Whether one realises it or not, Clan Warfare plays a huge part in all three Islamic Insurgencies. Taking a very recent example, the BIAF, or, Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, as the military wing of the MILF is known, just had a large week long engagement in the municipality of Tulunan, in North Cotabato Province. One sub-Kumander (senior officer) from the BIAF 108 Base Command had taken his battalion, eighty odd men (BIAF battalions and brigades can be any size) and entered into an agreement with a physician from General Santos City (GenSan). In exchange for allowing his men to build "nipas" on the doctor's recently acquired property in Tulunan, he and his guerillas would serve as a combination live in security force slash plantation labour poole for the physician's nascent banana plantation ("Nipa" being the bamboo framed Nipa Palm leaf thatched huts that serve as the typical rural home on Mindanao).
Since the physician is a non-Muslim, and that portion of that municipality lies within the area of operation for the 108 Base Command, he needed a way in which to protect his expencive investment. The deal was beneficial to everyone involved. Learning of this sub-Kumamder's good fortune however, a fellow sub-Kumander from the 108 Base Command screamed bloody murder, and so, in an attack that utilised RPG-2s and 60MM mortars, the second group attacked the first. The sub-Kumander claims that 10 hectares on the plantation actually belong to him, ergo, it is now a blood feud, or "Rido."
The Asia Foundation is a Think Tank slash NGO but in reality, it is a CIA front. In fact, this is a publicised fact although the "Foundation" claims its CIA links were severed by the late-1960s to early-1970s depending on who is "confessing." Founded in 1954 to sell the Anti-Communist line through cultural and societal channels, one of its first targeted nations was the Philippines, then just getting a grip on its Huk Insurgency. In a tip of a hat to American forward thinking, it began finessing Mindanao's Muslim Tribes before even Egypt thought of doing so. Opening an office in Cotabato City, they hung out their shingle and went to work.
As the 1960s began, The Asia Foundation came under scrutiny for its connection to the CIA. Voila, prest-o-change-o, with the swish of a pen the CIA relationship disappeared, or so the NGO claimed. Fast forward to 1967 in the US, with the CIA's funding of Right Wing student organisations coming to light and generating controversy with then-President Lyndon B.Johnson's Administration. The CIA, very nervous after the Left Wing periodical "Ramparts" discussed the CIA's continued relationship with The Asia Foundation, decides once again, to claim all ties have been severed.
Indeed, today the organisation claims to subsist on entirely private donations. In 2007 for example, its annual budget was US 112 Million. Of that figure, 4.7 Million is generated by private donations. As for the "proof" that it severed its CIA relationship, it merely offers two inter-agency memos which would take all of 90 seconds to manufacture on any word processor. I suggest that any interested reader grab a hold of former CIA Operations Chief, Victor Marchetti's memoir, in which he discusses just how the CIA uses The Asia Foundation to recruit assets (as in "spies") and how assets then funnel intelligence through the NGOm
In a case of the message being much more important than the messenger, I decided to present the "Foundation's" excellent in depth, book length report on Rido, "Rido: Clan Feuding and Conflict Management on Mindanao," Edited by Wilfredo Magno Torres III (Asia Foundation), (2007).
This, the first in a multi-part series, will transcribe the report's "Introduction," in which Torres discusses the Foundation's excellent study on the dynamic. Before I begin though, it is an academic study and therefore not the most exciting of reads, unless of course you really want to learn about a very pervasive social dynamic on Mindanao. This is the first portion of the book's introduction, the rest will follow in subsequent entries.
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Introduction- Wilfredo Magno Torres III
pp7
This volume presents several studies on feuding or clan conflicts, popularly known in Mindanao as "Rido." This effort is the result of a coordinated research conducted by Mindanao-based civil society organizations and academic institutions with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Asia Foundation. The studies variously mapped the incidence of clan conflicts in Mindanao and conducted in depth investigations into the root causes of the conflicts, the parties involved, the conditions for their escalation and recurrences, the relationship to other forms of conflict, and the potential for conflict resolution. The studies investigated the dynamics of clan conflicts with the intention of informing and helping design strategic intervention to address such conflicts.
