Série Spéciale (1/7): Insurrection Moro aux Philippines

Depuis la semaine dernière, le conflit des Philippines réapparaît dans les médias (ici) et dans les blogs (ici et ici). Comme ce conflit est largement méconnu et sous-étudié, je propose une petite analyse de l'insurrection menée par le Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) divisée en 7 chapitres, soit un article par jour durant toute cette semaine: 1-Background; 2- La nature de l'insurrection; 3- La stratégie; 4- L'environnement; 5- Le support populaire; 6- L'organisation; 7-Le support externe.

Notons directement que je ne suis pas un expert de l'Asie du Sud Est, donc il ne s'agit que d'une analyse "primitive". En outre, je ne m'intéresse qu'au MILF qui ne constitute qu'une partie de l'insurrection philippine qui comprend également le groupe Abu Sayyaf, et un mouvement communiste. Finalement, l'analyse publiée est faite d'extraits d'un travail que j'ai écrit dans le cadre d'un cours sur les insurrections modernes pour la George Washington University...et est donc en anglais.

Aujourd'hui: 1-Background
Demain: 2- La nature de l'insurrection

The insurgency in southern Philippines is about sovereignty and independence. However, religion plays a central role as the conflict opposes Muslims and Christians in Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago, in Asia’s only Christian country.

Islam arrived in Southeast Asia around the 9th century. Sulu became a Sultanate in 1450 and Mindanao in 1619. Muslims in southern Philippines have never constituted a unified group. Instead, They are divided into 13 different ethnies. It is the Spanish who artificially pooled the different Muslim ethnic groups under one common appellation: the Moros.

Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States by the treaty of Paris, on December 10, 1898, but the two Muslim Sultanate of Mindanao and Sulu were never really submitted. At the declaration of independence in 1946, the two territories were included in the new independent state without any consultation.

After a wave of terrorist actions in the 1950s, a Moro nationalist movement started in the 1960s creating the substrate for the future insurgency. Besides some political and cultural demands, the Moros had social and economical concerns. Indeed, a policy of internal migrations initiated under the American authority and accentuated after World War II marginalized Muslims in their historic territories. In 1903, Moros constituted 70% of the population in Mindanao. Nowadays, they are only 20%. Moreover, the massive influx of Christian migrants reinforced the ethnic/religious identities. Furthermore, the inequalities that resulted from those migrations – rich Christians living alongside poor Muslims – exacerbated Muslims’ grievances against the central government.

In 1972, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was created. The armed insurgent group struggled for the creation of an independent Muslim state in southern Philippines. In 1976, as the MNLF held talks with the government and eventually reached an agreement, some members decided to break away as they refused to negotiate. Hashim Salamat, second-in-command of the MNLF created the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which continued the struggle for the independence until recently. The group is now engaged in a peace process with the government.