KASAMA Vol. 16 No.
2 / April-May-June 2002 / Solidarity Philippines Australia
Network
BASILAN: The Next Afghanistan?
Report of the International Peace
Mission to Basilan, Philippines, 23-27 March 2002
From March 23 to 27, 2002 an
International Peace Mission visited Basilan, Zamboanga
City and Cotabato City in Southern Philippines. The
following article is a compilation of edited extracts from
"Basilan: the next Afghanistan?", the report of the
peace mission.
Page 2
EVEN BEFORE BASILAN was hailed as the
"second front" of the US' war against terrorists, an
international group of scholars, parliamentarians, and
civil society leaders were already planning to send an
independent team of peace, development, and human rights
workers to Afghanistan. Concern about the massive human
and social costs of the indiscriminate attacks had been
mounting among international social movements.
After five months of bombing, it was
clear that the anarchy and criminality in Afghanistan had
only worsened with the coming of the Americans. Much of Al
Qaeda's top command is still intact, allied forces have
been killed, and civilians have become the victims of less
than precise bombing. While the condition of women may
have improved in certain areas to a certain extent,
warlords have reemerged to divide the country into
different zones, opium trade had flourished again, ethnic
cleansing and the use of rape as a weapon had also been
reported. All these may have been the foreseen or
unforeseen, intended or unintended, results of the US
engagement in Afghanistan.
Fearing that the same fate awaits "the
next target after Afghanistan" and hoping to avert such
eventuality, civil society groups redrew their plans so
that instead of going to a landlocked country first, they
proceeded to the island of Basilan where the largest
number of US troops are being deployed after Afghanistan.
Preparations are currently underway for the eventual visit
of another peace mission to Afghanistan.
The Objectives
The mission had four broad objectives.
First was to look into officially denied reports of
civilian casualties, arbitrary arrests, and displacements
of affected communities. Second was to evaluate the
conduct of the joint US and Philippine military exercises
as well as its possible ramifications on the Moro
separatist struggle. Third was to share with local civil
society organizations information on security trends as
well as insights on similar conflicts in other parts of
the world. Fourth was to gather and disseminate views that
may guide possible international initiatives towards
peaceful resolution of Basilan's problems.
The Organizers
- Focus on the Global South is a Bangkok-based
research and advocacy NGO committed to regional and
global policy research, micro-macro issue linking and
advocacy work. It produces and propagates critical
analyses of regional and global socio-economic trends
while espousing democratic and poverty-reducing
alternatives for marginalized countries;
- Institute for Popular Democracy is a research
organization that has conducted path-breaking studies on
Philippine elites, elections, local politics, and
democratization, aside from undertaking macroeconomic
analysis and local development research;
- Akbayan is a multi-sectoral party-list organization
with members from different religions and regions across
the Philippines. Pressing on with a platform of
institutional, political, and economic reform, Akbayan
seeks to expand democratic and program-based politics;
- Transnational Institute is a Netherlands-based
research institute not aligned with any political party.
Animated by the spirit of public scholarship, TNI
promotes international cooperation in looking for
solutions to such problems as militarism, poverty, and
environmental degradation.
The
Participants
Fifteen men and women from ten
different countries participated as members of the
international peace mission. Among them were
parliamentarians or legislative staffers, scholars,
journalists, and civil society leaders:
- Matti Wuori, from Finland, currently a Member of the
European Parliament, was the former chairman of
Greenpeace International;
- Lee Rhiannon, is an elected member of the New South
Wales Legislative Council in Australia (Greens Party);
- Pierre Rousset, from France, is a secretariat member
of an alliance of parties in the European Parliament;
- Aijaz Ahmad, an eminent Indian Muslim author
published extensively on Islam and politics, is a
professor at India's Jawaharlal Nehru University;
- Walden Bello, a widely-published author on
international political economy, is a University of the
Philippines professor and Akbayan President;
- Earl Martin, a scholar on East Asia has lived in the
Philippines and was in Vietnam during the war;
- Bill Rolston, professor of sociology at the
University of Ulster, Belfast, is a respected analyst of
the Northern Ireland conflict;
- Roland Simbulan, from the University of the
Philippines, is an expert on US-Philippine military
relations;
- Nicola Bullard, deputy director of Focus on the
Global South and former Chair of the Australian Council
for Overseas Aid Human Rights Commission;
- Marco Mezzera, an Italian from Focus on the Global
South, is currently researching Islamic revivalism in
Southeast Asia;
- Ronald Llamas is the secretary for international
affairs of Akbayan party-list organization in the
Philippines;
- Seiko Ohashi, who has lived in the Philippines for
the last eight years, is international coordinator of
Asian Rural Alternatives;
- Corazon Fabros is secretary-general of Nuclear Free
Philippines Coalition;
- Amy Catacutan is from Gathering for Peace, an
alliance of groups opposing the joint Philippine-US
military exercises;
- Victoria Brittain is a former associate foreign
editor of the British newspaper The Guardian and
author of several books on Southern Africa.
Page Navigation
Related Articles
Home | Aims and Objectives of Solidarity Philippines Australia Network | About Kasama 
If you encounter an
error or a broken link