The studies in this volume deal with a type of violent conflict variously referred to as feuding, revenge killings, blood revenge, vendetta, inter-tribal warfare, and clan conflicts. Characterized by sporadic outbursts of retaliatory violence between families and kinship groups as well as between comnunities, this phenomenon frequently occurs in areas where government or central authority is weak and in areas where there is a perceived lack of justice and security. Feuding and revenge killings are common to many societies throughout human history. Depending on periods in history, this phenomenon has been documented in places such as the Balkans, Sicily, Corsica, the Caucasus Region, the Middle East, and, in the remoter past, Scotland and the Appalachian region of the United States, as well as in some Southeast Asian cultures (the subject of feuding has often been subsumed under more dominant themes like maritime trading, slave raiding, and head hunting. Some authors have cited the prevalence of feuding and inter-suku warfare among indigenous communities in Borneo [see King 1993:83; Singh 2000:37-38,53-54] Torres has encountered a history of inter-island feuding in Semporna and Sulu [2006:282-283]. In addition, much like the genealogies of Sulu and Maguindanao sultanates, the Sejara Melayu [Malay Annals] mentions feuding among the royal families in the Malay Peninsula [Bastin 1970:169]).
pp8
While there ae studies that distinguish between the concepts of feuding and revenge, in this volume, feuding and revenge killing us considered part of the same continuum (Ginat [1997] and Boehm [1986], for instance, distinguish revenge from a feud. Revenge [or blood revenge] refers to a single killing to avenge a murder, whereas a feud involves a chain of reciprocal murders between rival groups).
In the Philippines, feuding between families and clans is also prevalent. The Cordilleras in Northern Luzon is famous for inter-village warfare and "revenge raids" caused by land and boundry disputes and competing economic interests such as sources of water or firewood. Feuding also occurs among lowland Filipinos, a famous example of which was in the Illocos in the early 1970s between the Crisologo and the Singson Clans. Depending on the ethnic group and region, feuding and revenge are known by various terms such as "pangayaw," "magahat," or "pagdumot" among some "Lumad" or indigenous groups in Mindanao, and "pagbanta," "pagbunuh," "mamauli," "kasaop," "pagbaos," and "lido," "ridu," and "rido" among some Moro groups. For the purpose of this book, the conflict under focus is referred to as "rido," feuding or clan conflicts. "Rido" refers to a state of recurring hostilities between families and kinship groups characterized by a series of retaliatory acts of violence carried out to avenge a perceived affront or injustice.
Rido has wider implications for conflict in Mindanao primarily because it tends to interact in unfortunate ways with separatist conflict and other forms of armed violence. Many armed confrontations in the past involving insurgent groups and the military were actually triggered by a local rido. Examples of such cases are illustrated in detail in this volume such as the feuds that escalated in Dapiawan (2004) and Linantangan (2005) in Maguindanao that eventually drew in the involvement of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the paramilitary Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVO), and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). A more recent case that demonstrated the interconnectedness of feuds and large scale conflicts was the Shariff Aguak incident in June 2006 that sparked a major armed confrontation between paramilitary forces under a political clan and some elements of the MILF. Such hostilities underscore the potential of local feuds and third party actors to frustrate the peace process between the government and the MILF (On June 23rd, 2006, a bomb exploded in Shariff Aguak allegedly intended for the Maguindanao Governor, killing seven members of his convoy. This incident sparked a major armed conflict that displaced thousands of families and endangered the peace process between the government and the MILF. This incident became a litmus test for the Joint-CCCH-IMT mechanism and civil society groups. To contain the violence, a buffer zone was jointly established by the GPH,or, Government of the Philippines and the MILF).
pp9
Meanwhile, a contrasting incident occurred in January 2006 in the efforts of the MILF to mobilize their troops to protect civilians from a raging rido between warring families in Tuburan, Lanao del Sur. Without a nuanced understanding of local conflict dynamics, such a commendable effort could have easily been misconstrued as an offensive.
