Série Spéciale (5/7): Insurrection Moro aux Philippines

Aujourd'hui, dans la série sur le Front Moro et l'insurrection philippine, j'analyse le support populaire dont bénéficie les insurgés.

Précédemment: 1- Background, 2- La nature de l'insurrection, 3- La stratégie, 4- L'environnement
Aujourd'hui: Le soutien populaire
Demain: L'organisation


As the MILF opted for a strategy of protracted popular war, popular support is very important to them. They enjoy a good deal of support in the rural areas, but also in the cities. MILF adopted a strategy very similar to Mao’s. Hence, the research for active popular support in rural areas is the group’s priority. It is very hard to estimate the extent of the support to the insurgency – if not impossible – due to the lack of datas available. Hashim Salamat pretended once in an interview that 85% of the Moros actively support the MILF . It is very likely to be much less.

The active members and the masses are very poor Muslims, with little or no education. The leadership, on the contrary, is more educated. The leadership of the newly created MILF in the 1970s was composed of religious scholars and former students in Islamic schools in the Philippines, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and Sudan . Hashim Salamat attended Al-Azhar University in Cairo from 1959 to 1969, leaving with an “all but dissertation” doctorate . In Egypt, he was very much influenced by the ideas of Muslim Brotherhood radical Syed Qutb. He was also contemporary at Al-Azhar with Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasuf Sayyaf, later leaders of anti-Soviets mujahidin in Afghansitan.

In order to gain popular support, MILF uses several techniques. They resort to an Islamic call; they emphasize social, economic and political grievances against the Christian Filipino government; finally, through their system of camps, they demonstrated to the people their ruling capacity (offering administrative, social and security services).