The lay of the land: Viral violence and the threat of a wider war (April & May 2020)

Violent polarization on four fronts
To be sure, violent extremism has remained persistent within and outside its previous bases in Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao and in the island provinces of Sulu and Basilan. New alliances between extremist and rebel groups are also surfacing. In their midst, the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), dominated by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is imposing its mandate beyond the MILF’s traditional bases and boundaries and is trying to block resistance to its authority from local authorities. These accounts signify the intensification of polarization—the creation of poles or extremes—along multiple fissures or divides within state and society in the Bangsamoro. In the early part of the first half of 2020, boundaries were activated, walls were erected, and those who straddled the middle ground fled to either extremes.Polarization over land and other natural resource issues
The most recent and important sign of polarization of communities is seen around land and other natural resource issues, and their consequent impact on identity and political issues. Numerous land-related disputes have brought about or reinforced sharp divisions between identities and economic groups. First, there are longstanding disputes over land ownership and control in areas such as South Upi in Maguindanao, which have long been occupied by the mostly Teduray IP but are also claimed by Maguindanaon Muslims, in some instances backed by MILF allies. An explosion of violence involving these two groups occurred on May 29, leading to the forced evacuation of nearly a thousand Teduray families, and the onset of a shooting war that mimicked the armed conflict between the Christian and Moro paramilitary groups that squared off violently in the 1960s-70s.[2] The conflict continues over who eventually gets to control land being eyed by agribusiness and mining groups. The same conflict had happened in October 2019, sending hundreds of villagers fleeing from their villages. Second, there are violent struggles over land between MILF and MNLF commanders and between rival MILF groups, including their respective families and clans. While these flashpoints are ostensibly tied to land issues, it is important to remember that the vital access to the weapons, manpower, and other resources, plus these groups’ vertical connections, endow these actors with the ability to engage in long-term violence. Examples of the above are the armed conflicts between MILF and MNLF commanders that erupted in Pikit over several days in April and in Matalam on April 29, all in the province of North Cotabato; and in Sultan Kudarat on April 12 and in Guindulungan on May 14-15 in the province of Maguindanao. Another clash took place in the boundary between Pikit, North Cotabato and Pagalungan, Maguindanao from May 7 to 10.
Polarization between regional and local actors
The second clear manifestation of violent polarization is the widening collective and coordinated attacks between the forces loyal to the MILF and the MILF-led BTA versus the local strong(wo)men, clan bureaucrats, and legitimate local authorities elected and ensconced in local government units such as the case of Cotabato City. The assassination on May 25 of the Cotabato City mayor’s executive secretary, Aniceto ‘Boy’ Rasalan, is only the most recent flashpoint in a chain of retaliatory attacks between the various warlord politicians and clans, and some MILF officials appointed to positions in the BTA and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), and the local clan and political alliance that governs the city. Violent struggles between the two forces had intensified during the major political battles of 2019 and in early 2020, particularly the January 2019 plebiscite on the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), the May 2019 local elections, and the implementation of the Cotabato City lockdown. At the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, reports of Cotabato City officials blocking the entry of relief supplies coming from the BTA-BARMM and the establishment of checkpoints and other barriers that did not allow the quick and smooth entry and exit of BTA and BARMM leaders and personnel from the city pushed the formal relationship between the regional authority and the city mayor’s office to the edge. Several tense occasions in checkpoints and adjacent areas where firefights nearly erupted were monitored and recorded. Palace efforts to secure a political settlement between the city and the regional authority were spurned by the latter. The Rasalan assassination is expected to lead to reciprocal attacks and further polarize the citizens of Cotabato City and the wider Maguindanao province. It underscores the unfinished and violent contestation for power between the key leaders of the Bangsamoro regional authority and its political allies against the fiercely independent mayor of Cotabato City.Ideological and religious polarization
The third trigger of polarization is the widening ideological and religious fissures within Bangsamoro society that is manifested in the emergence of new conflict actors upholding an extremely violent and extremist version of Islam. Towards the end of 2019, a clash between the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and a joint military-MILF group erupted in the infamous town of Mamasapano and lasted more than a week.[3] The BIFF had attacked a military outpost in Barangay Tukanalipao. It took close to two weeks to recapture the area, and 14,000 people were reported displaced. Early this year, we saw the renewed presence of ISIS-affiliated groups in their previous holdouts in Lanao del Sur, and a general resurgence of violence coming from the separate yet coordinated actions of the ISIS/Maute in the Lanao provinces, the BIFF in Maguindanao and North Cotabato, and the Abu Sayyaf Group in Sulu and Basilan, possibly indicating the onset of a second wave of attacks after the Marawi siege of 2017. Numerous sightings of ISIS groups in Lanao del Sur, Sulu, and the SPMS Box in Maguindanao have been reported in previous CEMS Bulletins, including close to a hundred accounts of violent extremist actions registered in the first half of 2020 alone.
