Heard of Palestine genocide? Myanmar military rule? Victims of peace and war NMIPs in Philippines? What can be done?
Genocide in Palestine continues, and the world powers interests played big role why it expands beyond control.
As occupation and unrecognition of the Palestine’s Right to Self-Determination continues, Palestinians of all ages and faiths died by hunger, bombardments.
The International Court of Justice ruled already that it is genocide and ordered Netanyahu government to stop the atrocities. The world clamor is to end the occupation and allow the return of the Palestinians to their homeland.
But Netanyahu with the US and other power backings hear nothing.
The Palestinian question is more than enough to abolish these international nation-state groupings and mechanisms for world order and build new international cooperations based on real meaning of solidarity, justice, peace, human rights, sovereignty, ecological justice, and dignity. There shall be no more special privileges for global powers!
Meanwhile, movements globally never stopped the fight to end the genocide.
What is it in Southeast Asia?
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is silent and indecisive over the Myanmar mass murders and dictatorial regimes by the Military Junta.
Not far from Thailand is the continued repression by the junta against the Burmese and all ethnic nationalities standing for democracy.
Here, you can again see a regional mechanism (ASEAN) established for regional order but as for several incidents proven that it is only for political and economic dominance by the global powers at play like the United States of America. China on the other hand established control over political and economic elites in the region like in Myanmar, Cambodia, Philippines and others.
The Myanmar slaughter continues because global and regional powers allow it to continue.
Papuan’s fight for self-determination is another case of repression in Indonesia.
Burmese and the Ethnic Nationalities have stood for more than two years already and see no giving up for a noble cause. Good to hear that Myanmar and Thailand peace and social peace and human rights activists are coming together in various fields of interventions in the crisis. Cambodian and Philippine solidarity groups also have their own ways in supporting the battle for democracy in Myanmar.
And in Mindanao?
Bangsamoro’s decades of struggle for self-determination losing hundreds of thousands of lives have reached several peaks. The armed revolution gained the first Autonomous Region (ARMM) and the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM, 2018).
The struggle for the Right to Self-Determination (RSD) of the Bangsamoro has been supported by all sectors and ethnic people in the south like the Christian and Lumad or Indigenous Peoples populations. It was a tough road to political settlement, but the civil society and peace movements never gave up standing in Solidarity to the Bangsamoro cause.
Recent developments in the region are saddening. Indigenous Peoples ascribing as Non-Moro Indigenous Peoples or NMIPs continue to suffer instability inside their Ancestral Domain. Since 2018, there are already 75 cases documented of murders against the NMIPs. These exclude the recurring violent occupations that caused displacement and dispossession of land and properties of the NMIPs.
In the last final peace agreement between the government of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front (GRP-MILF), a huge parcel of the ancestral domain of the IPs (NMIP today) was awarded to MNLF Commanders. In recent days, the Ancestral Domain Delineation process was halted by the Government of the Day (BARMM) followed by declarations of mineral reservations inside the ancestral domain. Cases of land grabs heightened after the new BARMM was installed.
According to the NMIPs, they are victims of peace and war.
In transition, left and right billions are pouring in the region. Economic growth is not because the quality of lives is improved but by the money running around implementing ayuda, projects and conduct of seminars.
The Philippine government, Regional and Global powers are also present in all of these processes.
One can really see new elites and oligarchs are on the rise building clout and dominions. And this fuel frustrations to the communities who offered sons and daughters for the democratic rights and welfare as a people. Traditional political dynasties and the rising ones are scrambling over power.
We can hear a few critical voices to the new BARMM now and so less voices supporting the call of the Non-Moro IPs.
But there’s no giving up on the cause for a democratic, just and a Bangsamoro for all.
The link?
Power play of superpowers for economic and political control why these sad realities continue. Because of the interests over the troubled territories, it is better to be like that and the villains would become heroes at the expense of the people.
As war and occupation continues, starvation persists and the destruction of the local economy. And war destroys the seeds, rivers, farms, forests, all of it – Life of the children, women, elder, youth, men and generations.
Conflict-affected people and countries cannot produce their own food and would turn dependence on regional and international financial institutions.
While unstable, the natural wealth has been extracted or divided by the elites and intruding powers.
Destruction of every single landmark of national identity is equivalent to wiping out a people’s dignity and sovereignty.
Savior oligarchs like the vultures eating alive the dying and helpless nations, communities.
But another commonality is the persistence and the high spirit to resist intrusion, occupation, repression and oppression.
So what?
It is a wide-open reality then.
The repressed and oppressed cannot rely on the existing establishments of power and the normal ways of assertions. Solidarity of all democratic forces for democracy, justice, just peace and ecological society must come together and make use of that collective power.
What’s next?
Let’s start strengthening the bridge and unpack the realities together!
Pursue what are ongoing.
Staying Safe and Alive.
Learn from endemic Peace building and conflict resolutions that can be helpful in the various contexts aside from the class and suit peace table.
Gender, climate and environment are integral in all democratic struggles. Let us widen our perspectives.
The struggle for reforms for a localized, healthy, ecological and democratic food systems can build our strengths and autonomous but interconnected powers.
Democracy in Myanmar!
Free Palestine!
Genuine NMIP Rights Code Now!
Free Papuans!
- Valtimore “Bong” Fenis is Co-Director of the International Institute for Research and Education (IIRE) in Manila and a member of the Kilusang Maralita sa Kanayunan / Rural Poor Movement (KILOS KA) in Mindanao, the Philippines. He shares this reflection piece as a speaker during the Palestine Solidarity Session at the 6th edition of the Mekong-ASEAN Environmental Week in Bangkok, Thailand.
