SOUTHERN, COMFORT:, Lost, Command,, LMG, and, rogues

WHEN heavily armed regulars of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) launched simultaneous and bloody attacks in several provinces in Mindanao following the botched signing of the now presumed dead Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), it took the military under the Arroyo government several days to absorb the ramifications of such acts.

At first, they call the attacks as isolated incidents and perpetrated by “rogue” elements of the MILF.

When it became apparent that a more hardliner group has emerged from the shadows of the dovish Moro rebels that at that time were negotiating with the government, the military has coined a new word for them – the LMG or Lawless MILF Group.

Since when has the MILF operated under existing Philippine laws to earn that separate moniker for their “errant” members?

Is the military now, after dropping the Lost Command tag for its own, ready to accept that there are LAGs in their ranks – Lawless AFP Group just as there are LMGs in the MILF who are breaking the chain of command?

Sure, the MILF leadership should be made to answer for the deaths of civilians and destruction of properties, notwithstanding the trauma inflicted on communities affected by the war.

But the Arroyo government should now look beyond that and brace for the escalation of the war in Mindanao which, by and large, is its own making.

By publicly abandoning the peace process and trying to nail the MILF into the corner, it has only succeeded in uniting the fractured Moro rebel group.

The MILF is not as monolith as the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) which adhere to a set of strict party and military discipline.

Its leadership is basically regionalist and its character very feudal.

Ask any Muslim. You cannot put a Maranao, a Tausug and a Maguindano in one single room. They are as hostile as they are to each other.

The late Salamat Hashim and Nur Misuari, chairman of the Moro national Liberation Front, once tried and for a while succeeded in unifying all Moro rebel group.

But differences in strategy and tactics including divergent views of the direction of Moro rebellion in Mindanao have resulted into a bitter split.

Out of the split rose the MILF.

When Misuari signed a political agreement with the Ramos administration, many MNLF rebels were disgusted and switched allegiance.

In a rare interview, 105^th Base Command chief of the MILF Umbra Kato resented the “lost command” label hurled against him. He said it should be directed towards MILF commanders who refuse to fight the government. That statement is a manifestation of frustration and emergence of more radical leadership in the MILF.

To dismiss Kato as a ‘rogue’ MILF commander and launch massive military operation against him is a big military and political blunder.

He could become a unifying force if the government continues to launch a crusader-like manhunt on him.

If reports are to be believed that the MILF rebels who have been attacking several villages in Sarangani are reinforcements coming from Kato’s group, then the military and the Arroyo government will be in for the long haul and people in Mindanao are in for more troubled times.

Let the MILF handle Kato and the likes of him.

It will put the onus of proving that the MILF sincerely wants to have lasting peace in Mindanao by taking care of Kato and his military adventurism.

Like the body count, the war in Mindanao is not won on who gets to tag one by a name. Neither will it be over in the battlefield. Like all wars, contending and warring parties will eventually come to the table to agree to end it all.