Country: Philippines

Group: Tausug

Date Finalized: 11/01/2021

Team: Johanna McCombs (lead),Hannah Goldman, Deneb Bobadilla, Nuri Son, and Li-Chen Hou

The Tausug are one of 13 distinct Muslim ethno-linguistic living in the in the southern island of Mindanao, collectively called “Moro” (Minority Rights Group International, 2015;Moorehead, 2018). In the 1900s, the government encouraged Catholic Filipinos to move to the Philippine island of Mindanao. This caused the Moro population to drop from 76 percent in 1903 to 19 percent by 1990. Then the government banned the use of their language in education and gave many jobs to non-Muslims (Minority Rights Group International, 2015). In the early 1970’s, the government ordered the massacre of 28 Tausug which caused the Tausug to resent the government (Cagoco-Guiam, 2013). In the early 1990s, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front began after years of guerilla warfare between the government and the Moro. In 1996, leaders signed a peace deal giving the Moros autonomy in the South. However, the government broke the treaty  in 2001 after an attack that killed 100 people. This conflict displaced many Moros. Many Moros lack proper land rights of their traditional land that the government gave away to Christian Filipinos (Minority Rights Group International, 2015). Additionally, the siege of Zamboanga in 2013 led to the eviction of more than 100,000 people-mostly Muslim minorities. The government requires certain language skills for public and political involvement, which many Moros do not have. Beginning in the Spanish colonial state, Christian prejudices against the Moros were used as a tactic to seperate and weaken the Muslim groups in the Phillipines, but this sentiment continues today (Buendia, 2005).

            The data quality is a 2 because there is clear evidence the Tausug experienced ethnocide but they are not specifically mentioned but grouped in as the Moro.

Sources

  1. Buendia, R. G. (2005). The state‐Moro armed conflict in the Philippines Unresolved national question or question of governance? Asian Journal of Political Science, 13(1), 109–138. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/02185370508434252 on [date]
  2. Cagoco-Guiam, R. (2013). Gender and Livelihoods among Internally Displaced Persons in Mindanao, Philippines. Brookings-London School of Economics.
  3. Minority Rights Group International. (2015). Moro Muslims. Minority Rights Group. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/moro-muslims/
  4. Moorehead, M. (2018, October 4). Stop attacks on Indigenous Peoples, Bangsamoro instigated by the US-Duterte Regime. Workers World. https://www.workers.org/2018/10/39223/