The army in Jolo conceded a partial defeat this week after the pursuit of the Abu Sayyaf entered day 7 with little achieved and criticism mounting. The entire Jolo rescue operation, supposed to free hostages taken by the Abu Sayyaf factions, may end up as a monumental slap in the face of Manila.
The army said the operation launched a week ago has slowed down. "Admittedly, we are behind schedule,'' armed forces chief general Angelo Reyes told a news conference. President Joseph Estrada had wanted it wrapped up in six days.
"If the army is using its best equipment and war apparatus, assisted by the U.S. marines on the logistic side, have not succeeded so far in wiping the Jolo island of the rebels, then something is wrong." Islam Online was told.
Entire arsenal in use
Reports say that eyewitnesses in Zamboanga City, the staging point for the assault, say that on Saturday the government sent three of its five F-5 jets to bombard suspected Abu Sayyaf strongholds.
The army's workhorses consist of five OV-10 bombers and at least two MG-520 attack helicopters flying numerous close air support sorties. Both types of aircraft were used extensively earlier this year when the military overran the camps of a larger Muslim insurgent group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The US-made, propeller-driven twin-engine OV-10 Broncos carry M60 machine guns and one 250-pound (112.5-kg) bomb. The lightly armored MG-520 helicopters carry rockets and a machine gun. Both are a far cry from the heavily armored attack helicopters used by Russia and the United States.
Local reporters in Jolo say the military has been firing a steady barrage of 105mm field guns at suspected Abu Sayyaf positions. Also being used are locally assembled Simba armored personnel carriers and cannon-armed V-300 armored cars.
The navy has used two huge landing transport ships to ferry troops and equipment to Jolo plus smaller patrol craft, mostly U.S. surplus, to patrol the island shoreline.
400 years of resistance
For more than 400 years, the Philippines' predominantly Muslim southern provinces has resisted, at a bloody cost to all concerned, outside domination. No one, from the Spanish and U.S. colonialists, Japanese occupiers to the Manila government, has been able to fully integrate the area into part of a broader nation, the Times Magazine wrote.
"Estrada is now cornered into a dilemma he never expected. If his army succeeds in uprooting and destroying the Abu Sayyaf, his declaration of victory will have a taste of blood for the Malay Muslims.
"In the long run, they will exact revenge and the long war between the Muslims and the Christians in what was once a Muslim dominated archipelago, rich in culture and tradition, as well in economic importance until the barbaric Spanish invasion." Hamza Ali, a Filipino Muslim student in the history of Philippines Muslims at a University in Malaysia said.
With reports of growing casualties among the civilians, mostly Muslim Malays of Moro origin, the Philippines are on the verge of another religious war that may disrupt the peace of the country for a long time.
The current ongoing "hunt" against the M-16 wielding Abu Sayyaf who defy the army with more ruse than heroic bravery is an indication that the terrain has slipped under the feet of the invasion forces.
The Philippines army is now accusing American hostage Jeffrey Schilling of being pro-Abu Sayyaf after the latter supported negotiations against blunt aggressive military attacks.
Increased suspicion
Reuters is reporting that the hostage crisis took a bizarre turn Friday when the government said the young American held by rebels on Jolo island had fallen for his captors.
However, the Muslim convert has been accused by the son of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi Seif al-Islam of being an arms dealer doing business with the kidnap-for-ransom Abu Sayyaf gang, which has threatened to behead him.
If not a hostage, Schilling has nevertheless become the focus of government rescue attempts and question marks over his status could mean further red faces in the Estrada administration. The U.S. government also dismissed Abu Sayyaf allegations that Schilling was a member of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
French journalists Jean-Jacques Le Garrec, 46, and Roland Madura, 49, arrived in Paris Thursday after escaping their Abu Sayyaf captors under the cover of dark.
The release of the Frenchmen appeared at the time to be a huge political boost for Estrada, but Friday it looked like the criticism had only just begun.
Le Garrec denounced Estrada for launching the attack, saying the army had bombarded civilians and given the Abu Sayyaf unwarranted credibility.
"What was essentially a bunch of racketeers has become in some ways a political movement thanks to the criminal operation sent in to respond to it,'' he said.
"...It was impossible to imagine, in this mountainous region, an army operation that could have got us. We risked being stuck in the middle. There would have been a massacre,'' he said.
No military solution
Observers in the ASEAN region agree that there cannot be a durable military solution to the problems in the South of the Philippines. The Malaysian government has supported the Southern Philippines with direct investment plans in collaboration with the Estrada regime. These investments were scheduled to reach the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) of Nur Misuari the Governor of Mindanao.
The Abu Sayyaf is a splinter faction from the MNLF formed to counter any peace deals with the Philippine government after the MNLF signed a peace accord with the Philippines in the early 1990s.
Many observers believe that the abject poverty in the Southern Philippines that has helped spur the activities of the separatist movements such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf.
An end to the war in the Mindanao province seems elusive and not in the plans of the Muslim resistance armies. These armies are mostly composed of young Muslims who are not ready to compromise with the regime in place.
The Spaniards, the U.S. and
Estrada!
The Spaniards and the Americans, in their drive to colonize Mindanao and the immediate islands, massacred thousands of Muslims. Resistance has been stiff and the memories of the massacres have not been erased from the minds of the young resistance soldiers of the separatist movements.
Abu Sayyaf, or "Father of the Sword," was founded in 1991 with the announced intention of fighting a jihad. But financed by kidnappings, including $15 million in ransom for the release of 20 hostages recently, degenerated into a rogue band infiltrated by Manila at one stage.
In May, the army overran the stronghold of an Abu Sayyaf faction on Basilan Island. Soldiers also threw the MILF into disarray by capturing its camps on Mindanao. The offensives, and the current one on Jolo, seriously disrupted the Islamic groups' military capabilities, but have by no means ended the south's long history of bloodshed.
Estrada, in the eyes of separatist Muslims, is just another colonialist who will never concede the south of the Philippines into the hands of the "rightful" owners, the Moro's. From the Spanish conquistadors to the U.S., through the colonialist attempts before the Marcos' era, and now Estrada, the Philippines seems to be following a deadly pattern when it comes to handling the Muslim minority in Mindanao.
