Watershed in the Mindanao islands

Prospect: A promise of "self-determination" for the Muslim minority of the Southern Mindanao islands of the Philippines, by the archipelago's centre, has raised the prospect of the long-running, bloody Southern insurgency in the South East Asian state coming to an end.

"We appreciate this development. We feel it is an advancement in the search for peace in the Mindanao", Al Haj Murad, head of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the chief rebel group in the Southern islands, was quoted saying.

The most absorbing issue to flow from this development is the specific form "self-determination" would take in practice, if this right is granted. As commonly understood, political self-determination which is synonymous with a people's sovereignty, should issue in the establishment of a separate state for the Muslims in the Mindanao islands.

It need hardly be said that separate statehood is a politically explosive issue which most states would handle very discreetly. After all, the current tendency on the part of the world community is to frown upon separatist demands. Accordingly, it would be interesting to find out what specific political arrangement Manila envisaged when it spoke of "self-determination" for the Mindanao islands.

In passing it may be observed, however, that regional autonomy and confederacies come under the rubric of self-determination for peoples. Only time would tell how these political dilemmas would be resolved by the parties to the Mindanao rebellion.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that the dynamics of the Mindanao conflict have been following a familiar pattern over the decades. Mindanao brings the realisation that identical power relations among communities anywhere could have the same political consequences.

From the time of political independence in 1946, some central governments in the Philippines have seen the need to dilute the ethnic composition of the Southern islands. Accordingly, populations whose religious identity is Catholic have been increasingly settled among the Muslims in the Southern islands, who have been natives of the region for centuries.

What has been coveted by successive central administrations are the valuable natural resources of the islands. The aim in settling Catholics in the islands in increasing numbers by the centre has been the blurring of the identity of the region as a Muslim majority territory.

Increasing population pressure on land and other resources has, naturally, put the communities on a collision course and helped in triggering the armed separatist rebellion by the Moros, as the Muslims of the region have come to be known.

Since the Catholics constitute the majority community in the Philippines we see in the Mindanao conflict, an effort by a majority community which controls the State and its resources, to exercise hegemonic control over a minority ethnic group, thus setting the stage for a full blown separatist rebellion by the latter.

These salient points came strongly into focus in 1972 when the then Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos decided to clamp emergency rule on the archipelago. This left the Moro rebels with no choice but to intensify their armed rebellion because increased repression by the centre had the effect of stepping-up armed opposition to central rule.

Thus would have been set in motion the vicious circle of repression followed by armed opposition, which in turn would have heightened central repression, leaving the Moros with no choice but to demand a separate polity.

Given this backdrop, the promise of "self determination" could be considered a watershed development in the long-running rebellion. Another instructive lesson in handling a separatist revolt could be said to be unfolding.