Friday, January 11, 2008 Editorials: Solving the Muslim problem
GOVERNMENT may have finally found a solution to the nagging Muslim problem that has gone on for decades.
The proposal to amend the Constitution and create a Muslim federal state may be the key.
To recall, the Muslim problem has gone across the years without any solution in sight.
Sulu has long been the center of operation of Muslim militants.
Today, the area of conflict has expanded to include other provinces in the south.
Thorn
There was a time when only Kamlon in Sulu was giving the military in the south its reason for being.
But even while the nation’s armed forces had nothing else to do in other parts of the republic, they were unable to contain the Sulu situation.
Even during centuries of Spanish rule Muslims refused to admit Spain as their master and resisted efforts to subjugate them.
This is why the Muslim issue has become a thorn in the back of all the post-war presidents.
It is a problem that refuses any solution short of what the Muslim leaders want: to be left alone to control their own destiny.
So perhaps, the proposed federal state is the solution.
But how will it be any different from the present Muslim region?
Peace talks
The Malaysian-brokered talks between the Arroyo government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) hit a snag last December “when rebel negotiators walked from a Kuala Lumpur meeting to protest Manila’s insistence that the talks be held under a constitutional framework.”
Still, the hope remains that the vast rural Muslim stronghold in Mindanao can be transformed into economic growth areas “instead of conflict zones that could harbor militants.”
Note that the MILF, with an estimated fighting force of 11,000, has also extended “shelter” to the extremist Abu Sayyaf and the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiya, although it has denied links with al-Qaeda.
Meaning, the Muslim issue has become a matter of survival for this republic in the sense that for as long as our southern backdoor continues to be vulnerable to foreign terrorist incursions we could never be fully at peace.
We hope though that the Muslim federal proposal will not be made as a vehicle to revive the Charter change issue just to serve the selfish interests of politicians.
