PHILIPPINES: Civil war

Studying international affairs is a complicated business because each region and each country is complicated. The US is involved to a greater or lesser degree in armed conflicts all around the world, and each one is different. In the Philippines it is a religious-secessionist war which the Philippine government and the US are trying to solve with a combination of force and money. Bienvenido Macario, who sends me lots of materials in his native country, thinks this bribery will lead only to more war, and attaches this item from a newspaper: "After a difficult and messy war where some 600 Filipino soldiers died in defense of our territorial integrity against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) whose publicly-avowed aim of dismembering the Republic, this paragon of good governance signs the first of a series of three agreements to buy "peace in her time." In what is touted to be a ceasefire agreement, the victor, the defender who won, is bound to cough up some P1.2 billion in "reparations" money to the vanquished who started the war. "

Ronald Hilton - 5/13/02