UK envoy warns unresolved peace deal in Mindanao may invite radicalism

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 18): UK envoy warns unresolved peace deal in Mindanao may invite radicalism

Britain’s top diplomat to Manila on Monday warned that people may be encouraged to look for “alternatives” if no peace would come to Mindanao as a legislation that will enforce the signed peace pact between the government and Muslim rebels remains stalled in Congress.

“If the situation in the south does not change and we have another decade that is lost in the process of negotiation with nothing coming out, one can’t rule out the fact that people would look for alternatives, particularly those who are exposed to social media, who have abilities to interact with other students and those who have freedom of traveling and going to some of these places of radicalization,” Asif Anwar Ahmad told journalists at a reception he hosted at his residence.

Britain is a key adviser to the Mindanao peace process and Ahmad’s statements highlight his country’s concerns for the much-delayed passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in Congress.

BBL, a proposed legislation that will establish a more powerful autonomous region for minority Muslims in Southern Philippines under the historic peace deal that was signed in March 2014, was stalled in 2015 when some fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) got involved in a firefight with elite Philippine National Police (PNP) commandos hunting down Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, in Mamasapano town, Maguindanao.

Marwan was killed in the operation, but as the police pulled out, an encounter with the Muslim rebels erupted, killing 44 members of the PNP Special Action Force. Their deaths stirred public outrage and prompted several lawmakers to withdraw support for the bill.

Philippine officials raised concerns that the delay in the full implementation of the peace deal may resume armed hostilities with the rebels in Southern Mindanao, where the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, which is on the United States’ list of terrorist groups and notorious for kidnap for ransom activities, abduction of foreigners and beheading its hostages, is also based.

Moreover, Ahmad said the threat of the radical Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, coming to the Philippines is not far-fetched and this was conveyed by British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond in his official visit to the country early this month when he met with Philippine counterpart Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario.

“The theme that our Foreign Secretary has raised very very strongly over here is that there is a danger of Southeast Asia as a whole, the Philippines in particular, thinking that the rise of ISIL and extremism is something that is far away from here. It is not. Last week we saw what happened to Indonesia,” he said.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for last week’s deadly Jakarta attack on a popular coffee shop in the city center that killed two civilians and injured more than a dozen.

“ISIL is not some sort of multinational corporation that needs to have subsidiaries or corporations,” Ahmad explained. “The way they have spread themselves is through people aspiring to the ideology or people imitating what they have.”

President Benigno Aquino III is hoping that the full implementation of the peace accord with the MILF would be among the legacies of his presidency before he steps down in June 2016.

The more than four decades of Muslim rebellion has claimed at least 150,000 lives, displaced thousands and blocked economic progress to a number of areas in Mindanao.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=&sid=&nid=&rid=847860