Zambo folks enraged at the coddling of the MNLF renegades

There was fury in Zamboanga City yesterday when an official in Manila telephoned Zamboanga Chief Prosecutor Manuel Tatel and told him to "hold it." Hold what? The planned prosecution by the police of 98 cadres of Nur Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) for rebellion, illegal detention and murder.

We hear that the phone call was made by Chief Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño. What was the purpose of his seeking a delay or freeze in the matter of throwing the book at those rebels? Are we scared of provoking more trouble in Mindanao? There’s already trouble enough to go around.

The MNLF were the ones who started it all by embarrassing our military and threatening the city’s citizens in their orgy of hostage-taking last week, then negotiating their way to freedom owing to the meddling of a marshmallow "crisis committee" most of whose members were not from Zambo. Now, Manila is interfering again. Why, even after they’ve gone on the attack and violated the 1996 peace accord, are we coddling this bunch of Moro rebels?

The President has stated she will ask US President George W. Bush to place Misuari, now in jail in Malaysia, on the list of international "terrorists." This would forestall Misuari appealing for United Nations help, and seeking asylum in some friendly Muslim country. As it is, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad must be under heavy pressure, being a Muslim himself, to release Misuari into the custody of another member country of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). It’s fortunate that Mahathir is not the sort of guy you push around.

But why, suddenly, a soft approach to the already self-announced MNLF rascals? No wonder the rebels of whatever stripe aren’t scared of us. Our policy has always been urong-sulong.

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The money may be perfectly legitimate, but how do they get it to dispense with? When his friend and protégé Gen. Roy A. Cimatu was named chief of the Southern Command in Mindanao, Defense Secretary Angelo T. Reyes gave Cimatu P5 million in cash to be distributed among his top officers.

Afterwards, Reyes gave Cimatu another P5 million also in cash for public relations purposes. Why does Cimatu need a personal PR fund? Is he running for something? Normally, armed forces officers rely on military public information officers to answer press queries and disseminate proper information. Yet, utilizing the funds at his disposal, Cimatu hired a public relations man to handle his image.

Did the money come from the armed forces intelligence fund, or some special budget in the DND slush fund? All of a sudden, one million pesos looks like petty cash.

I must be hopelessly old-fashioned. I believe a general, like the soldiers who fight under him, must never be concerned with how the public views him. His deeds should speak for himself. His courage, leadership qualities, and coolness in the frenzy of battle, should shine through without the boost of press agentry.

Cimatu, evidently, under the sponsorship of Reyes and the present AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, is plugging to be appointed the next Chief of Staff although he is the most junior among the three or four contenders. Coming from Bangui, Ilocos Norte, he belongs to Philippine Military Academy Class ’70, which calls itself Magiting (Brave). He is even a pilot, earning his wings from the Aerostar Flying School.

Why then does he need a public relations fund and media mileage to publicize himself? I notice this has been happening lately.

Here’s how a general must think. In his famous book, A Bridge Too Far, later made into a movie, Cornelius Ryan recalls a press briefing given by US Gen. George S. Patton as he lunged his Third Army towards Germany. (Ryan was a war correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph at the time.) His fist pounding the map, Patton declared: "Maybe there are five thousand, maybe ten thousand, Nazi bastards in their concrete foxholes before the Third Army. Now if Ike (Eisenhower) stops holding Monty’s (British Marshal Montgomery’s) hand and gives me the supplies, I’ll go through the Siegfried Line like shit through a goose."

P.S. Patton, of course, never made it to Chief of Staff.

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The recent collapse of giant ENRON, the eighth biggest US corporation, should remind us that the world is in recession and we ought to be concentrating on the economy (and food production) rather than on political fun and games. ENRON plunged from an $800 billion corporation to bankruptcy.

What about us? If we had only one-fourth of that lost $800 billion, our economy would be riding high. Yet we fritter away time, our efforts, our emotions and opportunities with political vendettas, self-posturing, investigations, finger-pointing, and the trading of insults and accusations. Let’s wake up to reality. The hour is not only late. It’s way past midnight.

It’s not enough for President GMA to call for unity and an end to political strife. Such admonitions have been issued before by former Presidents and fallen on deaf ears. The great President Manuel L. Quezon (though he did not always do as he said) put so well what every politician in office – and all of us indeed – must take to heart today, if we are to help our truly suffering poor and uplift our despairing nation: "My loyalty to my party ends, where my loyalty to our country begins."

