 |
| Ghazali Jaafar (left). Photo by Jolly Lais |
My name is Ghazali Jaafar, I am the Vice-Chairman for Political Affairs of the Central Committee of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The Central Committee is the highest governing body of the MILF.
We have organised into Provincial Committees the provinces of Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Basilan, Western Mindanao including Zamboanga City, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Sibugay, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur including Marawi City also including Pagadian City, Maguindanao, Cotabato City, North Cotabato including Kidapawan City, Sultan Kudarat Province including Tacurong City, South Cotabato including … Koronadal City, Sarangani including General Santos City, Davao del Sur including Digos City and Davao City, Davao [del Norte?] and Davao Orientale.
All in all we have more than 40 provincial committees because there are provinces which we divided into three provincial committees for purposes of efficient management of our government in those areas. Like Sulu; Basilan also. And the two Lanaos — Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte — we have 12 provincial committees in those areas. Also Maguindanao.
Under the provincial committees we have organised municipal committees … in other words we organised all the towns in the different provinces. Under the municipal committees, we organised barangay committees … Our committees are headed by chairmen and vice-chairmen and composed of 14 members: the Chairman, the Vice-Chairman and 12 sectoral representatives.
The sectoral representatives represent … the sectors of businessmen, fishermen, farmers, traditional leaders, women, youth and so on and so forth — all the sectors in each province, municipality and barangay.
So I can say, without fear of contradiction, that the MILF, at this point of time, is functioning parallel with the government of the Republic of the Philippines.
And on top of that we have our different standing committees in the Central Committee. We have our Propaganda Committee, Education Committee, Da‘wah Committee, Finance Committee, Intelligence Committee. Aside from these standing committees we have our consultative assembly we call this the Majlis Shura. This serves as a sort of consultant to the leadership of the MILF. We also have organised our justice committees, which manage our justice system based on Islam, and we name these committees Sharia, headed by the Supreme Sharia.
Although the MILF has not yet reached the stage of a de facto government, we can now manage the education of … the children of the Bangsamoro people, through our education committee, which is run by ulema [Islamic scholars] who graduated from different universities in the Middle East, such as Al-Azhar University.
Our late Chairman, Salamat Hashim graduated from Al-Azhar University together with many contemporaries now with the MILF.
Among the top MILF leaders: the one heading our Sharia court is a graduate of Al-Azhar University, the one heading our Education Committee is also a graduate of Al-Azhar University, the one heading our Da‘wah Committee is a graduate of a university in Saudi Arabia and the one heading our Finance Committee is the product of a famous university in Saudi Arabia.
We have engineers with us, doctors of medicine, doctors of education and, of course, we have many teachers with us.
Aside from these committees we also have a military organisation. We call this Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF).
BIAF is directly managed by a General Staff, which is headed by a Chief of Staff [who is] a member of the Central Committee himself …
The head of our Sharia is also a member of the Central Committee and the one heading the Consultative Assembly, which serves as the Legislative Assembly of the MILF, is also a member of the Central Committee. The reason is that in a struggle like ours there must be a unified military and political command. We can’t afford to split the command.
This is a mass organisation. We have several million Bangsamoro people who are members of the MILF or sympathisers. The MILF is, modesty aside, the most active and prominent mass-based organisation leading the struggle of the Bangsamoro people for self-determination.
This is the objective of the struggle of the Bangsamoro people which is being led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front — self-determination. We want to regain the right to govern ourselves in accordance with our way of life, being Muslims.
Do you know the history of the Bangsamoro people? We were, once upon a time, free people, prior to the coming of the Spaniards in 1521 led by Magellan.
The Bangsamoro people were free. They already had their own government: the sultanate form of government … When the Spaniards came purposely to colonise the area, our ancestors fought the Spaniards for more than 300 years and they did not surrender.
But we became victims of history because the Americans came and there was this Treaty of Paris where the Spaniards sold this country to the Americans for 50 million ducats. And they included in this sale our homeland, even though the Spaniards never [successfully] colonised us.
To be fair to our brother Filipino people, all the Filipino people in Luzon and Visayas were also once upon a time Bangsamoro. We are brothers because, before the coming of the Spaniards, Manila was ruled by a Muslim King, Raja Suleiman. Manila was a Muslim kingdom at the time. When the Spaniards came they fought but unfortunately for them, after 10 years they succumbed to the Spanish blades. So they became Christians, and later on became Filipino.
