Carving Out a Sharia State in Mindanao

The Islamist terrorists of Mindanao have been blowing things up, taking hostages, and killing people for decades in an effort to carve out an Islamic state in their part of the Philippines.

Their efforts are about to pay off. The government in Manila has caved in and is ready to grant them at least some of what they want. But non-Muslims in the area are not happy with the deal — they’re well aware of the fate that awaits infidels when the central government withdraws and leaves them to the tender mercies of Sharia.

According to today’s Gulf News (restrain yourselves from making jokes about the acronym):

Catholics plan protests against Manila’s deal with MILF

Manila: Catholic officials from two cities in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao are calling for protests next week against a government deal that increases the size of an autonomous region for Muslims.

The agreement between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has taken more than 10 years to negotiate, gives more land to minority Muslims in the largely Catholic state and also gives them broader political and economic powers.

“This is treason,” Maria Isabel Climaco, a member of the lower house of Congress representing Zamboanga City, told reporters.

“The government has allowed Mindanao to be dismembered from this country. We were never consulted and I would oppose that deal in Congress,” Climaco added.

Once again, the mujahideen have been reinforced in their notion that murder, rape, and general barbarity offer handsome political payoffs:
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More than 120,000 people have been killed, 2 million displaced and economic growth stunted across the whole of Mindanao, a region rich in nickel, gold and copper, due to 40 years of conflict between Muslims seeking some form of independence and the central government.

And this is obviously going to be a jizyah-based state:

The proposed new Muslim state would receive 75 per cent of all central government revenues from resources found in the ancestral area. It would also have broad political, economic and cultural powers but would not have control over defence, foreign and monetary policies.

So Manila gets to maintain the army, provide a lavish bureaucracy for the Foreign Ministry, and print lots of money that they will send to the new Islamic government in Moro.

And what do they get in return? If past experience is any indication, more bombs in downtown Manila and repeated demands for further concessions.

This week, the Supreme Court asked government lawyers to respond to a petition by a governor and congresswoman from North Cotabato province asking that the signing be stopped.

But the court did not issue an order halting the signing in Kuala Lumpur on August 5.

The mayors of Zamboanga and Iligan said on Saturday they would also ask the Supreme Court to block the signing.

“Let’s stop them from signing that agreement,” Celso Lobregat, mayor of Zamboanga City, told local radio on Saturday.

“Let us not look at ourselves alone, this is a fight for the whole of Mindanao and the country.”

Lobregat said many businesses had agreed to close on Monday to join the protest.

Lawrence Cruz, the mayor of Iligan in Lanao del Norte province, said he was organising similar protests.

Where will the Catholic minority in Mindanao go when they become refugees? Presumably there are hundreds of thousands of them. Where will they end up, assuming that they manage to avoid the mass graves?

Australia? Canada? The United States?

Or will they become dhimmis in the newly-minted Sharia state of Mindanao?


Hat tip: VH.