A STATEMENT OF INITIATIVES FOR PEACE IN MINDANAO

We, organized peoples of Mindanao, declare our firm commitment to resist the hegemonic designs of the US Empire in our island, this Land of Promise.

We are valiant peoples with a colorful history of solidarity and struggle against exploitation and oppression. Four hundred years of colonization and conquest have strengthened, empowered, and emboldened us to further advance our common desire to attain a just peace in Mindanao and the Philippines.

Mindanao is rich. Its land teems with rich natural resources such as food crops, mineral reserves such as gold, natural gas and deuterium. But Mindanao’s peoples are poor. More than 60% of its people live in poverty-the highest incidence of poverty and hunger in the Philippines.

Today, 75 people from 16 countries of the world representing Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and indigenous traditions and other peace-loving convictions have gathered in Mindanao under the theme “Sowing Seeds of Peace in the Era of Empire: Christians in Solidarity with Muslims” to raise a unified voice against the Empire. Mindanao is one of the many playing fields of the Empire as it manifests in today’s US War on Terrorism and globalized plunder. Peace-loving peoples from around the world have registered their solidarity with the peoples of Mindanao.

For 3 centuries, the Moro and Lumad peoples of Mindanao successfully resisted subjugation to the Spanish crown. US colonization of the Philippines brought a combination of schemes of cooptation, pacification, brutal military campaigns and a “scorched earth” policy to seize Moro and Lumad lands, spawning the massacres of Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak that still rest heavily in the hearts of the Bangsamoro people.

Since the declaration of the Philippines as the “Second Front” in the War on Terrorism, the US has re-vitalized its Empire-building project in Mindanao. Since early 2002, Mindanao has been the site of a series of joint military training exercises between the US and Philippine militaries called Balikatan.

Conducted initially in the name of counter-terrorism to wipe out the Abu Sayaff Group, these exercises are now admittedly conducted as counter-insurgency trainings. These counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency exercises are a violation of the Philippine Constitution and the national sovereignty of the Philippines, and border on being “provocation exercises”– generating hostilities and intensifying internal conflicts. Civilians have already become victims of injury and human rights violations.

The Abu Sayaff Group has provided a convenient excuse to the US and the Philippine governments to demonize Islam as a religion that breeds terrorism and fundamentalism, in an effort to undermine the legitimacy of the Bangsamoro people’s right to self-determination. Yet, the US and Philippine governments have not fully extricated themselves from allegations of CIA tutelage of and AFP connivance with the Abu Sayaff.

The War on Terrorism has provided a framework which has enabled the US government to pursue its geo-political interests in the region more vigorously. A permanent presence of US military personnel, in coordination with agreements such as the 2002 Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, has laid the foundation for a return of US military bases. A runway in General Santos City built by US Army engineers is a clear indication of US’ intent to re-make the Philippines as a staging ground in East Asia, Near Malaysia in the South China Sea, Mindanao provides access to the Malacca Straight—a contended trade route between the West and Southeast Asia.

US military presence in the island also secures US economic interest in Mindanao’s rich natural resources. US economicplanning agencies have identified key investment areas in Mindanao, including the natural gas reserves of the Moro-dominated Liguasan Marsh, the vast gold deposits in various mountain ranges, and the potentialities of deuterium, the “fuel of the future” found in the Philippine Trench off the coast of Surigao. In addition, the agri-business plantations pioneered by Dole and Del Monte in the early 1900s are rapidly expanding in Mindanao, swallowing up vital agricultural lands where feudalism remains a persistent problem. The export-oriented, import-dependent agrarian economy of Mindanao created under colonialism and aggravated under globalization leads to further maldevelopment in order to maintain Mindanao as a cheap source of raw materials and labor for the US economic empire, and a market for its consumer goods.

The Philippine Government has served as the most loyal and staunchest supporter of US hegemonic objectives. It has fully implemented the policies of imperialist globalization, even accelerating the timelines set by the World Trade Organization. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo offered her full support to the US War on Terror, and has evoked anti-Muslim paranoia by profiling Muslims as terrorists and subjecting them to illegal arrests, detention, and searches. As a result, Mindanao’s peoples have sunk deeper into poverty and war.

Aided by warhawks in her cabinet, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has adopted her predecessor’s All-Out War policy against the Moro people and the broader national liberation movement, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians in bombing campaigns. The Philippines’ armed forces have been accused of state terrorism, including masterminding the deadly bombings of the Davao airport and wharf. Coming from junior military officers disgruntled by corruption and fascism in a supposedly professional armed services, these allegations explicitly state that the “terrorist” bombings in Mindanao were planned by the government in order to pave way for US military aid to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and to create an atmosphere of fear to justify Draconian measures against the people.

Mindanao is once more a flashpoint in this era of the US Empire. It continues to be a bleeding land, a grave departure from being a land promising abundance and opportunities for the Bangsamoro, Lumads, and marginalized peasants and basic sectors.

The peoples of Mindanao stand in solidarity with the peoples of the world in resisting the Empire, as the peoples of the world stand in solidarity with us. As we fight to cut the tentacles of Empire in Mindanao, we contribute to the struggle of all peoples resisting the Empire in other parts of the world.

INPEACE Mindanao enjoins the international community of peace and social justice advocates to help sustain our regional fight against the US Empire through action-oriented solidarity.

We call for continuing support for fact-finding missions into human rights violations and state-sponsored terrorism. We call for support to an envisioned International People’s Tribunal on State-sponsored Terrorism in Mindanao. We call on international human rights bodies to investigate human rights violations in Mindanao and the genocidal war against the Bangsamoro people. We call for international solidarity to support the Bangsamoro peoples right to self-determination. The same international solidarity is called to support the indigenous peoples campaign to end Ethnocide.

As long as we are kept on the leash of the US Empire in connivance with the Philippine government, Mindanao can not truly become the “Land of Promise” to its peoples.