PRE-TITLE TEASE

Choppers over Basilan Island

ARC ASG Allahuakhbar

Choppers land

General addresses marines

It looks like a tropical paradise but they tell me we’re on a journey to hell.

This is the jungle lair of the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic group which even Bin Laden thinks is extreme

UPSYNC: Allahuakbar

The Philippine army have been hunting them for years.

Since September eleventh, they’ve got America behind them with a vengeance.

PTC: This is the war against terrorism… Philippines style.

UPSYNC: Can we make it? Yessir. Can we make it? Yessir.”

The US deal 100 million dollars and now 650 troops supported these marines

But to these islands’ inhabitants, this is a war against Islam.

TITLE:

BEARERS OF THE SWORD

Manila , Jeepneys

I was in Manila in the Philippines, a country of 83 million people and 7,000 islands in the South China Sea.

It’s Asia’s only Catholic country, thanks to Spanish conquest 400 years ago

PTC in this City of 10 million or so Christian souls there’s also around 200,000 Muslims. They live in ghettos doted around Manila. And the biggest is a stone’s throw from here.

JM walking

MUSIC

The Muslim minority has been oppressed for years. Their frustration makes this a breeding ground for extremism.

Meets Fidel

Bagato’s only Muslim civil rights lawyer is Fidel Macauyug. He wanted to show me how his people live.

Golden Mosque GV

A stagnant river of rubbish. Above it, Manila’s Golden Mosque, paid for by Colonel Gadafy.

Into the catacombs

Fidel took me inside a stinking, twilight world

ACTUALITY

Cramped shacks on top of each other. People crammed together, sometimes 30 to a room.

He said Muslims are nine times poorer than the average Christian. It’s taken decades of discrimination and neglect to get like this.

UPSYNC: don’t suppose you get many tourists here? No, we don’t.

I’d been warned to be careful in here. This is the sort of place foreigners get kidnapped.

Most Muslims come from an island in the south called Mindanao. They want the Catholic Government to give it back to them as a Muslim homeland

STOP FOR INTERVIEW BY RUBBISH

‘So migrants from here went down to your homeland and your guys came up here and this is what you get’

Fidel said that since September 11, the police have been rounding up suspect militants here without evidence.

Walk through

Further down the alleyway, I chanced upon a resident who explained why Muslims long for an independent Mindanao.

I/v Man in Hajj hat

UPSYNC: Mindanao is a land of promise.

MANILA STREETS

It’s no surprise that George Bush is now bankrolling Government forces.

PTC YOUSEF

Mohd Atta and Sept 11 hijackers thought to have trained near here. Ramzi Yousef, original WTC bomber also worked here. …..Spent time with country’s most extreme group Abu Sayyaf. It’s name means bearer of the sword.

Abu Video

Their favourite tactic is kidnap and murder.

I’d obtained a tape shot by the Abu Sayyaf themselves last year after they’d kidnapped some Catholic schoolchildren and their teachers in a remote island off Mindanao.

UPSYNC This bit of the tape show the room in which the Abu Sayyaf held the women and children… and the camera zooms in on this woman here in the corner and we’ve managed to track her down and she’s agreed to speak to us.

DRIVING MANILA

We drove to the other side of town to meet her.

Marissa i/v

Marissa Rante was held for seven weeks before she was rescued by the Philippine military.

SYNC: These are the men that kidnapped you? Yes. Do you recognise them? Some of them.

ARC ASG

The Abu Sayyaf demanded the release not just of their members in prison but also of 3 Al-Qaeda terrorists jailed in America - including Ramzi Yousef.

MARISSA reaction

ARC ASG When their demands were refused, the Abu Sayyaf began raping the women and killing the men.

MARISSA reaction

ARC ASG shout

It had been an appalling ordeal. But – incredibly - Marissa told me she had begun to understand what lay behind her tormentors’ rage.

Plane

It was time to head south so I could find out for myself.

