Word: mindanao
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...this year's election security is under particularly intense scrutiny here and abroad after rivalry over a gubernatorial post between two Muslim clans triggered the massacre of 57 civilians, including 30 journalists, in Maguindanao province on the volatile southern island of Mindanao in November. While this was an extreme act of political violence, six candidates running for posts in other local governments have already been murdered since Jan. 1, according to press reports. In a Tuesday night police raid to uncover the weapons cache of a private armed group in Cavite province on the island of Luzon, four police officers...
Police have 68 armed groups on a watch list; most are concentrated in long-standing election trouble spots, such as the autonomous region for Muslims on Mindanao Island and a clutch of clannish northern provinces. "Based on our estimates there are at least 200 private armed groups nationwide if you include those run by landlords, businessmen and gambling lords," says Rommel Banlaoi, director of the Philippine Institute for Political Violence and Terrorism Research. Many are small units with under a dozen members. But some - it is not clear how many - are virtual armies. The one operated by the Ampatuan clan...
...cynical electorate hopes so. The outrage still brewing over the Nov. 23 election-related massacre on Mindanao echoes the public sentiment felt in during 2007 mid-term polls when three poll watchers were burned alive after armed men torched a school building holding ballot boxes during the manual vote-count...
...authorities are now desperately trying to prevent a revenge-driven clan war - or "rido" as it is called in Mindanao - between the two families. A day after the killings, Arroyo put two southern provinces and a city under a state of emergency and deployed more troops to the area. All permits to carry firearms there have been canceled. "Retaliatory violence can be expected although a small chink of hope remains that Mangudadatu may rise above rido and avert further bloodshed," says Ian Bryson, a regional analyst at Singapore-based Control Risks...
...until the Mangudadatu's last year announced their challenge to governorship. The Ampatuans are not a family to be crossed: the clan is known to run its own private army; some estimates put its strength at between 200 and 500 men. To be sure, warlordism is not unique to Mindanao; it afflicts other parts of the archipelago and the northern province of Abra is practically a byword for political vendettas. But it is highly prevalent in Mindanao's conflict-affected areas where there is a large array of armed groups that include separatist rebels, civilian militias and well-established crime...