Malabang

[Butuan]

The Mountains of Malabang

Though what has been called the Malabang Rebellion has been waging, by official records, off and on for the past ten years, in the reckoning of the locals, it has been waging for the past two hundred years, ever since the Mayaland backed Rajahnate of Butuan defeated the Sultan of Malabang and laid claim to the island. Though over the years, the main island, having come heavily under the influence of Mayaland, slowly converted to Christianity, the Malabang remained mostly muslim which caused constant tension and many instances of conflict as the Moors of Malabang attempted several times to break away from Butuan.

Though it had been Islam that had sustained the cause of resistance for the better part of two hundred years, it was communism that reignited the insurrection in Malabang as a charismatic man by the name of Muhammad Dipatuan Qudratullah Nasiruddin was able to unite the disadvantaged and discriminated against Moors to once again to rise up against the Butuanese and their Mayaland masters as he led the Malabang Revolutionary Army for the past ten years.

Muhammad Dipatuan Qudratullah Nasiruddin, or simply Colonel Qudarat as he is referred to, was born in town of Jolo on the island of Malabang, but at age of seven, his family moved to Kilkila, Vangala, where he received his education and indoctrination into Communism. It was this Vangalan education, military training and contacts that now serves the forty-six year old Qudarat in his efforts to bring freedom to his people and advance the causes of the Revolution.

In a makeshift headquarters in cave in the mountain region of Malabang, Colonel Qudarat had just received bad and then even worse news. The bad news was, though many around him would have thought it would have been considered good news, was the Butuan agent that had been feeding the government information about incoming arms shipments has been discovered and executed, the bad news was that they executed him before any information could be obtained from him. The worse news was that the agent wasn't discovered before he passed on the information of the latest shipment of arms from Vangala, as the fishing trawler bringing the shipment in was sunk by a Butuan gunboat. Just more in the long chain of setbacks the MRA has been experiencing for the past year, and Qudarat fears the Revolution may not survive through the coming year if he is not able to turn things around.

How he is going to turn things around is the question. Though those that follow him, are full of the fervor, they are not what would be called well educated. They are mostly the young from the poor villages of the highlands and along the western coast, who are easily recruited, and if properly led, are capable, but over the years, those Qudarat had relied on have been lost to the conflict and their replacements, as the execution of the Butuan agent will testify, can be more of a liability than an asset. Though Qudarat does not have trouble asking for supplies from countries like Vangala, he is reluctant to ask for personnel, as such troops, if and when, discovered, may escalate things out of control, but he just may have no choice.

 

[Butuan]

Headquarters
3rd Military District
Parang, Malabang

Maj. Gen. Lakan Tagkan raises his glass of brandy in a toast.

"To victory in the field and to the day we see Qudarat dancing on the end of a rope."

"Hear, hear!" Comes the response from the group of officers gathered.

After the glasses are emptied, the men gather around a map table.

"Gentlemen," starts Gen. Tagkan, "It would seem we may have the rebels against the ropes with the success of our offensive. With the tightening of the naval interdiction of smugglers, we are depriving them of weapons and ammunition. Now, with the arrival of more modern equipment from Mayaland, Montelimar and Guiana, and as the latest attacks on their camps have demonstrated, we have started depriving them of men and places to hide."

Tagkan pauses as he looks over the map on the table.

"Don't get me wrong, unless Qudarat walks though that door and surrenders, this rebellion is far from over. Qudarat has done things we had before believed impossible, such as somehow uniting the communist and the islamic factions on this island and keeping them together these past years, we cannot afford to understimate him. We therefore must keep the pressure on, we cannot allow him or his followers to rest, as we secure one sector, we must move on to the next, pushing them deeper into the mountains and away from any support and cutting any and every one of their supply lines until they finally give up or die."

 

[Butuan]

The Mountains of Malabang

Qudarat slowly walks through the camp and looks at the ragtag men and women, even some children, that make up part of the Malabang Revolutionary Army, or at least what is left of it. The camp itself was only established two days ago and those that are there are the rimnants of other camps that were attacked by government air and ground forces, they are hungry, injured, and worst of all, demoralized. Once again, as has happened in every attempt to free the Malabang from the grip of the Butuan Rajahnate, has ended up the same way, no matter how successful the fight for liberty has started, the Raj, with foreign help, always is able to re-establish it dominance. So unless something happens to change that, the Revolution will come to the same ignominious end.

Suddenly, as if to punctuate his dispair, Qudarat hears a sound, a sound that has been heard more and more lately, the very distict sound of a helicopter, or to be more precise, several helicopters. Qudarat is not the only one that hears them, as most grab the nearest weapon to be had point it at the general direction of the sound, others grab their children and meager belongings and run for the relative safety of the forrest. All Qudarat could do was keep panic from setting in.

Running to the middle of the camp, Qudarat yells at the top of his lungs for everyone to stay where they were.

"They can't see us, just wait."

Looking up through the the thick canopy of trees, everyone holds their breath as the sound of helicopters pass overhead and then slowly fade away. Typical search pattern, an indication the army was moving into the area.

"Start packing, we are moving out."

As his followers begin packing up, a man in a tattered uniform comes up to Qudarat.

"Colonel, what about the wounded?"

Qudarat looks towards the tent where the few medical people he has are tending to the injured.

"No one is left behind who can give the Butuanese any information of our where abouts. Is that understood?"

"Perfectly."

 

[Butuan]

Deserted Rebel Camp
The Mountains of Malabang

Entering the camp along with a squad from the 1st Butuanese Mountain Regiment is a team from Military Intelligence led by Captain Martin Alho, an officer that has gained a great deal of experience dealing with the Malabang Rebels. Alho and his team's job is to gather as much intel from the camp as can be had before it is lost due to normal army clean-up operations and scanning the area, Tagkan can see that the rebels, though hurried when they left, they did have time to police the camp before leaving, the only thing obvious that has been left is what is found in one corner of the camp, the rebel dead.

It is becoming more and more common that instead of attacking a rebel encampment, the army ends up moving into a deserted one, a positive sign that the rebels are on the run, but in this case, something new has been added to the mix that has given Alho some concerned. Though there has been camps that have been abandoned where the dead had been left behind, at this camp, after the team's medical specialist studies the bodies, it appears that, though some of the dead did die of wounds probably received in battle, there are those that instead died of wounds inflicted afterward, most likely in the camp.

"Killed here in camp, are you sure," Alho queries the medic.

"Yes sir. Definately killed here in camp, though looking at their wounds, they would have likely died of them unless they were evacuated to proper medical facilities, the cause of death for at least two of them were broken necks."

Alho looks down at the bodies.

"It looks like the rebels are not only on the run, but are getting desperate. If the wounded would die if they are moved, they are left behind, but to make sure we don't get to them before they die, their deaths are helped along. I wonder when we will start finding wounded being killed only because they will slow down the rest down. General Tagkin is going to want to here about this."

 

[Butuan]

Malabang - 1952

Jamalul Kiram stood on a high bluff outside the port city of Parang, below he could see the Anglysh navy transports docked there and the long line of Anglysh soldiers bording them. Kiram has been waiting for this day since the end of the Great War, the day that was promised would come when the last of the Anglysh occupiers would finally leave Malabang. Though the Anglysh would still maintain a sizable fleet based in Maynilad Bay on the big island, the Rajah and his government would run the country so as to give the appearance that Butuan had self rule once more. But appearances could be deceiving due to the fact it was the Anglysh that had reinstalled their flunky Siagu to the throne and handpicked his government, and though there would be a Butuanese government in Butuan City, it would be Winchester that would be calling the shots.

During the Great War, Malabang as well as the rest of Butuan had been liberated from the Anglysh by the Oikawan Empire and it was to them he had entrusted his and his people's future, but that liberation had been short lived as Malabang, as was the big island of Tagalog, was reconquered by the Anglysh during the closing chapter of that war. Kiram and his guerilla fighters had fought along side Imperial troops in a vain attempt to stem the tide, but in the end it was the Anglysh that were back and the Oikawans had left leaving Kiram and his few remaining fighters with a prices on their heads and the promise being spoken in his ear that the Empire would return.

"Well, you're right, the Anglysh are leaving, but what makes you so sure they won't return?"

The man that Kiram spoke to lowered his binoculars and looked at the rebel leader. He was dressed in the uniform of a major in the Imperial Army, just as he had been when he had Kiram accompany him to the same bluff when the Anglysh had first captured Parang and they had seen the long line of Anglysh troops disembrking from transports in the harbor. To Major Ryoichi Takahashi his presence on Malabang was his chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the Emperor for the blunders of his superiors in the loss of Butuan in the first place, and now with the Anglysh leaving it would be through him that the Empire of Oikawa would reassert its influence in the Butuanese islands and it would start by grooming Jamalul Kiram into the Imperial puppet he is destined to be.

"Patience is a virtue, Kiram. If you wish to see yourself as Sultan of Malabang, you will need to have more trust in your benefactors. The Anglysh are all but gone and they won't be back in any great numbers, as long as you do as you are advised here on Malabang and let the Empire concern itself with the rest of the world."