Free Sulu Movement

Free Sulu Movement (FSM) Flag

The Free Sulu Movement (FSM) is a conglomerate of anti-federation and independence factions of the Belesian archipelago. The group seeks to break free of the alleged overreach of the Belesian central government and abuses of the Belesia Federation National Guard (BFNG). The group has operated since the member islands of what is now the Federated States of Belesia began to perceive their individual cultures and rights were being subsumed by nationalist fervor. It was not until the rise of its shadowy leader, known only as “Niko,” that the group became more organized and active. More troubling is the group’s alleged ties to foreign groups. Support from Olvana, the Islamic State, and the "Gabal Forever" movement have all been reportedly linked to the group in recent press reporting.

Its tactics have become increasingly violent, including attacks against government facilities such as political offices and BFNG or Constabulary armories. The group has also claimed credit for attacks against civilians whom they label, “collaborators.” Attacks range from simple vandalism and sabotage to guerrilla-style operations and bombings. In more remote areas, they have also conducted extra-judicial proceedings and seizures. In areas with minimal security, the group operates small “Street Committees” to intimidate locals into cooperation or silence. These small elements have been known to conduct low-level attacks or infiltrate otherwise peaceful protests into incite violence. The FSM leverages a variety of informal and online communications means to coordinate these activities, including social messaging via mobile devices.

While the majority of FSM actions occur on the larger Belesian islands, their power base often comes from the smaller, less inhabited areas. The vast inequity in government support for poverty eradication, employment programs, education, and infrastructure development for the various islands fuels this discontent.

Organizational Structure

Free Sulu Movement (FSM) Presumed Structure

The Free Sulu Movement (FSM) is run by a shadowy figure known only as Niko. The protection of Niko’s identity is attributable to a layered command and control structure. A handful of trusted couriers and commanders, largely unknown to security agencies and held strictly at arms-length from all operational members, relays commands and intelligence from Niko to the rest of the organization, effectively air-gapping him. A further protection exists in the form of the FSM’s robust and sophisticated counterintelligence capability, consisting of shadowy veteran loyalists who vet and monitor every leadership tier short of Niko himself.

Given that the FSM is a conglomerate of separatist movements, with an additional extended network of allied or affiliate organizations, its core structure is highly distinctive. Logistics, kinetic, and information capabilities are organized around an agile core/periphery model, with core tactical leaders recruiting, organising, and sometimes cutting out a disaggregated network of hybrid, licit, illicit, and deniable incorporated entities, cells, and individuals. High-level co-ordination between the core and periphery groups is run through a more or less licit co-ordinating council, leveraging its relatively open status and separation from criminal and insurgent elements to also perform legal functions, including legal protection and defence, and to organize recruitment operations.

Organizational Narrative

The FSM is a conglomeration of Marxist and Socialist anti-federation factions of the Belesian archipelago. The FSM seeks to break free of the alleged overreach of the Belesian central government and abuses of the BFNG in order to create a society where everyone is equal. The group has operated in some of the Belesian islands since the late 1940s when communism was spreading throughout Asia. The FSM wants to separate itself from the rest of Belesia to create their own utopia. It was not until the rise of its shadowy leader, known only as “Niko,” that the group became more organized and active. More troubling is the group’s alleged ties to foreign groups. Support from Bothnia, Donovia, Olvana, North Torbia, and the Gabal Forever movement have all been reportedly linked to the group in recent press reporting.

Its tactics have become increasingly violent, including attacks against government facilities such as political offices and BFNG or BNDP armories. The group has also claimed credit for attacks against civilians whom they label, “fascist collaborators.” Attacks range from simple vandalism and sabotage to guerrilla-style operations and bombings. In more remote areas, the FSM has also conducted extra-judicial proceedings and seizures. In areas with minimal security, the group operates small “Street Committees” to intimidate locals into cooperation or silence. These small elements have been known to conduct low-level attacks or infiltrate otherwise peaceful protests to incite violence. The FSM leverages a variety of informal and online communications means to coordinate these activities, including social messaging via mobile devices, though more recently there has been a concerted push to evolve an info-sphere dominance capability.

Areas of Operation

Placeholder for AO Map

The FSM itself is centred in the regions around the Sulu Sea, but its actual footprint of operations is Belesia-wide. This is owing in part to its network of relationships with Belesian separatist movements. The Visayan People’s Front (VPF), for example, has some ideological and tactical areas of crossover, which creates opportunities for both organizations to leverage each other’s capabilities and support networks. There is the additional reported factor of international links. It is believed that the FSM and therefore, to a more limited extent its allied organizations, has access to transnational criminal, non-state, and even potentially state-level actors’ enabling and operational networks.

Ideologies

The FSM is a more or less pure Marxist Socialist revolutionary movement. Its utopian ideals and direct linkages to post-war Marxism and war communism align it strongly with actors such as North Torbia and, to a lesser extent, Olvana. The core tenets of FSM ideology have been remarkably resilient over time, organized tenaciously around the logic outlined below.