Rido is only one aspect in the complex web of violence in Mindanao which includes Muslim separatism, Communist insurgency, and banditry. The interaction of these different conflicts has explosive consequences to the long running separatist war in Mindanao. Given this context, a deeper understanding of specific conflicts is crucial in disentangling the blurred lines of conflict and enable communities and the government to effectively address the problem.
The Mindanao Rido Study
The Process of Engagement
The coordinated study on clan conflicts had its origin in late 2002 when The Asia Foundation suported a household conflict survey in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and adjacent areas on the citizens' perceptions of conflict (the survey was conducted by TNS-TRENDS in partnership with the Office of the President with support from The Asia Foundation and Kewlett Foundation (see Dayag-Laylo 2004). The survey results showed that while the Muslim-Christian conflict in Mindanao dominates the attention of international and local preaa, clan conflicts are actually more pertinent in the daily lives of the people. Citizens are more concerned about the prevalence of clan conflict and its negative impact on their communities than the conflict between the state and rebel groups in Mindanao. These findings, which were again verified by the Social Weather Stations in the ARMM (Social Weather Station (2005:2, slide 9-11), illustrate the complexity of conflicts in Mindanao and encouraged the Foundation to help address the problem. With the assistance of USAID, the Foundation spearheaded a set of diagnostic activities to help design strategic interventions that enable communities and government agencies to prevent the escalation of conflicts.
pp10
The coordinated study was done by engaging Mindanao experts in a series of meetings and group discussions that involved reviewing the existing studies on rido, clarifying concepts, and setting directions for research in the area. The discussions revolved around the following questions:
• What constitutes clan conflict and what are the existing formal and informal mechanisms that people use to resolve these;
• When does clan conflict occur and what kind of issues escalate into clan conflicts;
• How are young people socialized into attitudes about it;
• What are the variations of clan conflicts among different ethnic groups;
• How does clan conflict overlap with government and separatist conflict;
• To what extent are clan conflicts mistaken by government to be separatist conflict;
• What can government and peace activists do to isolate these different kinds of conflixt so effective interventions can be put in place?
The studies in this volume are descriptive studies that employed qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. The data collection techniques used include key informant and in depth interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, surveys, and secondary data gathering. During theresearch period, the participating institutions conducted regular meetings among themselves to critique methodologies, discuss findings abd address problems. Methodologies and research questions underwent several iterations based on new data encountered in the field. Community meetings were also held to validate the preliminary research findings.
The sensitive nature of the topic was a challenge for the researchers who often found themselves under suspicion by some locals. It took some time for the researchers to lay the groundwork and eaen the trust of key informants and families involved in rido. As the data started to come in and make sensezn the researchers realized there was a real danger that the issue of rido could be used by unscrupulous groups to reinforce the already negative stereotype of Mindanao and Muslims, or even used to manipulate situations and affect the peace process. Because of this, extra care was taken in dealing with sensitive data and ensuring the fair treatment of issues related to clan conflicts. Sensitive and ethical issues were taken into account and discussed thoroughly with researchers and the local people, and measures were agreed upon to ensure that the issues were adequately addressed. At the heart of this entire effort was the integrity of the researchers- their sincere and transparent engagement with the local people.
pp11
(Dissemination)
pp12
Overview of Findings
The coordinated studies documented a total of 1,266 rido cases that occurred between 1930s to 2005, killing more than 5,500 people and displacing thousands. Out of the total number of rido cases documented, 64% remain unresolved. The tope four provinces with the highest number of rido incidences are Lanao del Sur (377), Maguindanao (218), Lanao del Norte (160), and Sulu (145). The rido incidences in these provinces account for 71% of the total cases documented. The findings also show a steady rise in rido conflicts in the 11 provinces surveyed from the 1980s to 2004. 50 percent (637 cases) of the total rido incidences recorded by the studies occurred in the last five years (2000-2004), which is about 127 new cases per year.
