The U.S. reward money combined with poverty in Sulu gave rise to a new breed of bounty-hunters. Ustadz Zain Jali, chairman of the Bangsamoro People’s National Congress (BPNC), said in an interview with Bulatlat that even innocent people are reported to the military as ASG members in order to get reward money.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 21, July 1-7, 2007
The U.S. reward money combined with poverty in Sulu gave rise to a new breed of bounty-hunters. Ustadz Zain Jali, chairman of the Bangsamoro People’s National Congress (BPNC), said in an interview with Bulatlat that even innocent people are reported to the military as ASG members in order to get reward money.
This was corroborated by Ustadz Yahiya Sarahadil Abdulla, a resident of Brgy. Samak, Talipao, Sulu and a member of the province’s Ulama Council for Peace and Development. He should know, he almost became a victim.
Mistaken indentity?
Abdulla is a well-known civic and religious leader in Sulu. He has many friends in the Philippine Army – officers as well as enlisted men. He is in fact a frequent visitor to Army detachments in his province. “They know me very well,” he told Bulatlat in an interview.
Abdulla was also very much visible in the campaign period for the recently-concluded senatorial and local elections as a candidate for councilor under the Mushawara Party.
Unfortunately, that didn’t protect him from being mistakenly identified as a commander of the bandit Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which both Philippine and U.S. troops are hunting down in Mindanao.
On June 9, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) distributed a Rewards for Justice recognition handbook in Brgy. Samak, during a medical civic action program (MEDCAP) mission with U.S. troops.
The handbook contains a list of suspected terrorists with corresponding offers of reward money for any information that could lead to their arrest. Among the alleged terrorists in the list was a certain ASG commander identified as Ali Igasan, a.k.a. Abdulla Tuan Ya Yasir Igasan. Igasan was described in the handbook as a Brgy. Samak resident who goes by the nickname Ustadz.
Problem is, it was the picture of Ustadz Yahiya Sarahadil Abdulla – who also goes by the nickname Ustadz – which appeared with the name of Igasan.
After getting hold of a copy of the handbook, Abdulla immediately met with his friends in the Philippine Army and demanded an explanation. “They told me I had been mistaken for someone else,” he said.
“They may have found difficulty looking for a picture of Igasan so they just put my picture there,” he said when asked what could have prompted his being tagged as an ASG leader.
Abdulla, with the help of the Ulama Council for Peace and Development, also circulated an open letter around Sulu to clear his name. He additionally informed Bulatlat that he plans to get in touch with U.S. troops in the area also to clear his name.
Fortunately, the AFP pulled out all copies of the Rewards for Justice handbook with Abdulla’s picture identified as Igasan. Abdulla also said his friends in the Army have promised to investigate the matter. “I am still waiting for the results of the investigation,” he said.
When asked whether he feared for his safety upon being mistakenly identified as an ASG commander, Abdulla said he did not.
“What do I have to be afraid of?” he said. “I know that my friends in the military know very well that I am not an Abu Sayyaf commander… I could not be any kind of bad element because I am an ustadz, a religious leader.”
He said, however, that he worries for the safety of others who may experience the same. “If it could happen to someone like me, it could happen to anyone else,” he said.
Poverty
When told by Bulatlat about what Jali said regarding the supposed presence in Sulu of groups of people who report even innocent people to the military as ASG members in exchange for reward money, Abdulla replied, “There are indeed many people like that here. You get into a quarrel with someone here and the next time around you may just find yourself being hunted down as an ASG member even if you are not.”
Abdulla said it is poverty that leads many people in Sulu to commit such acts. “The crisis weighs very heavily on the people here and in desperation, many are driven to do such things in exchange for reward money,” he pointed out.
Sulu is one of the six provinces comprising the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM): the others are Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, and Shariff Kabunsuan.
The ARMM is easily the poorest region in the Philippines. Based on May 2007 data from the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC), a family of six – the size of the average Filipino family – needs P1,061 ($22.61 based on the average exchange rate of $1:P46.81 for the said month) to survive daily. Conversely, the daily minimum wage rate for the ARMM is P132.63 ($2.83), based also on May 2007 data from the NWPC. The NWPC’s May 2007 data show that the ARMM has the highest daily family living wage for a family of six and the lowest minimum wage rate per region in the country – which has been the case for several years.
