MILF wants war? Give it!

Banner line of Manila Standard yesterday, “Moro rebels choose war.” Philippine Star headline, “AFP: No deadline extension for MILF.” And added The Inquirer, “Anti-terror law top issue in GMA sona.”

The rebels want war? Let’s give it to them. We need political will. I hope the President musters the courage to have it. I am writing this piece before I heard her State of the Nation Address yesterday.

If we had these rebellions all these years, the fault has been with our policy of appeasement because of the refusal of our leaders to have it solved once and for all.

And some of these leaders refused because, they profited from the rebellion. I have always said that insurgency has its roots in graft and corruption. Did not the Roman statesmen of old say that if you want peace prepare for war?

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Let us review a little our history.

One of the reasons why Marcos declared Martial Law was to contain the Muslim rebellion in the south led by Nur Misuari. There was only one rebel group then, the Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF and the Abu Sayyaf came later on, seeing the government was weak. And they could have money too.

In 1973-74, there was really war in Mindanao. Jolo was burned to the ground and the fighting was terrible. I went there a few years after and was told of how the military was trapped at the airport. What saved them was the shelling from the Navy gunboats.

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Then there was peace in Mindanao.

But, when Corazon Aquino became president, she had Nur Misuari called from the Middle East to come home. Misuari came home, honored with all his soldiers carrying high powered firearms. The Moro rebellion was revived.

Many said then that it was the idea of the military. Without rebellion, the military budget was limited.

Misuari later landed in jail as a rebel. But useless because there are other young rebels already.

That was the price of appeasement of President Aquino. And is not the government also trying to appease the NPAs? One cannot be sure if government is really serious in conquering the NPA and all the Muslim rebels in Mindanao.

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The biggest lesson in appeasement is that of Neville Chamberlain that threw the world into the conflagaration of World War II.

Chamberlain became British prime minister in 1937 succeeding Stanley Baldwin. At that time Adolf Hitler was breathing fire working to avenge the humiliation Germany suffered in World War I.

He armed and recruited young people for war.

Chamberlain, believing he could appease Hitler, even went to Munich to sign the Munich Peace Agreement with Hitler and Mussolini.

On his return to London in 1938, he addressed the Parliament, “This is the second time in our history that there came back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour….peace of our time.”

Then seeing Chamberlain was weak, Hitler invaded Poland and annexed Czechoslavakia.

When the expedition he sent to Norway failed, Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill took over.

A veteran of the Boers War in Africa, Churchill pursued the war to its very end. It was not only his fighting spirit, he provided the leadership for the beleaguered British with his rhetoric.

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When he took over as prime minister, his first statement was “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” And the British people followed him.

Churchill was against appeasement.

At the House of Common after the signing of the Munich Agreement, he spoke on Oct. 5, 1938, “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”

To Churchill, he who tries to ride a tiger always ends up inside. Because of his constant sniping at the appeasement of Chamberlain, when Chamberlain resigned in 1940, Churchill was elected prime minister.

Our government must be careful with appeasement. Those who try to ride a tiger most often end up inside. I like this anecdote.

A hunter one day wanted to have the pelt of a tiger. So after breakfast, he went to the forest with his rifle. He saw a tiger and leveled his gun at it.

“Wait, my friend,” said the tiger. “I know you need a pelt and I am looking for a breakfast. Why don’t we sit down and talk”.

The farmer wanted to appease the tiger. So, he sat down and talked with the tiger.

After a little while, the tiger had its breakfast and the hunter had his pelt around him by being inside the tiger.

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