Lumad killings and counterinsurgency

Today, September 21, we commemorate the anniversary of the Dictator Marcos’ declaration of martial law and say “Never again!”  This constitutes our collective denunciation of the evils spawned by 14 years of the brutally repressive, thieving and lying US-backed Marcos dictatorship. It is also a call to action to resist any attempts to re-impose martial rule under whatever guise and for whatever manufactured justification. 

Unfortunately, the underlying problems of Philippine society that have given rise to social unrest, armed conflicts and, eventually, to authoritarian rule, have not at all been decisively addressed.  One clear-cut sign is the blackened human rights record of all the supposedly democratic post-Marcos regimes that correlates with the series of counterinsurgency (COIN) programs that have failed to quell the communist-led New People’s Army (NPA).

Oplan Bantay Laya I and II, the Arroyo regime’s COIN programs, ran for nine years. Arroyo declared “total war” against the revolutionary forces; touted it as her regime’s contribution to the US-led “war against terror” after 9-11; sanctioned the Palparan model of unbridled state terror against those the regime painted as its “enemies”; and in the process racked up a bloody record of human rights violations that rivaled that of the open, fascist rule of Marcos. 

Bantay Laya’s hallmark was the policy and practice of targeting and “neutralizing” militarily unarmed civilians who are suspected to be key personalities in what the AFP calls the “political infrastructure” that needs to be dismantled in order to defeat the NPA.  At the barangay, town and provincial levels, the AFP “order of battle” was a veritable hit list against peasant and indigenous peoples’ leaders, trade unionists, student activists and human rights advocates including church people, health workers, lawyers and even local government officials deemed sympathetic to the NPA. 

The BS Aquino regime unveiled its own COIN program, Oplan Bayanihan, and dubbed it an “internal peace and security plan” (IPSP).  Patterned after the 2009 US Counter-Insurgency (COIN) Guide, Bayanihan boasted of a “paradigm shift”. Its objective -- “winning the peace” instead of just “defeating the enemy” -- implied that government would give primacy to socioeconomic development rather than military means to bring about peace in areas of armed conflict. 

But Aquino’s Oplan Bayanihan is just the new signboard of Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya.

Politically, it is more insidious in that the Aquino regime paints itself as the complete opposite of its discredited predecessor, the purported champion of government reform, economic development and peace and reconciliation.  Bayanihan is more deceptive in that it pretends to give importance to upholding human rights; highlights livelihood projects and rehabilitation of poverty-stricken, conflict-ridden areas; and drumbeats the objective of achieving a just and lasting peace. 

Bayanihan attempts to overcome the weaknesses of previous COIN programs that led to their failure but it cannot change the elitist, anti-people, militarist and rabidly anti-communist orientation of all COIN programs. Despite its peace and development rhetoric, Bayanihan reverts back to the basic COIN tandem of force and deception, implementing the Triad Operations concept of simultaneous conduct of combat, intelligence and civil-military operations. 

While there has been a relative decline in extrajudicial killings (EJKs) under Bayanihan compared to the peak years (2005-2006) under Bantay Laya, the number of EJKs, torture, illegal arrests and detention and mass civilian displacement is not insignificant.  To illustrate, according to human rights group, Karapatan, as of end year 2014, there were 229 EJKs, 225 attempted EJKs and 26 enforced disappearances.  For the first seven months of the current year, 58 have been killed.

What is noteworthy and at the same time alarming is that 73 of those killed under Aquino's watch are from indigenous peoples' (IP) communities, with 57 of them Lumad from Mindanao. Simply put, 1 out of 4 EJK victims is an IP, and 1 out of 5 is Lumad.

Clearly, this cannot be easily dismissed as a case of Lumad-vs-Lumad, or tribal wars, which the AFP would want us to believe. Organizing and arming home-grown mercenaries -- "civilian volunteer organizations" or CVOs in current COIN parlance -- as surrogate force multipliers is a counter-insurgency tactic as old as war itself, its whys-and-how-tos described in detail and constantly updated in US and AFP field manuals. Similarly selective assassination of unarmed local leaders to instill terror continues to be the favorite, if most effective, COIN psywar tool. As a US Army general infamously quipped during the Vietnam war, "Grab them by the balls, and the hearts and minds will follow."