Polarization from hard approach and lockdown
Finally, the fourth trigger of polarization is the mailed-fist approach used during the pandemic with its consequent lockdown effects on local communities and local economies, and the possibility of opportunistic attacks against clans made vulnerable by the pandemic. In the previous bulletin, Alert focused the spotlight on a few critical events that foment tensions and pressures that induce violent conflict. The first relates to corruption and exclusion in the provision of medical supplies, access to diagnostic tests, and medical treatments. Even the provisioning of basic health services has led to perceptions that have ignited cases of violence. The second relates to the proxy war between the IP groups in Mindanao. There are reports of the military and certain state agencies favoring certain IP groups in the distribution of health services and relief. This practice was also a feature of civil wars in other countries where rulers encouraged their own ethnic militias to prey on weaker groups during a humanitarian crisis. Close monitoring of the deployment and distribution of medical relief is needed to dampen these fears. The most critical evidence of looming conflict is the increase in the purchase of small arms and light weapons across the region, but particularly in the ‘Iranun corridor’ towns of Barira, Buldon, Matanog, and Parang in northern Maguindanao. This happened during the pandemic and the holy month of Ramadhan and in many cases were enabled by the access to subsidies targeted for food and medical support during the public health emergency that were rechanneled to purchase ammunition. Two reasons were given for the robust trade in weapons and ammunition: one, the generalized fear and anxiety that people felt due to the uncertainty and insecurity of jobs and livelihoods and the decline in the economy; and two, the anxiety over unresolved clan feuds that could intensify in the post-pandemic period and lead to opportunistic attacks against those clans severely affected by the public health crisis.Analysis and conclusions
The confluence of an ongoing Bangsamoro transition and a major public health crisis, plus their negative effects on the economy, is widening the gap between the ‘strong and the stable’ versus the ‘weak and vulnerable’ families and clans in the Bangsamoro. This is causing a strain on alliances and an opportunity to shift the balance of power and authority at various levels. At the higher level, the BARMM regional authority is trying its utmost to consolidate power and assert control over local executives and local governments, and at the lower level, some MILF commanders and combatants are seizing the opportunity of their ‘normalizing’ or the ‘soon-to-be-decommissioned’ status to settle scores with IPs and other rivals they faced in longstanding land conflicts. These trends do not bode well for prospects of an early end to the long drawn-out conflict between warring clans and warring fronts, between the newly established regional authority and resistant local government authorities, between government forces and violent extremists and criminal groups, and between local states stoking new ‘geographic identities’ as they fought over access and control over vital resources at the height of the pandemic. As the evidence suggests, the primary cause of violent polarization is the issue of land and natural resources across the Bangsamoro. The increase in land-related conflicts is occasioned by longstanding disputes over the ownership and control of ancestral lands. However, the trigger of violent clan feuding is the entry of investments (agribusiness and mining) and development inputs (irrigation) in these landholdings.
[1] Conflict Alert annual reports from 2013-2019 show the temporal nature of violent conflict and the regular spikes in violence during Ramadhan that were often linked to clan feuding, and more recently, to violent extremism. [2] The Ilaga was a paramilitary group in the 1960s and 1970s that consisted mainly of Christian settlers and their allied indigenous peoples groups (e.g., Teduray) who fought against the Moro tribes and their armed fronts usually on the issue of land. In turn, the Moro groups had their own paramilitary groups called the Blackshirts and the Barracudas. [3] Mamasapano was the site of the tragic massacre of 44 police commandoes in January 2015. [4] There are tensions and pressures in the case of Sulu that voted against inclusion in the BARMM, and among many Maranao strongmen, bureaucrats, and civil society leaders who believe that the MILF has cornered the resources and power of the BTA and has generally excluded other ethnic groups.