‘Lost Command’ helps pacify the Philippines

Press, 13 February 1982, Page 14

‘Lost Command’ helps pacify the Philippines

By

BRIAN EADS

in Eastern Mindanao, the Philippines

Colonel Carlos Lademora wears a tooled leather holster, slung low on his right hip. In it is a Smith and Wesson Magnum big enough to be the envy of Wyatt Earp. Thrust into his waist band is a Colt .44 automatic with engraved silver mountings. The ensemble is completed with white baseball boots, blue denim jeans, and a khaki combat jacket embroidered with the legends “Charley’s Angel,” “Django Squad” and “SUAFP.” It all sits somewhat incongruously on the small, wiry frame of a 51-year-old man, with iron grey hair, a puckish face and a snub nose. The overall impression is that of an economy-sized Lee Marvin engaged in a complex parody of the original. Sprawled in an armchair, tugging alternately on a stubby Sumatra cigar and a beer bottle, Colonel Lademora explained how much he loved his country and his President, Ferdinand Marcos.

To the people of Mindanao, the Colonel hardly appears as patriot, sportsman, philanthropist or family man. He is the Commander, Godfather might be a better word, of the “Lost Command” — a band of irregu-

lars who were last year legitimised with the title “Special Unit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.” . The unit, about 250 strong, has been the vanguard of a year-long militarisation of Eastern Mindanao which, it is alleged, has killed, tortured and displaced villagers from their land and homes. The house in which we met was the neat, breeze-block bungalow of Mr Bruce Clew. Aberdonian manager of 4000 hectares of oil palm plantation under development by a partnership of the Philippines Government and the MalaysianBritish multinational Guthrie Overseas Holdings. Mr Clew explained that Guthrie’s government partner, the National Development Company, had promised 4000 hectares of virgin forest for initial development, followed by a further 4000 hectares at a later date. But the land was not “virgin.” Two years ago it was inhabited both by indigenous Manobo tribesmen, and settlers from ’’the crowded islands north of Mindanao. Without Colonel Lademora’s help, he said, the land purchases and recruitment of

labour would have been impossible. There were brigands, malcontents, priests and local politicians seeking to frustrate development. Where there had been indebtedness, squalor, and disease, there is now a monthly wage, free housing, electricity and water, modern sanitation and a clinic for 2000 workers and their families.

But plantation paternalism apart, “Guthries,” he said, “want an empire in the Philippines. This could be another Malaya.”

According to Dutch Carmelite monks in San Francisco, 80 people have died at the hands of Colonel Lademora’s Lost Command. “The exploitation of Mindanao is premised on the entry of foreign multinationals,” said a young radical in Davao City on the island’s southern coast. It is a strategy, he said, evolved by Manila’s “compradore" politicians and businessmen with the major international 'lending institutions to whom the country is $l6 billion in debt.

But the process has met with popular resistance. A subsidiary of the British Dunlop company recently abandoned plans for a 5000 hectares oil palm plantation when tribesmen and settlers refused to part with their land. The armed forces,

aided ,by irregular units such as the Lost Command, “The Rangers of Almighty Good,’ “The Benevolent Missionary Association of the Philippines?' and "The Rizalistas” have moved to smooth the path. In what is described as a testing ground for a policy of total pacification, 35,000 people in San Vicente municipality, an hour’s drive south of the Guthrie plantation in neighbouring Davao del Norte Province. have been herded into “strategic hamlets.” Notwithstanding memories of how ill the tactic served counter-insur-gency experts in Vietnam, the military say “it is necessary to drain all the water from the lake in order to catch the bad fish.” The bad fish are the 240 fighters of the outlawed Communist New People’s Army. In recent weeks the "hamletisation” has been extended to other districts.

Armed New People’s Army guerrillas in Eastern Mindanao probably number fewer than 1000 and in an interview before I travelled south, the Defence Minister, Mr Juan Ponce Enrile, told me the rebellion had been contained. It would be good news for Manila and the multinationals if .it were true.—Copyright, London Observer Service. ‘ ?