Those are still words to live by.

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There’s an interesting item in the latest The Economist (magazine (Dec. 1st to 7th 2001) which reveals:

"One night at the end of October, Osama bin Laden and 120 bodyguards came to spend the night at the camp of Beni Hissar, near Kabul. He told the camp boss he would leave at eight the next morning. But he got up at five, prayed and then left. After that, everyone was ordered out on the news that a missile strike was imminent. The rockets struck at eight.

"Since missile strikes happen with little or no warning, Mr. bin Laden has some very reliable sources of information. The best of these, operated by his legion of foreign supporters, is linked by a sophisticated Codan radio network of the type used by the United Nations and aid workers in places such as Afghanistan. Despite the destruction early in the air war of the Taliban’s air defenses, Arab and Afghan residents of Beni Hissar were given frequent warnings, via this network, of possible strikes by aircraft."

The Economist further describes bin Laden’s Foreign Legion based there and run by a Sudanese called Abdul Aziz. They had much money and food, it was recalled, before they fled. The 850 Arab soldiers who answered bin Laden’s call for his Foreign Legion came from all over the Muslim world but were mostly Egyptians, Saudis, Lebanese and Qataris. Quoting one remaining member of that abandoned camp, a fellow named Amin, the newsweekly said the Afghans in the group "were paid $120 a month for their contribution to the cause, roughly the annual salary of a professor at Kabul University." He added: "The Arabs got more."

At the end of October, Amin disclosed, "they were joined by 40 Arabs who had been living in Germany and Italy and who traveled via Iran. Torn-up air tickets in the abandoned camp show they first flew to Syria, then, on October 29th to Iran.

Asked what would happen if bin Laden were killed, Amin replied: "Everyone who works for Osama is like Osama."

That’s well and good. First get Osama. Then let’s go after his clones.

The newly-voted leader of Afghanistan, Pashtun chief Hamid Karzai, once indignantly exclaimed: "We’ve been taken over by the Arabs!" Now, at least Osama and his Arabs are on the run, or huddling inside tunnels and caves of Tora Bora. Karzai, by the way, was near Kandahar commanding his forces there against the Taliban when he received a phone call from Bonn informing him he had just been elected chairman of the 29-member committee to act as ad interim government of Afghanistan for the next six months. He put down the phone and went back to the fight.

That’s where the Afghans almost lost him. The same B-52 launched smart bomb which killed three American special forces "Green Berets" (not marines, mea culpa) and five Afghan fighters, also wounded Karzai. Afghanistan came near to being deprived of its new Chairman before he even got seated.

I like what Karzai said when he was interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) after his designation. The BBC anchor asked how Karzai wanted to be described, like, say, as a Pashtun leader. To which he replied in perfect English: "I am an Afghan."

Incidentally, I take it back about the Hazaras being left out. They received five Cabinet posts, among them a premier position for one of their women delegates, that of Deputy Chairman in charge of women’s affairs.

One thing we noted, watching CNN, BBC, Fox News, and other TV news: All of the Afghan delegates and new Cabinet members interviewed were remarkably articulate in English. Truly, English is the lingua franca of the globe, not just of the Internet.

While the image of the United Front Afghan mujahideen and the Taliban fighter is that of a heavily-bearded, rough-cut warrior in baggy pants, ragged blouse and wrinkled turban, the Afghans have been a poetic and educated ethnic mix as well.

In his wonderful book, An Unexpected Light, about his travels in Afghanistan, Jason Elliot quotes three Afghan wise men:

"The repentance of the common man is for his sins; the repentance of the elect, for their heedlessness. (Dhul-Nun Misri (d. 860).

"Can you walk on water? You have done no better than a straw. Can you fly through the air? You are no better than a gnat. Conquer your heart – then you may become somebody." (Khwaja Abdullah Ansari of Herat (1005-1090).

Finally:

"MULLA NASRUDDIN: "I have met the king, and he spoke to me!"

VILLAGERS: "Incredible!"

THE VILLAGE IDIOT: "What did he say?"

MULLA NASRUDDIN (whispering). He said: "Get out of my way!"