Philippines

Since the early 1970's, the Philippines has faced internal conflict from numerous separatist groups focused around the large southern island of Mindanao. Starting in the late 1500's, the Philippines was a Spanish colony. America captured the Philippines during the Spanish-American war and ruled the archipelago from 1898 to 1946. The US claimed to be developing the island-nation to be a self sufficient and self governing nation in the future. In 1935, it became a self-governing commonwealth and the US planned to grant independence in 1945. The Japanese invaded and captured the Philippines after the Battle of Corregidor. The Japanese surrendered control of the Philippines at the end of the war in 1945. In 1946, the US granted the Philippines its independence. The country was largely in ruins after the war and an unstable government formed under those conditions Since the end of the war winning independence, the Phillipines has seen many shaky, pseudo-democratic governments. Communist rebel groups formed in the '70s, leading to regular clashes with government forces. In the '60s, a Muslim uprising to gain autonomous control of their ancestral homelands started the core of the conflict that continues to this day. In 1992, the Communist Party was legalized, granting it legitimacy to participate in the political process and a peace agreement was signed with a major Muslim insurgent group forming the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. Peace agreements fell apart in the early 2000, and since ongoing violence between insurgent groups and the government have killed 160,000 people and displaced up to 700,000. The level of violence has diminished since 2009, but conflicts continue between insurgent Muslim groups and the government. People in southern Philippines live off less than two dollars a day and have almost zero infrastructure. Desperate poverty and disenfranchisement from the government continually hamper peace agreements. Similiarly, US pressure to crack down on insurgent groups in an effort to limit the spread of jihadist insurgent groups inhibits reconciliation.