Philippines (2012 onwards, inc OEF)

[Dayuhan]

Not having seen the Moro rebellion first hand, as you might have experienced being there, I would like to believe that you are right.

I've spent some time in the affected areas. I've been interested in the conflict since living in Mindanao (79-83, more or less) and have been following it closely and digging into the history ever since, aside from going back occasionally. I've written about it now and then. It's difficult to get a handle on that conflict through Google: there's a great deal of nonsense that's been published, and without a good understanding of the context it's hard to sort out what actually fits in the picture and what's being pushed in to support somebody's agenda.

However, from a purely academic standpoint, it is said that Modern Muslim rebels of the southern Philippines see the Moro Rebellion as a continuing struggle against foreign rule.

Yes, but the "foreign rule" in question is that of Manila.

The indicators in the open forums suggests that while the Moro Independence Movement was basically that and nothing more in earlier times, it is believed that it has been touched by the Pan Islamic fervour that has swept the world. It has also transmogrified an Independence Movement into a religious one in addition!

Touched, yes, but only peripherally. it remains primarily a nationalist movement thoroughly rooted in local issues. "pan-Islamic" issues have limited traction with the leadership and virtually none with the masses; connection to the movement is seen primarily as a way of gaining support for the local cause. The connection to "pan-Islamic" movements is IMO consistently overstated by many sources, and not by accident.

It is well known that Islamist groups such as the Abu Sayyaf and Rajah Sulaiman movement, have been supported by groups outside the Philippines such as Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda.

Again, the extent of this support is widely overstated.

ASG is best understood as a failed attempt to develop an AQ "franchise". AQ, through Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, was directly involved in the group's founding. Almost from the start, though, there was conflict within the group between jihadi and purely criminal elements. Funding from Khalifa largely ceased after the killing of key link man Abdul Asmad in 2004, and when Abdurajak Janjalani was killed i '98 the AQ connection was severed. Janjalani's brother took over nominal control of the organization but was completely eclipsed by men like Aldam Tilao and Galib Andang. From this point on the ASG was effectively a purely criminal enterprise, receiving protection from and sharing proceeds with local government, police, and military. The group achieved its greatest notoriety during this period, and was inevitably described as "AQ-linked", despite the minimal to nonexistent connections at that time.

Ironically, the intense pressure that came on the criminal factions as the US got involved was partially responsible for an attempt to bring the group back to its jihadi roots. Military pressure effectively ended the KFR revenue stream, Tialo was killed and Andang captured and their followers largely scattered. Janjalani left the area and took refuge in MILF territory, where he made contact with RSM (more on them below) and initiated a campaign of terror attacks in the Manila area. That phase was effectively ended with the killing of Janjalani and the capture of Ahmed Santos.

The fact that Islam is slowly digging in and expanding in Philippines is borne out by the fact that hard core Catholics have converted to Islam, giving rise to such movement as the Rajah Sulaiman Movement. Islamic expansion should not be taken lightly because the founder of the Rajah Sulaiman movement was converted while working in Saudi Arabia and could return to convert a whole lot of other hardcore Catholics to join the folds of Islam and fight their own (before conversion)!

That's exaggerated. There have been conversions among Filipinos working in the Middle East, and some have recruited other converts after coming home. The number is small and there's no evidence of significant growth. Most of the conversions are opportunistic, aimed at getting or continuing employment in the Middle East. A very small number of these did emerge as radicals, and the RSM core was drawn from this group. The group was very much centered around the person of Ahmed Santos and never recovered from his capture; it's been dormant for years. There are small groups of converts in a number of locations in Luzon, but little evidence that jihadi organizers are exploiting them; it's widely (and I think accurately) believed that Philippine security forces have informers in place throughout the network.

While the Philippines Forces maybe ruthless in their handling of the Moro rebels, if one observes that history of this area, they are not well disposed to the Americans either. In fact, history indicates how the Spanish having lost to the Americans, through a sleight of hand, handed over the area to the US, when in actuality the Spanish had a tacit understanding wherein control of the Sulu archipelago outside of the Spanish garrisons was that of the Sultan. In fact, the Bates Treaty signed by the US assigned to the US greater power than that what the Spanish exercised. The rest is history.

That's a small part of the history. It is of course true that much of the territory Spain sold to the US was not under Spanish control when it was sold. (Mark Twain, among others, made the point that the sale and purchase of people was a poor basis for claimed sovereignty, but that's another issue.) It's also true that there was considerable conflict in the early years of the US occupation. By the 1930s the US had, however, achieved a quite amenable working relationship with Muslim leaders, many of whom actually asked the US not to include them in the grant of independence, which they referred to as "turning them over to the Filipinos". Even at that time rule by Manila was widely (though of courser not universally) seen as a greater danger than rule by the US.

In so far as the US and MNLF/MILF is concerned, suffice it to say that from January 2002 until July 31, 2002, the United States committed nearly 1,300 troops to the Philippines and $93 million in military aid to assist Philippine armed forces (AFP) in operations against the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the southern Philippines, on the island of Basilan southwest of Mindanao. The U.S. action was Operation Balikatan. The CRS Report to the US Congress corroborates the same.

Is the US now merely a spectator?

As you say, US assistance has been focused on efforts against the ASG, not the MILF or the (now largely dormant) MNLF. The MILF has not made a major issue of this and would just as soon see the ASG dismantled, which would open the way for them to achieve a dominant position in the west... if they can overcome the legacy of internal conflict between the Maguindanao/Maranao and Tausug/Sama factions, again another story.

In actual practice, US forces have been generally well received even in the ASG areas, largely because of the perception (IMO accurate) that Philippine forces behave better when he Americans are around. That may seem contrary to some interpretations of regional history, but the observed reaction remains.

No Muslim group would ever think of the US being a mediator, more so in the Philippines, they having had an unfortunate history with the US in Philippines.

Consider this:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquire...in-peace-talks

The US government, through USIP, played a significant role in drafting the Arroyo government's "peace agreement" with the MILF, which would have granted the MILF official recognition and a degree of control that many Filipinos saw as effectively establishing a Moro substate. The agreement was torpedoed by the Philippione Supreme Court and the US role in it widely criticized. The entire episode could be considered a failed attempt at mediation, failed not because the Muslim group rejected it, but because the government rejected it.