Was Marwan’s death worth bargaining for Mindanao peace?

(First of two parts)

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Just before daybreak on Jan. 25 last year, police commandos killed Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, in his hut in Mamasapano, Maguindanao province— heartland of the once separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is engaged in a peace process with government.

But the conduct of the operation brought the troopers of the Special Action Force (SAF) of the Philippine National Police to a theater of battle where it engaged, on the one hand, members of the MILF breakaway group, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), and on the other, supposedly an already friendly Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF), the MILF’s armed wing.

The fighting left 44 SAF commandos, 17 MILF guerrillas and five civilians dead, and precipitated a national controversy that jeopardized almost two decades of efforts to secure the dawn of peace in Mindanao.

One year on, one key question remains unanswered: Was the death of Marwan—who commands a $5-million bounty from the US government—worth bargaining for the long-term peace of the region? The opinion of two conflict resolution and counterterrorism think tanks suggests that the trade-off was not necessary.

Earlier lessons on the use of peace process mechanisms to deal with terrorists in Mindanao could have been instructive for the operation in Mamasapano. And indications that Marwan wasn’t the big fish he was touted to be all the more raised concerns about its overall conduct.

Peace clock set back

The public’s appreciation of the cost of the tragic SAF operation was mainly focused on the death of the 44 troopers. A more serious and deeper fallout was setting back the timeframe for having the MILF end its rebellion and bringing its supporters—especially an estimated 12,000 combatants—to the country’s democratic fold.

Such process could have started with the enactment of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which seeks to address the Moro people’s aspiration for meaningful self-rule through a new autonomous entity with greater powers than the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

That aspiration spawned four decades of a separatist war that killed at least 120,000 people and pushed back progress in central and western Mindanao, in turn, breeding social and political discontent among the local population.

Establishing the Bangsamoro entity is a key measure to kick off the decommissioning of MILF combatants and their firearms, and its transition from an armed revolutionary organization to a social movement pursuing political goals through democratic means like the elections.

Instead of deliberating on the bill, Congress relegated the BBL to the sidelines and spent some three months of legislative time probing the incident.

When legislators tackled the BBL anew, “the hearings on the draft law were colored by the incident,” observed professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, chair of the government peace panel in negotiations with the MILF.

Davao del Norte Rep. Anthony del Rosario believes the Mamasapano incident changed the atmosphere in the House of Representatives with respect to the BBL. Members who do not even show up during the BBL hearings (and, hence, knew little about the measure) suddenly have qualms on a host of its provisions, he lamented.

Del Rosario credits President Aquino for standing pat on the measure and allowing it to remain in the legislative priority of Congress. But mounting public clamor gave reason for popularity-hungry politicians to take an adversarial position on the proposed law.

The nonenactment of the BBL is a lingering legacy of the tragedy.

‘Morophobia’

In the aftermath of the tragedy, civil society groups observed the shape-up of “Morophobia” and Islamophobia. Along with this was the seeming cry for blood—expressed through the social and mainstream media—supposedly to avenge the death of the government security forces.

This drew an imaginary line between Moros and non-Moros, or Muslims and non-Muslims, which threatened to reopen old wounds.

Trust on and the good faith of the MILF were also put into question.

And public approval of the peace process with Moro rebels suffered a big slack. A Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll commissioned by The Asia Foundation on March 2015 showed 45 percent saying that peaceful negotiations alone were the effective means of dealing with the MILF, down 17 percentage points from a year earlier, or just when the MILF and government forged a peace pact.

The number of people saying a military operation is the effective means rose from a mere 9 percent in March 2014 to 20 percent in March 2015, while those saying a combination of peace talks and military operation is effective rose from 29 percent to 35 percent.

These figures closely resemble those of a July 2000 SWS poll when government was concluding its all-out war against the MILF.

MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said last year was the most trying time for the peace process, even overshadowing the difficulties in 2008 after the botched Moro homeland deal. “The attacks [against the peace process] involved a plot to ignite Christian-Muslim discord … . And it appears well orchestrated and deep,” he told the Inquirer then.

The negative public sentiment it shaped gave space for an anti-BBL discourse to thrive until today.

Bypassed mechanism

The operation to take down Marwan was conducted outside the workings of the peace process mechanisms, particularly the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (Ahjag), which was designed “to isolate and interdict” criminals seeking refuge in rebel strongholds like Mamasapano.

The area in Barangay Tukanalipao where Marwan’s hut was located is identified as under the control of the BIFF, a breakaway faction unhappy at the MILF’s abandoning the separatist struggle. However, the BIFF enclave is practically surrounded by a major MILF stronghold known to ceasefire monitors as the “SPMS (Salbu, Pagatin, Mamasapano, Shariff Aguak) box.”

Had it been done through Ahjag, the MILF forces could have been alerted ahead of the entry of the SAF troops, and expected to give way to their carrying out the mission.

Then SAF commander Getulio Napeñas, who oversaw the operation, admitted to bypassing this mechanism as he was worried that any information leak could lead to Marwan’s escape. He attributed the failure of past operations to get Marwan to such predicament.

But the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (Ipac) has a different view.

“Even with rock-solid information about the Malaysian’s location, President Aquino, SAF members and others involved in the operation should have carefully considered the costs and benefits of going after him without informing the MILF…,” read the Ipac report, “Killing Marwan in Mindanao,” which was prepared more than a month after the Mamasapano tragedy.

“If he (Marwan) had escaped yet again, there would be another chance to capture him. It is not clear that there will be another chance for peace if this one collapses,” Ipac said.