We, their brothers in the south of the Philippines, we remain Bangsamoro and remain Muslims.
That is why there is the struggle of the Bangsamoro people now, which started more than 40 years ago because we want to regain the right to govern ourselves in accordance with our own way of life.
By the way, this struggle is not against our Christian brothers. This struggle is purely to regain our legitimate right to govern ourselves. We do not even consider the Philippines government as our enemy because according to our principles our enemies are corruption and oppression.
In other words, whoever oppresses us became our enemy. So this is, more or less, the struggle of the Bangsamoro people.
Now we are presently involved in negotiations with the government of the republic of the Philippines for a possible peaceful but just solution for the conflict in Mindanao.
You ask how do we aim to achieve our objectives in the struggle. First we strengthen our Da‘wah. Da‘wah means educating the Bangsamoro people on their religion, Islam, so that they become good Muslims. They can individually become good Muslims, and their families become good Muslim families and eventually we can establish good Muslim communities all over Mindanao. That is one way of achieving our mission.
Number two is the struggle we are now waging. As far as the struggle is concerned, we give importance to the following:
• First, firm belief by individual members in the oneness of God. La ’ilaha ’illallah, Muhammad rasulu-llah — there is no god except Allah and Mohamed is his prophet. This is number one;
• Number two. That we recognize the importance of knowledge in our struggle. Knowledge on how to manage a government. Knowledge on how to manage our committees. Knowledge on all important aspects of life;
• Number three. We give importance to organisation. That is why we organise the Moro Islamic Liberation Front all over Mindanao;
• Number four. We give importance to Muslim members of the organisation. But, after having said that, this does not mean to say that non-Muslims cannot be members of the MILF. They can. As a matter of fact, we have many members who are not Muslims. Because they are Bangsamoros — native Bangsamoros — who are not Muslims, they are Christians. And we also have Filipino members who are Christians.
• Number five. Brotherhood, unity, solidarity and cooperation among and between members is very important to us. And we give importance to discipline. We also give importance to the firmness of the leadership of the organisation and to a correct political line of the organisation.
• Finally, we give importance to strength. The strength we refer to is spiritual and moral strength. We have a saying here that to be militarily defeated is a temporary defeat but to be morally defeated is a permanent defeat. Another strength we consider, of course, is material strength: weapons.
These are means with which we want to achieve our mission, our objectives in this struggle.
Question: Are current peace talks going helping you achieve your objectives?
Ghazali Jaafar: When I say we are fighting for self-determination, for us the meaning of self-determination is full independence or full autonomy. IN this case we agreed to negotiate with the government of the Republic of the Philippines for full autonomy, not independence. So that is the objective of the negotiations we are engaged in now with the government of the Republic of the Philippines meaning finding a peaceful, just and acceptable solution to the conflict in Mindanao which will address the issues of the Bangsamoro people.
Question: Where do the Indigenous (or Lumad) people fit into your struggle?
Ghazali Jaafar: Our definition of Bangsamoro people is those who are native inhabitants of Mindanao who have been living here since time immemorial or prior to the coming of the Spaniards, regardless whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims. They are Bangsamoro people. As for the Muslim Bangsamoro people we refer to them as Moro. The natives — the Lumads — are included in our definition of Bangsamoro people.
Question: There has been a big demographic change in Mindanao over the past 100 years from migration of people from Luzon and Visayas. How does that affect your struggle?
Ghazali Jaafar: Our position vis-a-vis the Filipino brothers coming from Luzon and Visayas is that we will welcome them to stay in our homeland and to live among us. They are our brothers, although they are Filipino. They are not our enemy. Before the coming of the Spaniards we were all Muslims, they only became Christians when the Spaniards came. So they are not our enemies. They are not a problem to us. As a matter of fact they are friends to us.
Many Moro, Muslim Bangsamoro, married Filipino women from Luzon and Visayas. As a matter of fact some of my nephews’ mother is a Filipino from Luzon, from Manila. As a matter of fact, my driver, who is a nephew, his mother is Filipino from Manila. They can stay with us. In the future, when we expect to sign a comprehensive compact … agreement with the government of the Republic of the Philippines, which will give us full autonomous government — a fully democratic autonomous government — where they will be free elections, and everyone who is qualified can run for political positions, including our brother Filipinos who are staying with us within the jurisdiction of a future Bangsamoro state.