On plane to Mindanao

PTC Bit packed in here, but we are finally on our way to the Muslim heartland of the Philippines, the southern island of Mindanao, a place that’s been left to rot. For 30 years various liberation armies have been at war with government forces. More than 200,000 people have been killed. What we really want to do here is find out more about why Muslims are so angry. The trouble is though, the politics of Islam has largely disintegrated into lawlessness and criminality. The trick is going to be who to get the story without getting kidnapped ourselves.

Arrival; met by mil int

I’d asked for some military security. I only hoped they’d show up.

PTC

we’ve got 3 plain clothes army boys somewhere in behind me here who’ve been tasked with looking after our security.

Into town

Even now, the Philippine army has been reinforced by more than six hundred US advisers.

Major Ando map sequence

UPSYNC

Major Ando thanks for meeting us.

Major Julieto Ando gave us an intelligence briefing.

I thought I’d done my homework on Muslim rebel groups but I soon realised I was a novice.

UPSYNC

JM: These are names I haven’t even heard of. These are kidnap groups.

UPSYNC

Ando: if you will only pass along the main highway no problem. But if you pass by 5 kilometres.

JM: Oh, don’t go off the main roads

Ando: as far as we are concerned we an guarantee your security but on the other side we cannot interpret what’s in their minds.

JM: yeah

Cotabato Sunsets

That night, a new group, calling itself Pentagon, appeared on the US Government’s terror hitlist.

Locals told me its founder was a well-known psychopath

Smoke dogs; morning GV

PTC It’s 6 o’clock in the morning and I’ve heard that the leader of the dreaded Pentagon kidnap gang Commander Faisal Maruhumsar regularly calls in to the local radio station breakfast show and we’ve come down here to see if he might call in this morning. We don’t exactly want to announce our presence here in this city Cotabato but at the same time I’m quite keen to find out whether this man is kidnapping for anything other than money and greed.

Studio; whiteboard

Faisal has called in on his mobile.

Three months ago, his Pentagon gang kidnapped an Irish priest on the road north from here.

Now they’re holding another priest, an Italian.

UPSYNC: The priest is dead.

The killing’s still not confirmed but they tell me Commander Faisal doesn’t lie about these things.

UPSYNC:

JM: he told you on air the priest is dead?

Host: Yes….. He said he’s into kidnapping to raise money and buy arms. Firearms.

Cotabato cityscape

Travelling

There are Muslims and Muslims.

Faisal was a freelance mobster taking advantage of the mess to make money.

Quite different from my next stop: an Islamic orphanage on the road north.

To go there we must drop our military escort or the Muslims won’t trust us. We decided to take the risk.

Checkpoints

Sign exterior

The orphanage is funded by the International Islamic Relief Organisation. American intelligence believes the organisation is an Al Queda front. Its Manila branch was run for four years by Osama Bin Laden’s brother in law.

Reciting

The boys here are mostly orphans of dead fighters from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Moro is the old Spanish word for the Moors. Now it’s a martyr’s label.

Interview with Director

Since September 11, the Relief Organisation’s US assets were frozen, but the Manila branch still funds this place to the tune of a thousand dollars a month.

PTC JM & director

The director’s just been telling me about an Arab man who’s the director of the reciting school, reciting the koran down in behind here. He was employed by the IIRO and had been teaching here for 4 years. He was picked up last week by the Philippine military and accused of links with Al Qaeda and international terrorism. He says he’s been framed, absolute rubbish he says he was just a teacher and he says he’s just another victim of this war against Islam.

More travelling; another checkpoint?

The closer you get to it, the harder it is to unravel the concept of terrorist from freedom fighter.

There is evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement here. A local Imam was quite open about it …

Imam

Yahya: I saw bin Laden once in the year 1988 or 1987.

JM: here in Mindanao?

Y: here in Mindanao.

Y: And he was wearing Pakistani dress

The imam told me bin Laden visited the main guerilla base of Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It was destroyed by the army over a year ago in a brutal campaign which left half a million Muslims homeless.

On the road again: going to IDPs

Following his instructions, I drive to a makeshift centre which is now home for some of those who got out alive.

