Page 79 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

68 Benjamin Cole
the AFP and PNP in tracking down elements of the Pentagon Gang, the ASG and
JI operating on its territory.
The media does not, however, fully report all of the causal factors of the
conflict. There is a tendency to highlight the economic causes but downplay the
political, historical, cultural and religious bases of the rebellion. This is a major
shortcoming, but it reflects the government’s dual strategy of using military
action coupled with development aid to resolve the conflict.
Nevertheless, the MILF’s involvement in the peace process means that its
views and objectives have to be fully reported. Its primary goal of independence
for Mindanao, is a given, but the media has also reported the MILF’s justifica-
tions for sticking to its absolutist goal. It argues that the political settlement
should be just, lasting, comprehensive and acceptable to the Moro people, with
independence being the only option which offers all of these things. It has
rejected the government’s proposal to expand the Autonomous Region of Muslim
Mindanao (ARMM), because it has failed to solve the rebellion (Inq7.net 2004).
In reporting these objectives, however, the media does not pick up on the
MILF’s Islamist ideology. In the late 1990s Salamat Hashim publicly stated that
the goal of the MILF was to establish an independent Islamist state and to imple-
ment Shariah law (Hashim 1998). Many of its political leaders, such as its new
Chairman, Ebrahim Murad, fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and
many of them are clerics (BBC News Online 2003, 2005). This was highlighted
by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 2000, which noted that, ‘According to the
MILF’s medieval version of Islam and the core belief of Muslim fundamentalism,
it is against the word of Allah for a secular state to govern over Muslims’ (Asia
Times Online 2000a). Between 2003 and 2005 however, the media focused on its
goal of independence. This is a failure on the part of the media, but it is also a
consequence of the MILF deliberately not using its ideology in its propaganda. Its
media statements do not use Islamist pharaseology and terminology which might
provoke negative reactions from secular Moros, the Christian population, the
government and the US. Instead, the organisation primarily comes across in the
media as a secular organisation. In the post 9/11 world this serves the added
purpose of helping to distance the MILF from Islamist terror groups.
The MILF also uses the internet by operating a website that publishes articles
and statements and also offers a forum for online discussion and email addresses
to enable direct contact. There is little overt Islamist language on the website,
which looks very much like a secular news site. As is the case with the CPP-NPA
website, it enables the MILF to communicate directly with Moros and other
Filipinos living outside its rural strongholds, particularly in urban areas. Part of
the MILF outreach programme has been to disseminate information to
non-Muslims about their rights in an Islamic State, in order to try to convince them
that they have nothing to fear (Interview with Salamat Hashim 1999). Using the
website to present itself as a secular organisation supports that objective. As is the
case with the CPP-NPA, there is little evidence that the MILF uses the internet as
anything more than an adjunct to support the messages that it publicises in the
mainstream media. Neither does it need the internet as an organisational device.