The actors involved in a rido vary as the conflict can occur within kinship groups or involve members coming from different kinship groups and ethnic groups.
Rido has caused so much untold suffering. Its effects are often subsumed under the larger separatist conflicts. Aside from the numerous casualties, rido related armed confrontations have caused the destruction of properties crippled the local economy, displaced communities, and formented fear.
The causes of rido are contextually varied and may be further complicated by society's sense and concept of honor and shame. While the triggers of the conflicts can range from petty offenses like theft and jesting to more serious crimes like homicide, the studies show that land disputes and political rivalries are the most common causes of rido. The factors that aggravate a rido include the formation of alliances by the principals with other families and armed groups or the interaction of rido with state led conflicts (i.e. the conflict between the Moro liberation fronts and the state) and other armed conflicts (e.g. Banditry). The proliferation of firearms, lack of law enforcers and credible mediators in conflict prone areas, and an inefficient justice system all contribute to rido.
pp13
Key Concepts on Feuding and Revenge
Kinship, Self-Help, and Collective Responsibility
Feuding and revenge killing documented in other parts of the world are suprisingly similar to the endemic clan conflicts experienced in the Philippines (see Barton 1949; Dozier 1966; Prill-Brett 1987; Kiefer 1972; Rosaldo 1980; Hasluck 1954; Ginat 1997). Revenge killings and feuds are typical in small-scale societies where family and kinship ties are the main main sources of authority and where there is a lack of effective state control and authority. In such societies where the state is weak, decision making and enforcement become more decentralized and the provision of security is based mainly on self-help (see Philip Carl Salzman in Ginat 1997:vii-viii; Kiefer 1972:53). This means that in the absence of a strong state or central authority, the responsibility and the means for coercion are more widespread, such that governance and social control unusally rest in the local population. Under such circumstances, the distribution of responsibility and capacity for the provision of security are more likely to be organized along the lines of kinship.
Classic ethnographies dealing with revenge recognize that kinship forms and important basis for social relations and that the bond of kinship is a significant factor in the provision of security and revenge. In his study on violence and law in Tausug society, Thomas Kiefer observes that the sanctions of kinship justify a greater range of everyday behaviours for the sanctions of kinship justify a greater range of everyday behavior for the Tausug that may cover a variety of political, economic, and military obligations (1972:28). Roy Barton's pioneering work among the Kalinga and Ifugao shpws the primacy of preserving family and kinship unity and its importance in carrying out responsibilities such as providing support during times of crisis and revenge-taking (1949:69; 1969:8). The importance accorded to kinship unity may also translate on a wider community level. This is especially true with regard to maintaining the integrity and autonomy of more self-sufficient villages. In the Cordilleras, June Prill-Brett (1987:14) observes that there is a marked solidarity among autonomous Bontok villages (ili), wherein each village member cooperates for the total welfare of the community. Strong community ties are especially apparent during times of conflict. A harm done to a village member is considered a threat to the security and autonomy of the village itself. On such occasions, the village is expected to retaliate to assert its strength and defensive capacity and not lose the respect of other villages (Prill-Brett 1987:15).
pp14
Elsewhere, village life and blood feuds in the Albanian highlands, eloquently captured in the earlier work of Margeret Hasluck (1954), provide us with some important insights into the relationship of family and communal solidarity and revenge:
"The community sense was fostered by every art the mountaineers knew. Each member of a household was encouraged to regard everything in it and everything its other members said and did as his own. The humblest man was encouraged to regard his village as his personal property. If home, village, or group of villages prospered, he rejoiced as if he himself had been advanced. If they were insulted or injured, he burned to avenge a personal affront. If they were disgraced by misconduct on the part of another member, he felt his own honour to be smirched. The patriotism so bred was narrow, perhaps, but in emphasis on the need to keep the community's honour untarnished, a good deterrent from crime (1954:11).