Question: When you talk about full autonomy, how does that differ from the ARMM?
Ghazali Jaafar: The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao now is not acceptable to the greater majority of the Bangsamoro people. The reason is because this is not a real autonomy. As a matter of fact even Malacañang last month issued a statement, published in the national papers, admitting the failure of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. It’s a failure of government. It did not serve the Bangsamoro people. It did not change the conditions of the Bangsamoro people. Because ARMM is not acceptable to the greater majority of the Bangsamoro people is one of the reasons why the MILF, as a matter of policy, does not accept ARMM as a solution to the conflict in Mindanao.
Question: Does the MILF have any opinion on the debates on whether the ARMM elections should be postponed?
Ghazali Jaafar: Yes we have. We do not object to that, meaning although we do not participate in the political affairs of the ARMM or ARMM politics, we support the idea of postponing the ARMM elections, if only to give way to the ongoing peace process being undertaken by the government of the Republic of the Philippines and the MILF for the purpose of finding a peaceful and just solution to the problem.
Question: There appears to be a proliferation of armed groups in Mindanao, Moro and non-Moro. How has this affected your struggle?
Ghazali Jaafar: This is a problem for the government but it is not a problem for us, because as far as the MILF is concerned, the leadership is solid, there is only one MILF.
Regarding the Abu Sayyaf, this is not an organisation. It’s a group of people who have firearms of their own, and they do their own business maybe to serve their interests. But we don’t care about them and they don’t fight us.
With regards to the MNLF, they have already concluded an agreement, the so-called final peace agreement with the government. We did not interfere with this agreement but we did not join the GRP-MNLF agreement and the reason why we continue the negotiations with the government even if there is the final peace agreement with the MNLF and the government is because this final peace agreement with the MNLF and the government lacks so many things. So we are trying in our present negotiations with the government to overcome the shortcomings of the GRP-MNLF agreement.
God willing, inshallah, when we sign this comprehensive compact agreement with the government for the entire Bangsamoro people we will share with everyone including the MNLF. The role of the MILF is only to lead the Bangsamoro struggle. This does not mean that because we are leading the struggle that we will monopolise everything after signing the comprehensive compact agreement. We do not have that intention.
Question: What strategies do you have to deal with the economic disadvantage of the Bangsamoro people?
Ghazali Jaafar: In the proposed comprehensive compact agreement, the Bangsamoro people’s ownership of the wealth of the Bangsamoro homeland, above the soil and below the soil, all belongs to the Bangsamoro people. When we start exploiting the mineral and natural resources, our proposal is we give a certain percentage to the government. And, of course, the reason why we want to exploit that is in order for the betterment of our people who have been impoverished for so long and we want to improve their lives.
It goes with that proposal, the right of the Bangsamoro people to decide which multinational corporation, or any corporation, we want to operate our natural resources. We have many different mineral resources here: gold, copper, coal — so many. This place is very rich. That is why we want to establish here a righteous and God-fearing leadership. We believe in that way only can we improve our homeland and the lives of our people.
In other words, if we have in place God-fearing and righteous leadership there will be minimal corruption.
Question: What’s been the role of foreign companies in corruption and the impoverishment of Mindanao?
Ghazali Jaafar: The revenue from this mining does not go to the people or improvements. Corruption here is very rampant. The funds for building bridges and the construction of road networks are diverted to other purposes by the politicians. That is why when you go around you will see the appalling situation of the Bangsamoro people.
Question: Anything else?
Ghazali Jaafar: I’d like to thank you for coming here and talking to us. It is our hope that through you people of the world will understand the struggle of the Bangsamoro people for self-determination. We are a misunderstood people. In the history books we were as pirates. They called us pirates because during those times we were fighting in defence of our homeland, our ancestors had no recourse but to use the tactics available to them against the modern weapons of the Spaniards and the Americans. Remember the Spanish was a superpower of that time, just like the United States now.
We hope through this interview people and the international community will support us, even if only in their prayers. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment