By any measure, the warlords of Mindanao outdid themselves on November 23 last year, with the sheer callousness of the massacre that left 57 people dead and half-buried in mass graves thrusting their bloody local differences back into newspapers around the world.
For years, foreign editors have preferred to ignore the civil conflict that has dominated the region since the 1970s. The fact is life on the west coast of Mindanao can be just as dangerous as the southern provinces of Afghanistan or the hinterland of Iraq. But a combination of fatigue and a lack of relevance to the outside world had pushed the insurgencies and tragedies of Philippine militia life firmly towards the bottom of the international news agenda.
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