These communities consisted in the narrower sense of the family, and in the wider sense, a tribe. If a person was injured, the family in most cases, and the tribe in a few cases, by the law of self-government punished the wrongdoer. Since the individual was almost completely submerged in his family, an injury to him was an injury to the whole family and might be punishrd by any of its members. When the tribal community was involved, the injury might again be avenged by any of its members. When the injury took the form of murder, vengance generally took the Mosaic form of a life for a life, but sometimes was achieved by the exaction of blood money or the imposition of exile (1954:219)."
This vivid description by Hasluck underscores the obligations of closely knit groups in providing mutual self-hp that covers various aspects of everyday living including revenge which, in the end, m) be necessary for the survival of the community.
Joseph Ginat (1997), in a more refined explanation of mutual self-help as a collective cultural response, used the notion of "collective responsibility (Barton's earlier works also proposed the ideas of "collective responsibility" and "collective procedure" in Ifugao's legal system [1949:71-72]; [1967:7]). In his study od blood revenge among Bedouins and Arabs in Israrl, Ginat explains that in a system of collective responsibility, "any act or mission by one individual reflects on the group as a whole in the sense that the group is responsible for, and must accept, the consequences of that act or omission" (1997:2). This means that each member of a group may be held responsible for the actions of any one member, such that an injury inflicted on a member of a group would be considered an injury to the whole group, and thus creating conflict with the injured group. The basis of collective responsibility is the need to help each other in a hostile environment. As agricultural and pastoral societies collectively held territory, they also had shared interests and shared commitments such as security. According to Ginat, "collective responsibility" is the "defining thread that runs through blood revenge, family honor, mediation, and outcasting" (1997:1-2).
pp15
Security based on collective responsibility is effective because, on the one hand, the possibility of retaliation from an individual's group serves as a detterent for cominto conflict and, on the other hand, an individual knows that he is also responsible for the actions of his group members, such that can also be a target for reprisal if his group member comes into conflict. Robert Bates (2001) in his discussion on the development of agrarian societies from nature and from the conduct of other people resulted in the development of social arrangements that not only allowed families to organize production but also provide security and protection through the private provision of coercion. In such societies, the threat of of retaliation from the private provision of coercion served as a deterrent that kept a fragile peace (Bates 2001:46-47).
Honor, Shame, and Reciprocity
The interplay of honor, shame, and reciprocity within the cultural context of a society may serve to regulate relations among its members, determine prestige and political influence, facilitate access to resources and economic distribution, reinforce social ties, and promote cohesion.
Julian Pitt-Rivers defines honor as the value of a person in his own eyes and also in the eyes of his society. "It is his estimation of his own worth, his claim to pride, but it is also the acknowledgement of that claim, his excellence recognized by society, his right to pride" (Pitt-Rivers 1966:21, Julian Pitt-Rivers discusses honor, social status, and shame in Western Europe and compares the range of this notion with modern Andalusian society [1966]). It must be noted, however, that the conception of honor varies across different social contexts (region, period, class, cultures, etc.). For instance, honor as understood in European society is quite different in the Arab world. In France (and somewhat similarly in England), the concept of honor originated from the ideology of noble military serbice that later on became associated with the idea of noble race through reproductive and inheritance strategies in order to keep wealth intact (Nye 1998). Depending on different periods, honor in Spanish society was connected to lineage and social class and the notion of "pure blood" (Baroja 1996). In Arab society, Abhou-Zeid (1966:256) differentiates the types of hinor such as "Sharaf" which can be accumulated or lost according to the man's behavior, and the "Ird" which is honor that only applies to female chadtity and can only be lost and even affect the man's honor. Among some indigenous groups in the Philippines, concepts of honor locally known as "Bansa" or "Bantug" are recognized through a person's capacity to help others or, in the case of the village headmen ("Datus"), in the capacity to settle disputes. Among the Meranao, the "Maratabat" approximates the concepts of honor, self-esteem, and prestige but is sometimes equated to lineage or social status in the community (the maratabat has a universe of meanings which can include honor, status, rank, self-esteem, dignity, pride, self-respect, etc. For a thorough discussion of maratabat, please refer to the studies of Abdullah 1982, Bartolome 2001, and to the chapters of Matuan, Burton, and Doro in this volume).
