BARMM, China, and conflict

For two days last month, I was in a different world, a world I had left behind as my journalistic instincts took me to other places. I participated in an international conference on peace processes organized by the Institute for Autonomy and Governance,  a policy center born in Cotabato City 20 years ago.

In a Makati hotel, more than 200 peacemakers, former rebels and ex-combatants, activists, academics, and researchers from different countries met to share experiences and learn lessons from peace processes such as the Philippines’ Bangsamoro, Indonesia’s Aceh, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville.

I met peace advocates who have been tirelessly working on the Bangsamoro peace process for decades and continue to be hopeful. I reconnected with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) vice chair Mohagher Iqbal whom I used to interview in his rebel lair and with whom I had frequent conversations. Now in his late ’70s, his writing was a bit shaky as I asked him to jot down his mobile number. But his mind remains sharp.

It was in the 1980s till the 1990s when Mindanao pulled me to its plains and mountains as I reported on the conflict from the camps of both the rebel groups, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the MILF.

This culminated in a book I co-wrote with Glenda Gloria, “Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao,” published in 2000.

Long process

One common theme that I took away from the conference was this: A peace agreement is not an event. It is a process, a continuing negotiation — and this can take a long time, through changes in national leadership, through turbulent political storms.

In the case of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the situation is fraught, with the much awaited first parliamentary elections in limbo, the simmering tension in a divided MILF, and a growing distrust of government.

A lot has happened since our book was published, not only in Mindanao but elsewhere in the world:  geopolitical shifts that have made conflict prevention more difficult.

Intense power competition

A highlight of the conference was the keynote speech of Comfort Ero, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG)  which, for the past 30 years, has been trying to prevent and mitigate conflict. As Ero zoomed out to the world out there, transporting us to the Middle East, Africa and Europe, Mindanao became a speck in a vast horizon. Various conflicts flared, over 65 as tracked by the ICG. 

A number of factors have caused this, according to Ero:

• Intense power competition has eroded the rule of law with external powers meddling in conflict. President Trump and his quick fixes, vague specifics, and transactional deals exacerbate the situation.
• The middle powers are gaining relevance, asserting themselves, using their entrepreneurial powers in transactional deal-making.
• A multilateral malaise is afflicting the United Nations and other bodies leaving the world of mediation in the worst situation seen in 30 years. The UN Security Council is deeply divided, unable to reach a consensus on major conflicts.

For Sidney Jones, an expert on conflict resolution in Southeast Asia, a huge geopolitical dynamic that is affecting peace processes in the world is “democratic backsliding.” She said: “Authoritarians don’t like autonomy, they like control.”

Trump, an autocrat, has made the situation worse.

‘Don’t give up on the COC’

In the open forum, Ero was asked about China’s role in peacemaking. China, she replied, is “part of the old order…crucial in the [Indo-Pacific] region because it sees this region as its backyard.”

I sat down with Ero to ask more of her thoughts on China and our maritime dispute with our giant neighbor over the West Philippine Sea (WPS). I said that the Code of Conduct (COC) that ASEAN is negotiating with China looks murky even after more than two decades of talks. Shouldn’t ASEAN just give up on this and pursue other options, for example, claimant countries coming together to settle their maritime boundaries?

“Don’t give up on the COC,” Ero told me. “The endgame is to stop assertive China…and the paths to get there vary.”  The two options — COC and definition of maritime boundaries among claimant countries—can run on parallel tracks.

The ICG has always stressed the importance of two principles: diplomacy and deterrence.

Comfort: An apt name

As for the Bangsamoro peace process, Ero is not surprised that the BARMM is undergoing transition problems because she has seen these unfold in other conflict areas. “They are not unique to BARMM,” she said. “It is common for decommissioning and demilitarization, both core demands, to be left to resolve at the last minute.”

But the big test, she pointed out, is that “nobody sees a return to the conflict of the past. No one is predicting a return to a violent armed conflict.”

I wondered if she is able to sleep at night with the kind of work she does, knowing that conflicts are on the rise and the space for mediation has narrowed. There are trends that worry her, she said, like the existential climate threat which doesn’t recognize borders as well as the threat to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Big threats. Big solutions.

My thought bubble was: a name like Comfort can’t be more apt to what she does: make space for comfort in conflict areas.

Let me know what you think. My email is [e-mail].

Till next newsletter!