Emily Clark of the U.S. think tank Center for Defense Information (CDI) names Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, and Sulu as areas where the ASG has presence.
The ASG and the Rewards for Justice Program
The ASG was formed in 1996 as a religious-extremist group, but has since degenerated into a rag-tag bandit group. Among its original leaders were mujahideen who fought side by side with U.S. troops in Afghanistan earlier in the 1990s. The ASG has been included in the U.S. Department of State’s list of “foreign terrorist organizations” since 2002.
Rewards for Justice is a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Based on an item on its website (http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/), it was set up in 1984 under Public Law 98-533 (Act to Combat International Terrorism). The program is directly administered by the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
“Under this program, the Secretary of State may offer rewards of up to $5 million for information that prevents or favorably resolves acts of international terrorism against U.S. persons or property worldwide,” the website item states. “Rewards also may be paid for information leading to the arrest or conviction of terrorists attempting, committing, conspiring to commit, or aiding and abetting in the commission of such acts.”
Rewards for Justice began to be implemented in Sulu in 2004 – the same year that U.S. troops entered the province.
U.S. troops in Sulu
U.S. troops would have entered Sulu as early as February 2003. The AFP and the U.S. Armed Forces had both announced that the Balikatan military exercises for that year would be held in Sulu.
This provoked a wave of protest from the people of Sulu, who had not yet forgotten what has come to be known as the Bud Dajo Massacre.
The Bud Dajo Massacre, which took place in 1906, is described in some history texts as the “First Battle of Bud Dajo.” It was an operation against Moro fighters resisting the American occupation.
The description of the incident as a “battle,” however, is disputed considering the sheer mismatch in firepower between U.S. forces and the Moro resistance fighters. The 790 U.S. troops who assaulted Bud Dajo used naval cannons against the 800-1,000 Moro resistance fighters who were mostly armed only with meleé weapons.
In the end, only six of the hundreds of Moro resistance fighters holding Bud Dajo as a stronghold survived, while there were 15-20 casualties among the U.S. troops.
The announcement in February 2003 that the year’s Balikatan military exercises would be held in Sulu summoned bitter memories of the Bud Dajo Massacre and led to protest actions where thousands of Sulu residents participated. “The situation was very tense here at that time,” said Temogin “Cocoy” Tulawie, convener of the Concerned Citizens of Sulu and an outgoing councilor of Jolo, in an earlier interview with Bulatlat.
The next year, however, U.S. troops came up with ingenious ways to find their way into Sulu.
“They started coming in small groups, bringing relief goods,” Tulawie said. “They concentrated on winning the hearts and minds of the people of Sulu.”
“Their strategy was effective,” Tulawie also admitted. “They have to some extent been able to neutralize the Sulu people’s resistance to their presence here.”
The U.S. troops in Sulu are part of the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P). Based on several news items from the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), the JSOTF-P are in Sulu to train the AFP’s Southern Command (Southcom) and to conduct civic actions.
However, an article recently written by Command Sgt. Maj. William Eckert of the JSOTF-P, “Defeating the Idea: Unconventional Warfare in Southern Philippines,” hints that there is more to the task force’s work than training AFP troops and embarking on “humanitarian actions.” Wrote Eckert:
“Working in close coordination with the U.S. Embassy, JSOTF-P uses Special Forces, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations forces to conduct deliberate intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in very focused areas, and based on collection plans, to perform tasks to prepare the environment and obtain critical information requirements. The information is used to determine the capabilities, intentions and activities of threat groups that exist within the local population and to focus U.S. forces – and the AFP – on providing security to the local populace. It is truly a joint operation, in which Navy SEALs and SOF aviators work with their AFP counterparts to enhance the AFP’s capacities.”
“There are U.S. troops stationed in all military camps in Sulu,” Tulawie also told Bulatlat. “If they are here only to give training, as they and the Philippine government claim, there should only be a single training camp where they are to be stationed. But what is happening is different.”
Abdulla said it was last year that he first saw U.S. troops in Talipao. (Bulatlat.com)
