Asia Times: In the Philippines, an enemy with three faces


	February 22, 2002	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

In the Philippines, an enemy with three faces
By Christopher Johnson

BASILAN, Philippines - It was the kind of training patrol United States special forces will likely join as they deploy to Basilan island this week.

Philippine troops hoping to become scout rangers were on a training patrol in late January when they saw a man waving from the Basilan jungle near Tuburan. "We assumed they were friendly forces, they wore the same uniforms as us," says a scout ranger near the frontline. "I said, 'Wait, don't fire, they might be our students.' All of sudden, there was gunfire all over the place. They [Abu Sayyaf] were hiding in the jungle, waiting for us. We could hear them talking on the other side of rocks. 'Hey, look, soldiers, soldiers.'"

This is the type of close encounter of the guerrilla kind that threatens US troops set to join similar patrols. The January 25 encounter, which left eight scout rangers injured and 12 Abu Sayyaf dead, shows how a ragtag group of about 100 rebels, aged nine to 38, have hung on against 6,000 Filipino soldiers in 30 battles over two years, army sources say.

The Abu Sayyaf have home field advantage, Maoist-style civilian support, B40 anti-tank guns and M16s, shared members and zones with the larger separatist groups, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), at least five satellite phones, possible funding from Libya and madrassa (religious schools) and human shields in the form of hostages Filipino nurse Deborah Yap and Kansas missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham.

Not to mention a reputation for treachery. Police say that the legendary "Virgin Killer" raped 50 women before being killed in battle. Members of the Abu Sayyaf often take turns raping hostages until they succumb to marrying one of them, locals say.

"The Abu Sayyaf are good soldiers," says Lieutenant-Colonel Reynato Padua, who commanded scout rangers in the three-day game of hide-and-seek culminating on January 25 when Abus fled to the shore and escaped in speedboats.

"They don't leave their [wounded] companions behind. If you hit them, expect it's a long fight because they'll fight until they've taken away their wounded. If it was a short firefight, it means nobody was hit."

The Abus exploit the fact that non-local government soldiers must determine if suspects are farmers or illegal loggers, or possibly MNLF soldiers who've signed a peace deal, or the more militant MILF. "We're fighting a three-faced terrorist group. They just change from one group to the next," says Padua in a two-hour interview near the front. "The leaders can't shift, but the unknown followers can. If they're trapped, they'll say 'MNLF', 'MNLF'. They'll do anything to deceive us.

"They can outflank you because they know the terrain," he says. "They have been trained by their natural surroundings. We don't have any evidence that they are coming or financed from other countries. They are not on suicide missions in the name of Islam."

Others say Abus benefit from Middle East influence. Some intelligence sources in the mid-1990s claimed the Back Door smuggling route from Sabah, Malaysia to Basilan was a crossroads for Russian guns via Afghanistan, pious students, and Holy War dogma from Islam's top universities and terrorist camps.

MILF leader Hashim Salamat studied with future Islamic leaders at Cairo's al-Azhar, while graduates of Saudi Arabia's al-Medina have spread the Wahabi movement here, known for inspiring al-Qaeda through its use of money, says Muslim leader Amillusin Jumaani.

Basilan residents say that thousands came to hear bearded "Pakistani" preachers in robes who arrived in the 1980s. "It's parallel to Christian missionary work," says Gerry Hamja, a Yakan leader and political science professor at Western Mindanao State University. "The Yakans are very accommodating, especially to religious people and foreigners. The Pakistanis were old men who usually stayed for a couple of weeks and left."

Other Arab visitors married Filipinas employed in the Middle East. In the past decade, Islamic donors built madrassa Koran-study schools across Basilan and sent teachers abroad for Arabic lessons, says Hamja. But most Muslims attend Catholic schools on weekdays and madrassas on weekends because the government, and employers, don't recognize degrees from madrassas, outside the state education system.

Both sides of the conflict say there's no proof al-Qaeda is in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf have no permanent terrorist training camps, and no caves other than small, three-man shelters, say army sources.

On Basilan and Jolo island, where a market bombing injured dozens amid an army assault last week, war is inherited from Sulu ancestors who, legend has it, forced Americans to invent the 45-caliber gun. Abus such as Abu Sabaya and Khaddafy Janjalani, with P5 million (US$97,000) bounties on their heads, are "Martial Law babies" of relatives massacred since dictator Ferdinand Marcos' conquest of tribes in the 1970s.

"The root cause of the banditry is the parents teach them how to use guns at an early age," says Isabela mayor Luis Biel. "Having fire arms is a status symbol," says Gerry Hamja. "It's a joke among the Muslims that they love their firearms more than their wives."

Even in the Christianized towns of Isabela and Lamitan, private militias guard officials in their homes, offices and trucks converted into Taliban-style armored personnel carriers. "The Abus can penetrate anywhere in Basilan. Even in Lamitan, their eyes and ears are here," says Princess Lily, a hereditary Yakan leader. "Most young people are jobless, and a lot of them take drugs."

Police also say that the Abu Sayyaf buy large quantities of shabu methamphetamines for P100 per pill for nocturnal forays on foot and boat across the Sulu archipelago. Meth fueled the burning of East Timor in 1999 and crime waves among Thais and the "headshakers" of Shanghai. But soldiers and hostages say that the Abus are drug-free fanatics who yell out Allah Akbar (God is Great) when attacking or retreating.

For four months, Reina Malonzo had the close-up view of Abu Sayyaf that US special forces would love to have. Her depiction of 150-180 Abu captors is clinical, with a nurse's compassion. The jungle is a non-smoking section, she explains. Abus swear off shabu and marijuana, despite rumors of prized island plantations, and alcohol, pork, shortening in bread, and MSG.

"They don't have vices, we can really testify to that," she says. "Most civilians are more afraid of the military than the Abu Sayyaf. But they don't like the Abus' brutal methods."

Too brutal, perhaps, to revive one of five satellite phones waterlogged on a river crossing, she says. Even with computer-science grads, and batteries to charge cell phones, they - like many a journalist - couldn't fix a laptop stolen from a hostage.

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