Photographs

The children here grew up in a rebel village that Bin Laden is said to have gone to during that visit in the late eighties. To them, it was simply where they lived.

A community worker had photographs of the destruction wrought by the Philippine army. Many children were killed in the bombing.

UPSYNC: This is the Moro Islamic’s main base…..

OUT

Do you remember this?

I couldn’t help wondering whether these children may have seen too much to forgive.

He’s remembers seeing kids getting killed, can’t remember how many

JM: and there’s the planes.

G: those are the planes that dropped the bombs

It had been more than just a military offensive. It had been a dirty war on Islam.

As for the next photograph, I wasn’t too sure whether we should show it to the children.

JM PTC: that was a particularly offensive picture there of some pages of the Koran which had been used I think as toilet paper by the Philippine Armed Forces when they came into the camp.

Pictures passed around

I hadn’t realised that none of these people had ever seen the pictures of their former homes before.

Into this mess, the Americans have now injected millions of dollars, hundreds of special forces and advisers.

They are adamant that the new aid is specifically targeted on Abu Sayyaf terrorists, but who’s to say how they’ll monitor that?

Night vision in the plane to Zamboanga

By now, we had sorted out our contacts in the Abu Sayyaf heartland and felt it was reasonably safe to go there.

We flew south west to the city of Zamboanga.

Arrive

PTC:

Today marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan and it also marks the deadline set by the Philippines Armed forces for their total annihilation of the Abu Sayyaf. There’s a massive military operation going on here right now.

Airport

Kidnap ransom is the rebels’ main source of cash. They behead those who don’t pay up.

Passport inspection

PTC:

They’re taking our passport details even though this isn’t a port of entry because they want to keep tabs on the foreigners coming in because some of those who have come in the past haven’t left courtesy of the Abu Sayyaf Group

Basilan Island

WILL NEED PIX TO BE A BIT LONGER HERE

As dawn broke, we could see the island of Basilan 17 miles away. About 7,000 Philippine soldiers are locked in a fight to the finish there with a band of Abu Sayyaf.

Once Christians and Moslems lived happily together there. The longer this war goes on, the more corrosive it becomes.

In jeep going to cathdral

PTC We’re going to the Roman Catholic cathedral to meet a priest who’s come over from the island of Basilan to meet us. He has been twice kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf himself. He’s bringing with him a couple of people who were also recently kidnapped.

Bolobo victims sequence

Father Cirilo Nacorda wanted me to meet the survivors from a particularly savage incident.

These people are coconut farmers.

One day last August the Abu Sayyaf came down into the village and kidnapped 13 men, suspected of being Christian vigilantes.

Lito Andaya was the sole survivor.

He described how the other 12 men were taken off one by one and beheaded.

UPSYNC LITO – heard screams

One of those killed was Mrs Ramos’ son. She later found his decapitated body. ‘We have wept an ocean of tears’, she told me.

Sometimes it is hard to love your neighbour

Father: yeah I cannot deny this feeling of anger…. (cries)

JM: I think we’ve got to stop this actually.

ZAMBOANGA WIDE

MUEZZIN

Each side suspects the worst of the other. Neighbours inform on neighbours.

Van to Arena Blanco

PTC in Van; with Muslim friends; want to talk to people but people don’t trust the media.

TRAVEL TO COMMUNITY HALL

The people here are all refugees from the war on Basilan island. Since September 11th, a new detachment of Philippine marines has been stationed just up the road.

UPSYNC: Do you feel intimidation?

No-one wanted to talk.

Then they started to speak in general terms about military harassment. But no specifics.

Suddenly one started to tell of his own experience but he was cut short.

COMMUNITY HALL SCENE

PTC

One man wanted to open up but his wife told him to shut it. Great fear here.

WIDE SHOT JM & group

I later found out there was a known police informer in their midst.

Dusk tracks

As darkness fell, we were shown the house of a family whose son had been arrested on the usual charge of suspected terrorism. It was too dangerous to be there at night so…

Into Syed Mabul’s place

…we went back the next morning.

PTC

The man in the white shirt is taking us down to a family here in this Muslim area, very poor area, who he says have been victims of this indiscriminate arrest of people who are accuse of being AS. The man apparently from the house has been taken into custody in a high security prison in Manila.

Syed Mabul’s story

Azeera Mabbul is the man’s mother.

SYNC was her son Abu Sayyaf? No.

Definitely not, she said. Syed Mabbul was a farmer on Basilan, 31 years old.

ACTUALITY

She told me her son was taken to an army base, hung upside down for 8 hours and had chilli peppers inserted into his rectum until he confessed to being a terrorist.

ACTUALITY

The next day, when she visited him, he was unable even to sit down. ‘Mum, I can’t take any more,’ he said

UPSYNC: Ah this is the warrant.

Then they showed me a list they’d obtained of eight men who informed on him. All fellow Muslims. She says their motive was greed.

UPSYNC: so these men all copped a 1 million peso reward.

PTC – if its true what they’re saying about what happened to Syed Mabbul it’s truly terrifying some of the things this man has gone through his torture at the hands of the military to try to get him to admit he was Abu Sayyaf.

Leaving House

Human rights groups say Syed’s story is typical. There was a rash of arrests in September. They say the men rarely get tried in open court. They just disappear into prison, or worse. (37)

NIGHT HEADLIGHTS

Meanwhile, long negotiations have finally put us into contact with the Abu Sayyaf itself.

A man has agreed to meet us who claims to be a long-standing member.

STAIRS

MUSIC

PTC meeting

This is where we’ve arranged to meet. He should be here in a few minutes.

SYNC Habib

He told me that the organisation’s real name is Al-Harikatul Islamiat - the Islamic movement. Abu Sayyaf was the code name its founder used while fighting in Afghanistan.

ACTUALITY

He said they have cells all over the Philippines and extensive international links. 50 members, he told me, were undergoing military training in Syria.

ACTUALITY

And he said that the group’s formal inauguration in the Philippines was attended by none other than the world’s most wanted man. (58)

PTC

Well we’ve been hearing extraordinary evidence of Bin Laden’s visit here in 1996. But for the last hour this man has been talking from his heart about the desperation of the Muslims of the southern Philippines…And he says that although he doesn’t condone many of the group’s actions he still subscribes to the organisations key beliefs and he says there are thousands of others like him.

Chopper to Basilan

Finally I was on my way to Basilan, the hottest new target in Bush’s global war on terrorism

I was with General Cimatu, mastermind of the final solution to the Abu Sayyaf and now in command of 650 US soldiers on the Island

Somewhere below us, an American missionary couple and a Filipino nurse were being dragged from hideout to hideout by the extremists/gunmen.

The marines on the ground were part of the general’s special task force. But they were running out of time.

PTC

Welcome to Basilan. This is where the abu sayyaf group has been holding americans hostage for more than six months.

General addresses troops

ACTUALITY

The general is a man under intense pressure. He knows a third American has already been beheaded.

For months the General’s men have been scouring the dense jungle. Now they’re getting fresh advice from US special forces in psychological warfare and intelligence gathering.

CHEER

Lands Lantawan; crazy dance

ACTUALITY

I wanted to ask the general if he thought his campaign was alienating Muslims.

SYNC General: no, this is not war against Islam.

Q: But with respect general …

A: no report of mistreatment received in my time here.

Surreal…like so much about this war.

The villagers treat us to a weird ballet, depicting the peaceful life to which they hope to return now the army’s in control.

The general told me for the Philippines to pull its weight in the global war on terror the army must win over hearts and minds.

That includes ending the poverty that spawns extremism.

Not much chance of that, with America’s insistence on a military solution.

The climax of the ballet enacts the moment violence came to Basilan.

MUSIC

This village is the actual birthplace of the Abu Sayyaf movement.

But it may be too early to start writing an obituary for The Bearers of The Sword.

END