Why the IPs and the Lumad in particular? The real reasons are not lost on the loved ones of the most recent Lumad EJK victims: "The people in power do not want the Lumad to prosper, to become educated so that they will further their capacity to protect their ancestral land. They do not want this to happen, because if this happens, their mining conglomerates will never be allowed," says Michelle Campos, daughter of Dionel Campos.

"He was a leader in our community... Is it a crime to serve our fellow people and to fight for our ancestral land? Is that really why they took his life so easily?” added Jocelyn Campos, wife of Dionel Campos.

According to Josie Samarca, wife of ALCADEV executive director Emerito "Emok" Samarca, "The school is strong, his leadership is strong, and it was strong against mining. He was defending the ancestral domain and the environment there because the land there is rich and fertile. They have interest in that land and that is why I think they really want to wipe out all those who oppose the foreign, the big mining companies..."

It all boils down to the US-backed Aquino regime continuing the policy of opening up Philippine patrimony to foreign capital, including environmentally destructive mining companies, and escalating the use of state forces -- the AFP, PNP, CAFGUs and other paramilitary forces -- to clear the area and  suppress all opposition to these foreign incursions.

Ironically to some, the Lumad who are still erroneously and chauvinistically perceived by many to be less educated, unsophisticated, and passively compliant, have long been awakened to this reality and are collectively rising to uphold and protect their rights.

Moreover, the Lumad, more than many still living relatively more comfortable lives in the cities, have realized that they can only be assured of preserving their individual and collective rights, their ancestral lands and indigenous culture, by joining the rest of the Filipino people's struggle for genuine freedom,  democracy, progress and peace.  #

Published in Business World
21 September 2015

Lumad in Mindanao under attack

James Cameron’s 2009 box office hit film “Avatar”, about an alien world where primitive but highly evolved inhabitants defend their habitat, moved audiences across the globe, including the Filipino urbanite audience.  We were enthralled by the lush and luminescent world of beings who end up waging a kind of asymmetrical warfare against ruthless interlopers out to plunder rare and costly minerals from their planet.  We cheered on these beings’ defense of their territory, and more importantly, of the life force that appears to be the embodiment of “Mother Nature”, as the triumph of good versus evil, of Nature over corporate greed, and of a united people over high-tech weaponry.

It is said that the film is a thinly-veiled tribute by the film maker to indigenous peoples of the Amazon who are resisting inroads by multinational corporations into their lands to exploit natural resources at the expense of the environment, the habitat of endangered flora and fauna, and the homes of vanishing native tribes.

Here in the Philippines, there are several Lumad  groups of Mindanao locked in similar life-and-death struggle against huge corporate mining interests (and other multinational corporations or MNCs bringing in so-called “development” programs to the Lumad’s ancestral lands).  The military and police in the name of counterinsurgency dubbed Oplan Bayanihan under the BS Aquino regime, provide armed security for these invading multinational corporations. Paramilitary groups under the control of the military act as “force multipliers”, or cheap, local reinforcements for the counterinsurgency campaigns.  In practice, these paramilitary groups are utilized for “dirty war” tactics such as extrajudicial killings and even massacres that the government can wash its hands off while it coddles the perpetrators.

The history of this struggle is soaked in blood yet is repeatedly whitewashed by government propaganda (most assiduously generated by the AFP and parroted automatically by Malacanang); ignored if not one-sidedly reported on by dominant mass media that relies heavily on government press releases; and blithely disregarded by the general public.

