'I Am Nobody': Grievances, Organic Members, and the MILF in Muslim Mindanao

JSRP Paper 29 Theories in Practice series ‘I am nobody’: grievances, organic members, and the MILF in Muslim Mindanao Jeroen Adam and Hélène Flaam (Ghent University, Conflict Research Group) March 2016 © Jeroen Adam and Hélène Flaam, 2016 Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of material published in this paper, the Justice and Security Research Programme and the LSE accept no responsibility for the veracity of claims or accuracy of information provided by contributors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be issued to the public or circulated in any form other than that in which it is published. Requests for permission to reproduce any part of this paper should be sent to: The Editor, Justice and Security Research Programme, International Development Department, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE Or by email to: [email protected] Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 Part 1: The multiple faces of the MILF ..................................................................................... 4 Kinship affiliation and the state-rebel divide ........................................................................ 4 Illustration: dispute settlement in barangay Luanan ............................................................ 6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 9 Part 2: Bangsamoro civil society and its ‘organic members’ .................................................... 9 Beyond an elite-driven framework ........................................................................................ 9 The MILF as a civil organization ........................................................................................ 12 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 15 Part 3: Religion, purity and equality ....................................................................................... 16 Religion and equal citizenship ............................................................................................ 16 Religion and moral purity ................................................................................................... 19 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 21 General conclusion .................................................................................................................. 21 References ............................................................................................................................... 24 ACRONYMS AFP Armed Forces of the Philippines AHJAG Ad Hoc Joint Action Group CCCH Coordinating Commission on the Cessation of Hostilities CVO Civilian Volunteer Organizations JSRP Justice and Security Research Programme LPI-MAPAD Local Peace Initiators-Mindanao Action for Peace and Development MILF Moro Islamic Liberation Front MILF-BIAF Bangsomoro Islamic Armed Forces MIM Muslim Independence Movement MNLF Moro National Liberation Front MWDECC Moro Women Development and Cultural Center NGO Non-Governmental Organization PNP Philippine National Police QRT Quick Response Teams TAF The Asia Foundation UNYPAD United Youth for Peace and Development Introduction Over the past ten to fifteen years there has been a remarkable shift in much of the literature on conflict in Muslim Mindanao. While traditionally, questions around violence and insecurity have focused on well-known armed groups such as the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) and the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) and their stance on questions of autonomy/independence, 1 more recently, a range of authors have shifted their attention towards everyday causes of violence within Muslim communities. These causes include a variety of issues such as local elections, land conflicts or adultery. 2 In particular one research project conducted by The Asia Foundation (TAF) has been pivotal in this regard. 3 In this research, it is demonstrated how the root causes of violence rarely concern large political questions about autonomy or independence but are instead rooted in everyday social interactions and tensions. The argument herein was not necessarily that previous research had it ‘wrong’. Rather, what this body of literature pointed to is that it was crucial to study how different types of violence at different scales dynamically interact with each other and potentially reinforce each other. Next, this multi-level analysis inevitably drew attention to a new set of actors and organizations in the production of violence and insecurity, apart from the MILF and MNLF. Yet, despite this renewed focus on the diversity of actors and organizations, the foremost groups that entered the limelight in these new analyses were the clans and their respective coercive organization. 4 This is not to say that clans as a unit of analysis have been absent in political, historical and sociological work on Mindanao. On the contrary, a range of studies have pointed to the central importance of clans as powerful groups in the socio-political landscape in Mindanao and the remarkable historical continuity of this from pre-colonial through to colonial and post-colonial times. 5 However, this new body of literature clearly pointed out the highly coercive features of clan politics by putting emphasis on the issue of rido or clan feuding. It is argued by TAF that group formation and armed mobilization around certain disputes in Muslim Mindanao generally happens along these clan-lines. In another publication, 1 Che Man, W.K. (1990) . Muslim Separatism. The Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand , Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2 Kreuzer, P. (2005). Political Clans and Violence in the Southern Philippines , PRIF-report No. 71. Frankfurt: Peace Research Institute Frankfurt; Kreuzer, P. (2009). Private Political Violence and Boss- Rule in the Philippines. Behemoth , 2(1), 47-63; Adam, J. (2013). A comparative analysis on the micro- level genealogies of conflict in the Philippines’ Mindanao and Indonesia’s Ambon, Oxford Development Studies , 41 (2): 155-173. 3 Torres, W.M. (2007). RIDO: Clan Feuding and Conflict Management in Mindanao . Makati City: The Asia Foundation. 4 An interesting and recent book discussing the position of clans in Muslim Mindanao: Lara, F.J. (2014). Insurgents, Clans, and States. Political Legitimacy and Resurgent Conflict in Muslim Mindanao , Philippines , Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 5 Becket, J. (1993). Political Families and Family Politics Among the Muslim Maguindanaon of Cotabato, in: Alfred McCoy (ed.), An Anarchy of Families. State and Family in the Philippines , Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 285-311; Abinales, P. N. (2000). Making Mindanao: Cotabato and Davao in the Formation of the Philippine Nation-State , Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 1 the German political scientist, Peter Kreuzer, explicitly approaches clans as ‘agents of violence’ .6 Another important consequence of this overall shift in the focus of analysis is that it is now generally acknowledged that much of the violence in the region clearly has a strong intra-Muslim character instead of a Muslim minority versus Philippine state framing. As has been argued elsewhere, 7 this refocusing of the literature has been welcome since it has not only enriched the debate on violence and conflict in Muslim Mindanao but has also provided a better insight into the functioning of the overall socio-political landscape in the region. Nevertheless, despite these important steps forward, some major lacunae remain. One of the most remarkable gaps in our knowledge of the region is that we still remain ill-informed about the one organization that is still considered to be the foremost Muslim armed group on mainland Mindanao, namely the MILF. Generally understood as a Muslim armed group expressing the deep-rooted grievances of a Muslim minority in a Christian dominated nation-state, there simply is no recent study which has systematically mapped the political and social development of the MILF over the past 15 to 20 years; the period wherein the MILF has come to trump the other major Muslim armed group, the MNLF. Hardly any literature exists wherein the MILF is discussed in relation to matters of governance and regulation, religion and the mosque, social activities and redistribution. Indeed, most of the data and information available still treats the MILF first and foremost as an armed organization. 8 As will be argued below, this assumption is highly reductionist and overlooks a wide range of activities in which the MILF is involved and where it has built up a direct and organic relationship with large parts of the civil population. Lastly, this lack of data and systematic research is all the more remarkable since the MILF still is the principal interlocutor in the current ongoing peace negotiations, which are explicitly framed as a consultation between the Philippine government and the MILF (not the clans!). Therefore, it is also clear that, at the moment, it is very difficult to predict what specific consequences a successful

Load more