DATELINE DAVAO: By Rina de Jesus

CONFLICTS AMONGST MUSLIMS

Clan war among Muslims in Mindanao is a commonplace except that in no other time was this ignominy and waste was given more attention than now. If we heard of Sunni and Shiites Muslims annihilating each other in the Arab world we have our own share of the same although in lesser scale. But the toll among warring clans has reached an alarming proportion with the sophistication of weapons used and the intensity of rivalry and abhorrence that refused to ebb.

It is a divine-sent intervention that in the midst of the bloody conflicts among clans is the presence of a strong and persuasive government peace keeping force.

The International Monitoring Team that is keeping track with the progress of the peace negotiation between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the government is a privy to what had been taking place in Central Mindanao. By now, the IMT must have understood the cultural and political peculiarity in the region that impact on the life of the Muslims and Christians in the area. It is not so much a problem now between the government and the secessionists or religious differences but has something to do with complex polarities that create the big divide among clans.

Our guess is that even the contentious issue of ancestral domain will hit snag when its comes down to who has prior rights among Muslim clans. In similar fashion that bloody conflicts between clans are resolve with the intervention of the government, the aftermath of the peace pact between the MILF and the government would necessitate the perceptible presence of the government peace keeping force to forestall the conflicts among clans to contain their evolution into the ferocious ogres that pillage the Arab world.