A new jihad in the Philippines

Very few outsiders ever venture into the Liguasan marshes, the remote inland sea which stretches across hundreds of square miles of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. These marshes, for the most part approachable only by jungle tracks and navigable by shallow-bottomed boats, form the perfect hiding place for criminal gangs which make a good living by kidnapping businessmen from nearby towns and cities.

The Liguasan marshes also provide a base for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an insurgency which claims to speak for the native Bangsamoro people who were living in the Philippines long before the Spanish invasion in the 16th century. Despite repeated assaults, which have intensified in recent years, the Bangsamoro have never been conquered. These Islamic rebels assert that they are affiliated to the rest of the Philippines neither by history, race, language, geography nor religion. Their implacable demand is for autonomy over what they call their ancestral domain.

Last summer the Bangsamoro almost achieved their ambition. President Arroyo, 700 miles to the north in Manila, was within hours of signing an agreement that would have granted self-government. At the last minute it was blocked in the constitutional court after a challenge from a group of well-connected Christian settlers, many of who had travelled south to acquire Bangsamoro land after the second world war.

Fighting broke out at once. MILF commanders swept through Christian areas, wreaking widespread destruction. Government forces responded in kind. In some districts the army recruited allies by arming militias as a bulwark against the Muslim raiders. According to human rights groups, 600,000 people have been displaced over the past 12 months. But nobody really knows. The world has turned a blind eye to the southern Philippines, mainly out of indifference and in part because reporting was too dangerous.

Then, at the end of July, the government and rebel forces agreed a ceasefire.