EDITORIAL - A blow to confidence building

With a truce on because of peace negotiations, at least 19 Army soldiers were confirmed killed as of last night following clashes with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Al-Barka town in Basilan. The Armed Forces of the Philippines counted 11 MILF men killed, although the group would confirm only five.

The soldiers were pursuing Long Malat, said to be a rogue MILF commander, in the mountainous area when they encountered forces under the MILF’s Dan Laksaw Asnawi. But it’s hard to tell which commander is a renegade or regular member of the MILF. The classification is bestowed by the MILF leadership depending on what’s convenient for the separatist group.

Asnawi had been captured by government forces in 2007 after he led a group that ambushed and decapitated 14 Marines who were pursuing the kidnappers of a priest. Malat, teaming up with the Abu Sayyaf, sprung Asnawi from the Basilan provincial jail in December 2009. If Asnawi is working in tandem with the supposedly renegade Malat plus the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, why is he a regular member of the MILF? As in the case of the supposedly renegade Ameril Umbra Kato, however, the MILF leadership – the one negotiating with the government, in case anyone is getting confused – cannot rein in Asnawi either, but can’t afford to disown him.

And if that leadership cannot control its members, what’s the use of negotiations? It’s silly to claim that the soldiers had ventured into MILF territory. There is only one sovereign Philippine territory, under only one government, and that entire territory is covered by Philippine laws and protected by Philippine forces. No group, even in the middle of peace negotiations, has the license to harbor fugitives. Peace talks cannot be used to protect supposedly renegade militants and terrorists.

The AFP cannot launch a truly full-scale offensive in the jungles of Basilan, mainly because the forbidding terrain is home to many non-combatant civilians. But this latest encounter is not going to help in confidence building, already shaken by the antics of Kato’s new breakaway group, in the peace negotiations.