Can Gloria do a Mahinda Rajapaksa?
May 21st, 2009 by blackshamaThe defeat and destruction of the Tamil Tigers should interest students of insurgency. The Sri Lankan Armed Forces under the command of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has achieved in 26 years a total defeat of the Tamil insurgency with the death of its top leaders. The question is whether the Republic of the Philippines under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can do the same thing.
Successive Sri Lankan and Philippine presidents have publicly declared total defeat of their respective insurgencies. The Philippine insurgencies are somewhat similar to the Sri Lankan one with ethnic and religious minorities taking armed action against perceived discrimination and central government neglect. The Moro insurgency in the Philippines took somewhat a conventional start and as the conflict became more protracted, took a guerilla approach. The Tamil insurgency took a largely conventional route.
The NPA right from the start took a guerilla approach under Jose Maria Sison’s idea of insurgency. However the NPA has not been defeated and it is highly unlikely that Sison’s ideas of Maoist revolution will ever succeed. Maoism is too foreign to the masses.
Al Qaeda is largely responsible for turning off the tap of foreign money coming into these insurgencies. The Tigers, CPP-NPA, Abu Sayaff and MILF are considred Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the USA and the EU. With China showing the ultimate form of Maoism (Capitalism) and Joma Sison can’t accept this, the NPA’s China cash dried up. Similarly the Moro insurgencies suffered a drying up of contributions from Libya and other Arab states. In the Tamil Tigers’ case, expatriate contributions (mainly from Europe and the USA) from Tamils were severely constrained.
All these insurgencies had to live on forms of extortion.
Unlike the Joma Sison’s CPP-NPA and Hashim Salamat’s MILF, the Tigers really held large swaths of territory and established a de facto state with a three service armed forces. Thus the Tigers became a conventional force and were able to mount devastating attacks on Colombo.
This is where the Sri Lankan Army counterattacked. With the drying up of financial contributions and interdiction of arms shipments, the Tigers lost capability. In the end the insurgency was defeated. Successive proposals for a political settlement were rebuffed on either side. Thus when the army saw the opportunity for the kill, it went for it.
However can the AFP do the same thing? The NPA , Abu Sayyaf and MILF insurgencies don’t use conventional tactics and operate independently in each island. The archipelagic nature of the country may necessitate different tactics.
Now the Sri Lankan armed forces blockaded the northern coast and sank gunrunners. This proved successful to the extent that at the last battle the Tigers were trapped by a lagoon.
Can we blockade entire provinces and islands in order to starve insurgents and go for the kill? Does Gloria have the stomach for it? Should we continue to negotiate for a political settlement? The defeat of the Tamil insurgency should be an eye-opener for our defence establishment.
One thing that differentiates the CPP-NPA and the Tamil Tigers is that the Tigers’ leaders were in their territory until their defeat while the CPP’s leader is in Utrecht. Now what do you do with exiles?
May 21, 2009 at 11:16 pm
RP, in my opinion, with enough political will, can do as SL did.
But RP insurgent are tougher than the Tigers. RP is geopolitically more important than SL, so foreign players have made themselves involved especially in mindanao insurgency. many have assisted Moro insurgents.
May 21, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Insurgencies will always be with us. As long as people will fight
and kill each other because of Differences of Opinions. Gloria, or
the Sri Lankan government may declare victory. However, inssurgencies
will come back to life. If they do not address well the grievances of their people.
We have been in many insurgencies in our history. Unless, we learn to live together in peace. Accept our differences. Then, we dont need insurgencies…
May 21, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Blackshama, i’ll try Hindi Madapaka!
May 21, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Abrogate VFA with US. Instead,
1. Rent the Sri Lankan army (their economy is in bad shape, so they need OCW remittances).
2. Hire KGB instead of CIA to do foreign “intelligence” on exiles (low cost, no high tech gadgets but a Bulgarian umbrella or the Yushenko expresso will do the job.)
May 22, 2009 at 12:08 am
Military solution to a socio-economic problem has been tried in Mindanao all over again. As it has been in Iraq, by the world’s strongest military power and yet the body bags just kept piling.
A new approach was tried – and thus far, discussions are now about withdrawal dates – something totally unheard of in the peak of the operations.
