EDITORIAL - Brothers in arms?

Fighting erupted yesterday morning in Maguindanao between Army soldiers and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, according to reports. BIFF commanders later crowed that they hit an Army tank using a 90mm recoilless rifle they had seized from police Special Action Force commandos during the Jan. 25 raid in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

That clash, which left 44 SAF commandos dead, raised questions on the true nature of the ties between the BIFF and Moro Islamic Liberation Front, whose members attacked the police raiders out to capture top Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists Zulkifli bin Hir or Marwan and his Filipino cohort Basit Usman. The MILF has always claimed that the BIFF is a splinter group whose members, in opposing the peace process, continue to stage violent attacks in Mindanao.

The Mamasapano incident, however, showed the MILF and BIFF joining forces, like brothers in arms, not only to drive away the SAF but also in butchering the commandos and then looting the corpses. The first wave of raiders managed to kill Marwan but failed to retrieve his body, and instead made do with running off with a severed finger for positive identification.

To this day the remains of the slain fugitive remain hidden by those who slaughtered the SAF 44 to protect him from capture. The military, accused by police officials of deliberately withholding reinforcements that could have saved the SAF 44 from the slaughter, now claims to be fighting the BIFF with assistance from the MILF. The Moro National Liberation Front, from which the MILF also broke away during the original peace negotiations, dismissed the reported ongoing clashes in Maguindanao as a farce; Filipinos call it a moro-moro.

Questions have persisted for many years about the true nature of the ties between the MILF and BIFF. Some quarters believe that like the Pentagon kidnapping gang in the past – widely believed to be the MILF’s fund-raising arm – the BIFF is being maintained by the MILF as its underground armed force, beyond the reach of the country’s laws, even as the MILF leadership commits to decommissioning. It will take more than acoustic warfare to dispel such doubts. Returning all the weapons and personal belongings looted from the SAF 44, including that 90mm antitank weapon, will help restore trust in a derailed peace process.