Muslim Mindanao (13 images)
Mindanao in the southern Philippines is home to the Moro people, a Muslim minority who have long struggled for an independent homeland.
Since the early 1970s, fighting between separatists and the military has claimed some 120,000 lives and left 700,000 displaced. While clashes continue on remote Basilan and the Sulu islands, in central Mindanao there has been relative calm since 2003.
Nevertheless security remains tight. Cities are ringed with roadblocks and...
more »Mindanao in the southern Philippines is home to the Moro people, a Muslim minority who have long struggled for an independent homeland.
Since the early 1970s, fighting between separatists and the military has claimed some 120,000 lives and left 700,000 displaced. While clashes continue on remote Basilan and the Sulu islands, in central Mindanao there has been relative calm since 2003.
Nevertheless security remains tight. Cities are ringed with roadblocks and bomb blasts periodically shake the island. The government blames Islamic separatists for the attacks while many locals believe the army to be responsible.
Land is at the core of the Moros' grievances. Over the last century, the island's rich soils and abundant minerals have lured Christian farmers, powerful land-owners and multi-national corporations. Together, they have shunted the Moro onto a fraction of their former homeland.
Further disputes over ownership of Mindanao's natural wealth are likely. Huge gas deposits have been found below Ligawasan marsh, on which hundreds of rural communities depend for fish and irrigation. Efforts to exploit the gas could stoke more conflict.
But locals have more immediate concerns. In recent years, a rice pest, the Malaysian black bug, has swept central Mindanao devastating crops. Farmers have run up crippling debts with traders who lend money as well as pesticides used to tackle the bug.
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