Learning from Iraq: Straight from Petraeus Mouth
A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.
We will double the number of provincial reconstruction teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen the moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance.
As citizens feel safer, conditions will be set for the resumption and improvement of basic services. This is hugely important. Indeed, Iraqis have often ranked the provision of services ahead of security in importance. And it is vital that the ministry representatives in the neighborhoods are able to provide for their constituents. Also, as security improves, commerce will return and local economies will grow, thereby providing an opportunity for the energies of a resilient and talented people to be expended in increasingly productive endeavors.
Each step in this process helps reinforce the desired momentum, and over time, the government and its ministries will be able to gain the population’s confidence and support by demonstrating the capability to deliver.
any student of history recognizes that there is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq. Military action is necessary to help improve security, for all the reasons that I stated in my remarks, but it is not sufficient.
A political resolution of various differences, of this legislation, of various senses that people do not have a stake in the success of the new Iraq, and so forth, that is crucial. That is what will determine in the long run the success of this effort. And again, that clearly has to include talking with and eventually reconciling differences with some of those who have felt that the new Iraq did not have a place for them, whereas I think, again, Prime Minister Maliki clearly believes that it does, and I think that his actions will demonstrate that, along with the other ministers.
A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.
We will double the number of provincial reconstruction teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen the moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance.
As citizens feel safer, conditions will be set for the resumption and improvement of basic services. This is hugely important. Indeed, Iraqis have often ranked the provision of services ahead of security in importance. And it is vital that the ministry representatives in the neighborhoods are able to provide for their constituents. Also, as security improves, commerce will return and local economies will grow, thereby providing an opportunity for the energies of a resilient and talented people to be expended in increasingly productive endeavors.
Each step in this process helps reinforce the desired momentum, and over time, the government and its ministries will be able to gain the population’s confidence and support by demonstrating the capability to deliver.
Learn the lessons, reap the dividend.
Miss the lesson, stay trapped in the moment.
May 22, 2009 at 12:45 am
BongV,
US objective in Irag done! Mission accomplished! Lesson learned good!
May 22, 2009 at 2:29 am
The US learned the lesson.
Will Pinoys learn anything from the US debacle in Iraq? Hmmm.
Seems like the only thing Pinoys wanna learn from the Iraq experience is to find out how get employed in a Muslim country while dissing Muslims in the Philippines. :lol:
or have april boy write a song. :lol:
May 22, 2009 at 6:49 am
blackshama,
Sri Lanka’s land mass is contiguous, ours isn’t.
Therein lies a significant difference along with quite other core problems facing Gloria in her final 11 months in office.
It’s not ending the multiple insurgencies that’s her GOAL.
It’s about staying in power beyond 2010 via Cha-Cha and avoiding prosecution for her high crimes.
May 22, 2009 at 10:18 am
That means perpetual insurgency!
May 22, 2009 at 10:43 am
MACLIING DULAG’S WARDING-OFF SPEECH
If Kabunian gave you a land of milk and honey
and ordered you to take care of it for posterity
What will you do if intruders want to take
it away?
I imagine that you will fight
For they who do not are ungrateful to
Kabunian; they value not His gift
They ignore his command to defend the land
in the name coming generation thousands of years from now
They who do not, spit on the graves of their ancestors
who preserved the land for them
For land is life
For life is the land
If you were in our place
You will fight
You will fire your guns as we raise our spears
You will probably pay your way to the justice system
that does not understand our ways
For that is what you did to grab the lands of people
Like us on the other side of the mountain
So do not be stubborn in your ignorance of
Why we refuse to vacate the land which had
always been our home
We are the Palestinians in Palestine
The Lumads in Mindanao
The Mangyans in Mindoro
We are the Martians in Mars
Go away. Let our people sleep in peace
Tonight. And the night after.
(Macliing Dulag was the indigenous hero who led the opposition against the establishment of the Chico River Dam in the Cordillera, Philippines- a project conceived without the knowledge of the affected indigenous peoples. He was killed by the military on 24 April 1984.)
May 22, 2009 at 12:02 pm
There are historical instances where governments do wage war against their own sovereigns, tragic as it may be.
May 22, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Ding, in this case – the Igorots, Lumads, Moro nations have existed long before there was any Philippines.
