I relocated this from the "Communist Insurgency" thread, thinking the discussion had strayed into matters better suited here...
That's almost funny, and I can well imagine him saying that. Of course it isn't true... even if the US could force the Philippine Government to give in to the MILF political and ancestral domain demands, it wouldn't solve the problem.
There's a tendency in some quarters to see the Central Mindanao conflict as a fight between the MILF and the government, and to conclude that it could be resolved by an agreement between those two parties. That completely overlooks the role of the well armed and well connected Visayan settler communities, who actually outnumber the Muslims in much of the area in question. Failure to consider the interests and capacities of this group effectively doomed the MOA/AD process from the start.
Central Mindanao is less about the need for peace between the government and the MILF than the need for peace between the MILF and the settlers. In theory the government could referee this process, but the perceived interests of those two groups are very far apart and neither trusts the government, which lost credibility with the Muslims by taking the settler side in the 70s conflict and lost credibility with the settlers by trying to railroad the MOA/AD process. I really don't see much hope for progress in the near future. Any deal with the government that satisfies the MILF will be anathema to the settlers, who have the capacity to politically and judicially derail a deal, and to resort to armed conflict as well.
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