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With peace talks between the Philippine government and Muslim rebels
in tatters, analysts are warning violence will escalate and possibly
spill over into neighboring countries.
President Gloria Arroyo this week scrapped the
government panel handling the negotiations—a move analysts said
ended any hopes of settling the four-decade-old Muslim insurgency
before she leaves office in 2010.
They fear the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),
which had been negotiating for a Muslim homeland on the revolt-hit
southern Mindanao island, may now splinter into smaller and more
radical groups.
The government has said any future peace talks
would have to be more representative of the people of Mindanao
rather than just the MILF, which will have to disarm if it is to
enter any future negotiations.
“No respected revolutionary movement will even
think of handing over their guns,” said Rommel Banlaoi, executive
director of the Philippine Institute for Political Violence and
Terrorism Research, a think tank.
He said the dissolution of the peace panel would
lead the MILF rebel forces to resume their armed struggle on a
larger scale, and warned the conflict could “spill over to
neighboring countries like Indonesia, Malaysia or Brunei.”
There have been fears MILF splinter groups could
align themselves with regional terrorist networks, such as
Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiah (JI), which has already infiltrated
southern Philippines.
One Filipino government security analyst who did
not want to be named said Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei had
expressed fears the MILF renegades could slip into their territories
with the help of the JI’s vast network.
He said there were already reports of some
unnamed armed groups trying to enter Malaysia’s Sabah state.
“You can expect more attacks, not only in the
Philippines but elsewhere in the region” once the JI cements its
ties with the MILF, the official added.
Julkipli Wadi, an Islamic studies professor at
the University of the Philippines and an expert on the Mindanao
conflict, said government attempts to engage the MILF in talks to
disarm would be “a shot at the moon.”
“It will not work,” he said. “They will
never surrender their firearms. They will now disperse and engage in
intensified hit-and-run guerrilla warfare.”
“That will be more difficult since there will
be no direct command structure that can be held accountable which
government can deal with directly.”
President Arroyo’s decision to disband the
peace panel came as the military mounted a huge offensive against
the forces of Umbra Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar, also known as
Commander Bravo, two senior MILF members.
The strikes, in retaliation for a series of
deadly raids across Christian towns and villages this month, have
killed more than 100 rebels in the past three weeks.
Nearly half a million people have been displaced
by the fighting, the biggest flare-up of violence since the MILF
signed a ceasefire with the government in 2003.
The two commanders have said they launched the
attacks after a court froze a government agreement with the MILF
giving the rebels control over an expanded autonomous region.
Kato and Bravo and their men could seek help
from JI militants who are keen to establish a stronger presence on
Mindanao, analysts said.
A report by the International Crisis Group early
this year said Kato’s ties to the JI and other terrorist groups
were “well documented.”
Teresita Deles, a former adviser on peace talks
and now a security consultant, accused the government of “playing
to the gallery” at the expense of peace in Mindanao. She added
that the public no longer trusts the government to secure a peace
agreement.
-- AFP
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