And this babe-in-the-woods Philippines has the gall to “assimilate” a first nation.
May 23, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Ilocanos have more right to be sovereign. Viva Ilocostan!
May 22, 2009 at 1:35 pm
“The Tigers, CPP-NPA, Abu Sayaff and MILF are considred Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the USA and the EU.”
False: see US State Department list of FTO at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/82738.htm and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamist_terrorism no MILF in there.
“Similarly the Moro insurgencies suffered a drying up of contributions from Libya and other Arab states.”
May it be known that the Moro struggle, though it may welcome one, but does not and never depends upon foreign support; it is not a sponsored rebellion of Arab or any nations; nor can it be compared to those US backed up insurgencies around the world just to overthrow a legitimate people’s government. It is but the struggle of the Moro people themselves against any colonizers that dates back even prior to the formation of the Philippine State in 1898 or 1946. That way, so it has survived to the present.
Let it be known too that whatever the policy of the Philippine Government in Mindanao will be – be it PEACE or WAR, the Bangsamoro welcomes whichever with open arms.
May 22, 2009 at 2:40 pm
“Welcome”, said the spider to the fly.
May 23, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Try to get the Bangsamoro Airforce out of the ground and I will believe you!
May 23, 2009 at 11:49 pm
what for ?
you can take down PAF hueys with concentrated gunfire or a SAM :lol:
May 23, 2009 at 5:52 am
Bong,
Have the hands of time either stopped or ever been turned counter-clockwise?
The Native Americans’ experience during the ‘taming of the Wild, Wild West’ was what gave birtH to the proposed implementation in Mindanao of the first nation premise.
If you read back here at FV, it was the US Institute for Peace (USIP) which attempted to insert that formula in the debacle that was the unconstitutional MoA-AD.
That aborted high crime of carving out a sovereign Moro enclave down South will go down in contemporary Philippine history as a naked attempt to dismember the Republic.
May 23, 2009 at 6:23 am
Bert:
History is not on the side of the Philippine Republic on this one.
In the first place, the territories claimed by the Republic were territories that never belonged to the Spaniards, who in turn gave a piece of real estate that was not theirs to give.
For short, the territory, based on historical facts, was never a part of the “Philippines” and the inhabitants of the territories were never Filipinos as far as they are concerned.
May 23, 2009 at 12:58 pm
BongV,
I will repeat Ding’s mentioned of turning back the time. If we turn back the time we will find that RP is not RP but a nameless land, and the people not the Filipinos but the lumads and the Macliing Dulags as you have said.
Following your logic therefore, you are saying that the Filipinos are squatting on the land of the Lumads and the Macliing and so must relinquish the right to own and stay.
Is that what you want to do?
May 23, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Bert:
I think the territorial boundaries are quite well defined by history in the Treaty of Paris.
Ikaw pa nagnakaw ng lupa ikaw pa may ganang nagpupumilit na makisama sa you ang pinagnakawan mo? ano ba yan
May 23, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Manongs Bert and BongV,
Between you two there is really no argument.
The Treaty Of Paris does define the Philippines’ territory.
The matter of the islands and internal waters within our international treaty limits being sectioned off by insurgencies such as the secessionist or Moro homeland-seeking entities under the US-proposed application of the First Nation concept (in the scuttled MoA-AD) where there will be a sovereign within a sovereign is an extra-constitutional construct that has been pronounced as such by the SCORP.
May 23, 2009 at 11:55 pm
there is always the charter change option of redefining the territories – singapore and malaysia used to be under the malaya federation – they are now both independent of each other and cooperate in the ASEAN as well.
same for Czechoslovakia.
In the treaty of Paris, Spain can turn over only those territories over which it exercises sovereignty. In the 300 years of the Spanish colonial period – the indio territories were under Spanish sovereignty. The Moro and the Igorot territories remained independent of Spain.
No one’s asking for the indio territory which was under Spanish sovereignty.
What’s being asked for is to right a historical wrong – the Moro territory was never under Spanish territory, thus Spain did not have any right to give away territory over which it had no sovereignty. In modern day terms, that is FRAUD.
May 25, 2009 at 11:33 am
And the Philippine government, heir to that FRAUD, wishes foolishly to perpetuate such FRAUD.