Muslims urged to support autonomy law

China donates 4 small boats, grenade launchers

MANILA, July 29, (RTRS): Leaders of the Philippines’ mainstream separatist group on Sunday urged Muslims in the country’s south to support a new autonomy law designed to tackle extremism and defuse a half-century of conflict in a referendum later this year.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which signed a peace deal with the government four years ago, gathered tens of thousands of supporters from all over the southern province of Mindanao to its base to begin a massive campaign for the law’s approval.

President Rodrigo Duterte last signed the new autonomy legislation, called Bangsamoro Organic Law, allowing selfrule for Muslims in 2022, hoping to end a conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people and displaced 2 million.

“Our real journey towards self-determination is just starting,” Mohagher Iqbal, the rebel group’s chief negotiator, told Reuters by telephone, saying there are still challenges ahead that could stop the implementation of the law.

Speaking earlier to thousands of supporters, including women and children, he asked them to vote for the approval of the law expanding the territories covered by the Muslim autonomous area in the south, although he warned of some potential obstacles.

“We still don’t know if there are groups or individuals who will question the new autonomy law before the Supreme Court,” he told a cheering crowd in a speech livestreamed on social media. Supporters chanted “Allahu Akbar” and “Yes to BOL” in the rebel camp in the middle of coconut and banana groves.

In 2008, close to a million people were displaced in central Mindanao region when violence erupted after the Supreme Court cancelled a deal on ancestral domain with the MILF. A small but more radical splinter rebel group has since emerged, and has aligned with pro-Islamic State militant forces.

MILF leaders said they are trying to avoid a similar episode that could lead to extremist groups taking hold in the south. The rebel group is expected to dominate the 80-member Bangsamoro transition government that will be formed after the referendum. The Bangsamoro area includes part of the Philippines’ secondlargest island of Mindanao, and a chain of dozens of small islands to the west notorious for piracy and banditry.

An estimated five million Muslims live in the region, which has the predominantly Catholic nation’s lowest levels of employment, income, education and economic development.

The United Nations, European Union, United States and Japan welcomed the passing of the new autonomy law, hoping for an end to violence and a start to the region’s economic reconstruction.

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China has donated four 12-metre-long boats and 30 rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers to the Philippines, continuing the closer relations between the two countries under President Rodrigo Duterte.

The donation, which follows the provision last year of about 6,000 assault rifles and hundreds of sniper rifles, also included small arms and ammunition, said Navy spokesman Commander Jonathan Zata.

“They are brand new equipment,” he told reporters, adding the military was assessing how to integrate the material and provide long term logistical support.

The Chinese rifles went to the Philippine National Police (PNP), helping to fill a shortfall after US legislators blocked the sale of about 26,000 M4 rifles to the police in 2016. The freeze on the sale came amid concerns about the United States arming a police force accused of widespread human rights abuses during Duterte’s fierce war on drugs, which has killed thousands of Filipinos.

Duterte, who has been critical of the Philippines alliance with the United States, is eager to develop closer trade and political ties with old foe China.

China’s donation is part of a new wave of diplomacy to engage a country with which Beijing has a bitter history of territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Beijing’s donations so far remain small compared with arms transfers from the United States, a defence treaty ally with the Philippines since the 1950s. Washington has in the past five years provided 15 billion peso ($282 million) of military aid, including drones, ships, surveillance planes and assault rifles.

Washington and Manila have for decades held joint exercises, as many as 300 a year, and the programmes remain intact despite repeated threats last year by Duterte to cancel them and abrogate bilateral defence pacts.