Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines were pulling out of Catholic farmlands on Tuesday after a fierce military assault on their positions forced nearly 160,000 people to flee, they said. "Our forces on the ground are withdrawing from the conflict areas so we expect fighting to end by tomorrow (Wednesday)," Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), told Reuters. "We expect the situation to normalise."
Kabalu said fighting had subsided by Monday night after a two-day barrage of bombs and mortars rained down on farms and villages in North Cotabato on troubled Mindanao island. Analysts said both sides were flexing their military muscle after yet another setback in long-running talks to end a near 40-year separatist conflict in Mindanao that has killed over 120,000 people.
Manila is keen to be seen protecting the majority Catholic population in the resource-rich south after details of its generous concessions to the MILF on territory, political power and mineral rights were leaked earlier this month. Catholic politicians successfully halted the signing of the deal and legal experts expect the Supreme Court to rule within the next few months that the agreement was unconstitutional. Major Armand Rico, an army spokesman on the southern island, said soldiers were encountering less resistance from rebels, and on Tuesday "liberated" five more villages in North Cotabato province.
Arroyo met on Tuesday with her security officials to discuss the situation in Mindanao, supporting a proposal in Senate to amend the constitution turning the Philippines into a federal republic to accommodate rebels' demand for a homeland. Arroyo was eager to strike a deal with Muslim rebels to help attract investment to one of the country's resource-rich regions, sitting on huge oil, gas and mineral deposits and large tracts of land suitable for rubber, palm and tropical fruit plantations. Up to $100 million in development projects from international donors could also come in to boost the Philippines' poorest area, where average annual income was just 89,000 pesos ($2,026) in 2006, less than a third of the level in Manila. MILF commanders on the ground are outraged at pece deal setback but analysts do not expect the current fighting to spread into an all-out war because neither side has the resources to deliver a knockout punch.
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