The most recent atrocity took place last September 1. Emerito Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Development, Inc. (ALCADEV) was killed by the military and government-backed indigenous paramilitary forces. His body was found lying in a pool of blood, with stab wounds on his neck, and his throat slit. Dionel Campos, chairperson of MAPASU (Persevering Struggle for Future Manobo Generations), and his cousin Aurelio “Bello” Sinzo were killed before the terrified community of Han-ayan, in Lianga town, Surigao del Sur. 

According to the human rights group, Karapatan, facts and circumstances so far gathered point to elements of the 36th IB-PA, elements of the 75th IB-PA and Special Forces of the Philippine Army; and elements of the paramilitary Magahat/Bagani Forces/Marcos Bocales Group as the perpetrators. 

Two days before the grisly murders, Magahat members were reported by witnesses to have burned down the school cooperative building.  They also threatened to massacre the entire community if they would not leave the area.  Military and paramilitary forces occupied the school and adjoining areas of the community.

The killings of Campos and Sinzo were carried out in broad daylight. ALCADEV’S executive director Samarca was found dead after being taken into custody by military and paramilitary men.  More than 300 families or 2000 individuals coming from the municipalities of San Miguel and Lianga have evacuated to Tandag City while scores more have sought sanctuary elsewhere.

Karapatan points out, “Since 2005, members of Mapasu and ALCADEV, who are active in the defense of Lumad ancestral lands against incursion by big business, have been victims of red tagging, trumped-up criminal charges, illegal arrests and detention, torture, and forced evacuation.  ALCADEV was established in July 19, 2004 as an alternative learning system especially designed to provide

secondary education to indigent indigenous youth -- the Manobo, Higaonon, Banwaon, Talaandig and Mamanwa – who live in the mountains of Surigao del Norte and Sur, Agusan del Norte and Sur. ALCADEV is born out of the joint effort of indigenous people’s organizations in the CARAGA region. MAPASU is a regional organization of indigenous peoples in Caraga and is well known for its strong stance against intrusion of mining companies into their communities.”

The recent killings are not isolated incidents.  Heightened attacks on Lumad communities especially on Lumad schools have been noted since last year.  The government has caused the disruption and even total closure of these schools by the military’s encampment on school grounds; orders from the Education Department for the schools to cease operation due to various pretexts; threats to and actual bodily harm inflicted on school officials, teachers, leaders of Lumad organizations as well as members of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines who provide invaluable support to the schools.

One must ask why the concentrated attack on Lumad schools and communities? The military is forthright.  They suspect these Lumad communities to be “infested” by the communist-led New People’s Army and the Lumad schools to be nothing but NPA “indoctrination” camps.  In truth, these Lumad communities have demonstrated their determination and capacity to fight for their ancestral domain and their distinctive way of life in defiance of government-backed corporations trying to grab their lands, plunder their resources, and exploit their people then leave them worse off than before.

Even assuming for the sake of argument that the Lumad communities concerned are sympathetic to the NPA who abound in the mountainous terrain that is their home and who may have taught them how to stand up for their rights, does this make them open season for human rights violations perpetrated with impunity?  Does this justify brazen acts of state terrorism by the Aquino regime to what amounts in practice as state-sponsored ethnic cleansing of these Lumad communities?

According to Anakbayan-USA,  “The spate of human rights violations, military operations on communities, and killings of community leaders are products of Aquino’s Oplan Bayanihan, wherein the Philippine military is serving as an ‘investment defense force’, or as a private military for large corporations.”  The group also pointed out the role of the U.S. government in aggravating the human rights situation in the Philippines.  “Oplan Bayanihan is patterned directly from the U.S. Counterinsurgency (COIN) Guide released in 2009. The U.S. has been complicit and has continued to condone these atrocities through its $50 million annual military aid to the Philippine military,”

The blood of these martyrs of the Lumad people’s struggle for self-determination cries out for justice.  Those of us who could sympathize with the heroic but fictitious alien defenders of “Mother Nature” and their sacred territory in the film “Avatar” need to open our eyes to the reality in our midst. Then let us ask ourselves,  “Whose side are we on this time?” #

Published in Business World
7 September 2015