Capitalism is an insidious form of exploitation designed to trick the proletariat into enslaving itself. This is achieved through the illusory political freedoms of aspirational plutocracy, and the allure of consumerist culture.
Current systems of power have been entrenched for thousands of years, so no small modification can provide meaningful change or improvement to the lives of the people. Only complete destruction of the current world order, starting with the Belesian National Government, can bring about a free and equal society.
All religions, while perverted by plutocratic rent-seeking powers into ‘opiates of the masses’, have in common their ideas of ‘oneness’, which is conclusive proof that the natural state of humanity is true and full equality.
Vested interests, including and especially the Belesian elites and their fascistic allies, are existentially threatened by anything which might erode their grip on power and wealth. It is therefore only possible to achieve equality through force and violence.
Given the global, pan-human nature of the cause, it is imperative to find common ground with as many other groups involved in ‘the struggle’ as possible, achieve the revolution, and then reconcile minor differences in ideology afterwards.

FSM material used to have a tendency towards old-fashioned Marxist dialectic, but recent efforts to modernise messaging has created a strange hybrid of turn of the century utopianism, mediaeval Islamist rhetoric, and contemporary meme-based epigrams. The FSM is particularly interested in narratives of past or present Western discrimination (i.e. sexism, racism), as these bolster their own claims, common amongst revolutionary communists, of social progressivism.

Membership and Demographics

The FSM has a diverse membership base, reflective of its ‘broad church’ attitude to ideological alliances. Its core command is highly educated and the majority are from large urban centres. A hard-core minority, however, are agrarian Marxists from remote communities, generally holdovers from the mid-twentieth century spread of communism through the region.

A slim majority of members is male, but university and community based recruitment activities, coupled with a bias towards anarcho-feminist speech has meant that an unusually high number of females are recruited and retained.

The typical ‘foot soldier’ is a male or female non-practising/lapsed Muslim, educated to at least a secondary school level, and under thirty five years of age. This is largely owing to the broader demographics of Belesia, rather than to any organization-specific features of the group itself. Despite their Marxist beliefs, atheism is not compulsory in any FSM cadre or affiliate.

The influence of the core anti-normative Marxist and Anarchist belief systems means that core members are often involved in drug use and unconventional or polyamorous personal relationships. This behaviour is highly distinctive in Belesia, a largely socially conservative country, and can be helpful when attempting to identify core FSM operatives.

Operational Profile

Kinetic

The FSM’s disaggregated structure can make it difficult to determine which operations are directly attributable to their activities, and which are ‘copycat’ style attacks. While directly attributable kinetic activities tend to be low level and scattered, a broad interpretation of attribution can reveal an impressive scale of co-ordinated activity.

The FSM most frequently conducts:

Kidnap for Ransom
Political and other reprisal assassinations
Extra-judicial maimings and ‘executions’
Sabotage, sometimes in support of foreign state actors
Terrorist demonstrations of force
Guerrilla raids on government and police forces
Low-level Area Denial ops, especially mining of small ports and harbours
Extortion and intimidation

Non-Kinetic

The FSM has an impressive IW and PSYOPS capability, enabled by the legitimate elements of the organization and the platforms they have worked to develop over the decades since the end of the Second World War. A network of charities, not for profit organizations, friendship, student, labour, and community groups, as well as small but highly effective lobby groups co-ordinate high quality information and influence operations focused on rural areas of Belesia, university campuses, working class urban malcontents, and international state level actors and NGOs. The primary narrative of the FSM is one of altruism in the face of government oppression and corruption.

Aside from their information operations, the FSM conducts a variety of grey zone activities, most of which have to do with enabling their ideological goals. Most notably, FSM operatives are known to be involved in the sustainment of people trafficking routes, this being a primary vector for absconding agents and incoming covert operatives, materiel, and funds. Where they have been most successful, for whatever reason, in remote rural areas, FSM committees basically subsume the functions of local government, and are therefore able to allow or deny areas to government troops and law enforcement.

The FSM’s typical non-kinetic activities are:

Sustained and co-ordinated info-sphere and webops activities
Proselytizing on television and radio
Public events, talks, and conferences in support of FSM narratives
De-facto local governance of some remote communities, including basic service provision and public order maintenance
Charitable and community-based influence activities, especially youth-related charities
Blackmail and intimidation of government officials and prominent businesspeople
Economic warfare through control of labour unions
Collection of ‘revolutionary taxes’
Money laundering
Active membership in student and labour organizations
People trafficking support – security and ‘safe corridors’
Arms trafficking

Recruitment

The FSM has an impressive recruitment arm. As a general rule, FSM influence operators are looking for more ideological converts and financial contributors than they are active members, given that a majority of combatant recruits will be funneled into one or another of their organic or affiliate separatist militias.

FSM messaging is full spectrum, being present in think-tanks, academic symposia, government fora, student activism, mainstream and alternative media, and close interpersonal mentorship and outreach in underprivileged and working class communities. The FSM also has a fundraising profile remarkably similar to that of a legitimate political party, with regular events and appeals facilitated by both legitimate and illicit elements of the organization.

The primary method of recruiting combatant operatives remains interpersonal, with the focus being on poaching members from moderate student and labour groups, as well as from criminal organizations. Other methods include infiltration of orphanages and foster care programs, as well as simple and blatant poster, television, and online advertising.

Despite this broad spectrum recruitment profile, the FSM is insulated from dramatic government action owing to its relatively low recruitment targets. A majority of prospects fail to pass through vetting processes, and the core membership is deliberately small in number. It is instead the individual insurgent groups and militias, both organic to the movement and allied or affiliated, who bear the brunt of enforcement action.