pp16
Across many societies, when honor is challenged it can be resolved through an appeal to some for$ of tribunal such as the court of public opinion, the monarch ("Sultan," "Datu"), and other ordeals such as judicial combat (as in the French "Duel"), which imply an appeal to God (see Pitt-Rivers in "Persistiany" 1966). Physical violence is usually the ultimate vindication of honor especially when other means to settle disputes fail. In Albania, the blood feud is considered the ultimate sanction in all cases where personal honor is concerned such that failure to seek redress for honor that is violated is severely criticized by society (Hasluck 1954:XII; According to Hasluck, the Albanian blood feud has its roots in the customary laws of the mountaineers which evolved as part of the legal framework they devised for every aspect of their life [1954:9]. Administered by a ruling rank collectively known as, "The Elders," these customary laws are enshrined in the "Janun" of Lek Dukagiini ["Code of Lek Duagiini"]. The "Kanun" contained methods for dealing with crimes against property and person, conventions that govern trespass, travel, the administration of oaths, the imposition of penalties, and conventions that govern the blood-feud [Hasluck 1954:xii]):
"Public opinion also spurred the avenger on. A man slow to kill his enemy was thought 'disgraced' and was described as 'low class' and 'bad.' Among the Highlanders, he risked finding that other men had contemptuously come to sleep with his wife, his daughter could not marry into a 'good' family, and his son must marry a 'bad' girl" (Hasluck 1954:231-232).
While honor can sometimes be a driving factor in revenge, this same sense of honor also demands that vengance is not taken indiscriminately. In many societies (like the communities in this study), revenge and blood feids are governed by multiplicity of rules. The Albanian blood feuds documented by Hasluck provide many examples of such conventions. For instance, it is considered dishonorable to kill and not tell, to steal from a victim, to hide a victimzks body, and to violate the sanctity of the "pledged word" such as a truce ("Bese") (1954:220). There are also practices governing house guests and women. House guests, for example, are considered under the protection of the host such that the host is obliged to avenge the guest when killed under one's protection, while killing women and persons who are physically fraul, feeble-minded, or not capble of carrying arms is abhorred (among the Kalinga, a host is similarly obliged to avenge the slaying or wounding of his guest [Barton 1949:83]). Curiously, other conventions exist concerning religious beliefs that demonstrate the persistence of customary laws despite the influence of Christianity and Islam. In some parts of Albania, an assailent is expected to face a dead man's body to the east if his victim is Christian and toward Mecca if the victim is Muslim (Hasluck 1954:229; According to Hutton [in Hasluck]: 'As a result of the Turkish conquest, several of the Albanian Tribes changed from Christianity to Islam, and there are now many Muslim Albanians as well as both Greek Orthadox and Roman Catholic Christians. The Mirdite, who constitute the biggest tribe, were perhaps at one time orthadox, and are now staunch Catholics. But their profession of faith seems to have affected but little adherance of the Albanians to their ancient customs [1954:xv]).
pp17
Complementing the concept of honor is the concept of shame. Ginat says that "just as honor is the value of a person in his own eyes, but in the eyes of his society, so should shame be seen not only in how the individual feels but also in what people will say (1997:131). Shame involves sensitivity to the opinion of others and includes a consciousness of public opinion and judgement (Pitt-Rivers 1966:52).
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I'll pick up on pp17 when I post my next entry in this multi-part entry.
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