It became quite obvious for international security experts that Washington unleashes separatist movements in many parts of the world, but it is much more evident here, in South-East Asia.

For example, the recent political crisis in south Philippines started in August this year when the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between the Philippine government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas was signed. To a very high extend the MoA had been provoked by the US which favors the de facto constitutional abuse of the Phillipines. The MoA in essence calls for the breaking the country’s integrity by the founding of a Muslim enclave, which cannot be ruled from the official capital Manila.

The MoA raised the ire of a majority of Christians in the Southern Philippines region, putting the MILF’s back to the wall and forcing the country’s legislature and high court to rule for a suspension of the agreement.

Basically the MoA calls for the enlargement of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) which is a much limited area as per its present legal entity. The Moro fighters were successful, due to US pressures on Manila, to get larger areas of the southern Philippines region to be annexed to the ARMM.

Besides the fact that the agreement was initially agreed and was due to be signed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in end August, many experts doubted hostilities would end even after 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front, one of the largest rebel groups in Southeast Asia, signed the peace deal.

The MILF it is said received the strong political and economical support from the US and its leaders in return promised to give the Americans free access to local oil fields, as well as allow US permanent military presence in this particular area. The game played by the US was to isolate the Muslim militant group into its own enclosures under an enlarged ARMM while Washington deals with a reduced and weakened Philippines nation.

Dividing the Philippines by giving the Muslims their own enclaves – that will be ‘protected’ by US armies – also meant turning the rest of the Philippines into a pro-US military landing point in Washington’s bid to limit the growth of China in the region.

Some Philippine Senators (J.P. Arroyo, F. Drilon, P.Cayetano) have been thinking aloud why some foreign countries and the US in particular had been pushing for the Memorandum of Agreement so hard. One of the senators even proclaimed that “the stage is being set for a Kosovo in Mindanao”. It is really a very dangerous pattern for Asian nations since armed rebellion is not confined to the Philippines alone. South Thailand is in constant turmoil with Muslim separatists active there while Karen rebels too are active on the border between Thailand and Myanmar. Large swatches of Myanmar could also break away if the trend were to be officially supported by Washington.

Indonesia too faces several hot spots with the most active being its Papua province where rebels recently raised the Moonstar or the Papuan Republic flag instead of the Indonesian flag during Indonesia’s national day celebrations.

The states of Sabah and Sarawak are also mulling extraction from the Malaysian federation due to numerous issues that are yet to be settled between the Sabahans and the Malaysian authorities.

Facing those strong comments from Philippine Senate the US Ambassador to Manila Kristie Kenney was forced to deny any official Washington involvement into the MoA document, but pointed to the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), which acted by its own (as she says). According to Kenney, the USIP did not represent the US and had diffirent political goals from Washington.

But it is also very much doubtful since the USIP is sponsored by the US Congress; and moreover - among USIP members ex-officio are such powerful political figures as Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State; Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense; F.C. Wilson, Lieutenant General, President of National Defense University. They are active members of the US cabinet and they do represent the foreign political initiatives of Washington. Hence the denial by the US Ambassador did not make sense as it sounded like a drum beat that was familiar to Washington’s utter denial of its involvement in several other rebellions against sovereign states.

There is a lot of evidence that this particular crisis in south Philippines had been orchestrated from the US State Department since 2003, directed by former US envoy to Philippines Eugene Martin (head of so-called “Philippine Facilitation Project”) and was under elaboration till 2007. The very similar scenario was played in Indonesia in 2005, when unstable internal situation in Aceh and Papua provinces lead to massive US involvement, which provided a huge political and financial support for separatists’ groups there.

And once it was settled down, it turned out that as a result those provinces gained an enormous amount of self-government and autonomy and could conclude business agreements on their own, allowing free foreign finance flow without any central government approval, as well as acting as a mini-state within the sovereign state.

And, of course, the US got an exclusive access to major local cooper, gold, uranium and other natural resources fields in those provinces.

As the above mentioned Philippine Senators say, that there is a reason to believe that the US played a major role in this MoA subscription, because of its national interests, as defined by the neo-conservatives as early as September 2000—one year before 9/11—call for increased US military presence in Southeast Asia.

Before the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) could be signed in early August, MOA opponents persuaded the Supreme Court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) barring the government from signing the agreement until the court had the opportunity to hear arguments for and against the agreement. The suit against the MOA argued that it was unconstitutional to grant a specific group (the Moros or the MILF) separate status from other Filipinos or to allow non-Moro citizens to be forced to live under the BJE without their consent. The plaintiffs argued that any such devolution of governance authority had to be legislated by the Congress within the parameters of the constitution.

The Court’s TRO on the MOA and the government’s subsequent decision to withdraw the MOA, dissolve the peace panel and refuse to negotiate with armed groups (such as the MILF) appear to leave few alternatives to resolve the conflict through lawful, peaceful, political means. Each side—the Christian majority and the Muslim minority—fears that the other now is threatening their core interests and rights, not least their respective religious identities, but also their property interests.

The plaintiffs were mainly Christian politicians in Mindanao and their supporters or allies in Congress. Many of them had long opposed any compromise with the Moros, whether armed groups or political movements. Most of the plaintiffs were descendents of early Christian settlers in Mindanao.

The GRP has announced it will not resume negotiations with armed groups, focusing instead on working with Moro communities and civil society to bring peace to Mindanao. The Moro perspective is that this attempt to ignore and marginalize the MILF will result in the traditional power relationship with the GRP in a dominant position.

Since the GRP has not been able to resolve the conflict over the past 40 years through either political or militarily means, renewed violence appears as likely as ever. The Moros are well aware of the futility of negotiation under current circumstances.

As for the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), it believe the MILF would have managed a real breakthrough if the deal was formalized but said there are now doubts over the integrity of the deal. The MNLF seems to be willing to accept the fact that the ARMM is currently a definitive solution and would not be revised.

Politically speaking, the MNLF would not be wrong if it blamed the MILF leadership which falls under Al Haj Murad Ebrahim as being pro-US and forced to follow the strict dictate of Kuala Lumpur on how and when to agree on a peace deal for the region.