapse of the agreement on Ancestral Domain in 2008, HD helped put together the International Contact Group (ICG), which was officially launched in November 2009 to advise and assist the two parties and the Malaysian Facilitator in the talks. HD has sent representatives to every round of talks since December 2009 and has regularly held bilateral talks with each party’s representatives. In addition to HD, the ICG is composed of the Governments of Japan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Kingdom as well as international non-governmental organisations: Conciliation Resources, Muhammadiyah and the Community of Sant’Egidio (an original member, the Asia Foundation later joined the Third Party Monitoring Team in 2013).
https://www.hdcentre.org/activities/philippines-mindanao/It appears this NGO was disappointed that the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain collapsed as a result of being found unconstitutional by the Supreme court. For all their talk about the "underlying Bangsamoro struggle" one has to wonder if they know that said struggle is all about independence. That for the MILF peace does not mean cessation of violence but liberation from the Philippines and Mindanao to be returned to them which they claim as their own. Such was the sum and substance of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain which I wrote about previously.
MILF leaders said they plan to press Manila for self-governance and recognition of their "ancestral domain" to end their insurgency.
MILF deputy chief Ghazali Jaafar, speaking at his heavily fortified home in Mindanao, said Manila should acknowledge that the Bangsamoro, or Muslim people, historically ruled the south of this mostly Roman Catholic country.
"Mindanao was ruled by our ancestors and should be recognized as such and returned to us," Jaafar told Agence France Presse in an interview as he sat under the insurgents’ flag and closely guarded by two guerrillas wielding M-16 assault rifles.
"We want self-governance, a system by which we Muslims can solve the problems of our own people. And not just an agreement favoring a few Muslims leaders," he said.
This will all depend on President Arroyo, the rebel leader said but added the MILF leadership "is willing to sign an agreement if there is a favorable solution to the problem of the Bangsamoro who remain colonized."
"We are not negotiating for surrender," Jaafar said. "But we have been fighting for three decades and it is time we find a solution."
However, joining the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is "unacceptable," he said, because it has been a failure and does not reflect "the will of the Bangsamoro."
"The so-called ARMM is not a real autonomy. It did not have power and answers still to the Manila government. It also did not contribute to the improvement in the lives of Muslims," Jaafar said.
"Look around you, we are still a poor people."
Committed to ending conflict in Mindanao through peaceful negotiations;
Dedicated to the successful outcome ofthe GRP-MILF Peace Process;
Recognizing the role that interested countries and international non-government organisations (INGO) can play in supporting the success of the GRP-MILF peace process
https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/PH_090915_Framework%20agreement%20on%20the%20contact%20group.pdfThe third objective about recognising the importance of outside parties is interesting in light of the fact that one of the parties to the ICG is the Asia Foundation. Even more interesting is that The Asia Foundation is a member of the Third Party Monitoring Team which is described as:
An independent body mandated by the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to monitor, review and assess the implementation of all GPH-MILF signed agreements, including in particular the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) and its annexes.
http://tpmt.ph/members-third-party-monitoring-teamWhat makes The Asia Foundation's involvement in the peace process between the GPH and the MILF fascinating is that this group is a CIA founded and US government funded organisation. Blogger Thinking Pinoy recently posted his discovery that Vera Files receives much of their funding from The Asia Foundation with his thesis being that this CIA front is funding groups to be critical of Duterte in a bid to demonise and oust him. I have proven how this conclusion is far from conclusive. How backwards is it that the CIA would be attempting to both destabilise and stabilise the Philippines? Does TP know that the peace process between the MILF and the GPH is backed by the CIA? Do those who claim the CIA is funding ISIS in the Philippines and helped bring about the Marawi siege as an attempt to topple the Duterte administration know that they are also facilitating in the peace process? Why would the CIA be funding terrorists and critical journalists as well as the peace process? I cant even begin to answer but it should also be noted that Abu Sayyaf has also received money from al-Qaeda which is an organisation founded by Osama bin Laden who was allegedly trained by the CIA to fight the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan. What exactly is the CIA up to in the Philippines?
What the endgame and real interests of these NGOs are I do not know nor will I attempt to guess. One thing is certain: clan wars are a major source of violence in Mindanao and they are not going to be stopping anytime soon despite the interference of international peace groups. Clan wars are a way of life in Mindanao.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2005/06/27/283688/deadly-clan-wars-way-life-mindanao |
Studies jointly funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Asia Foundation have documented 1,220 clan conflicts since 1930 in 11 provinces of Mindanao, home to the mostly Roman Catholic nation’s four million-strong Muslim minority.The Asia Foundation? Obviously the documentation of 1,220 clan conflicts since 1930 is just dirty CIA propaganda meant to cast aspersion on the Philippines.
