------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 23, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
FILIPINO PEOPLE SAY NO: REJECT JOINT WAR MANEUVERS WITH U.S.
By John Catalinotto
The U.S. and Philippines governments have been trying to use the excuse of the "war on terror" to reintroduce Pentagon forces into the islands. At each step they run into increased opposition from the people of the former U.S. colony.
It was reported by the Philippines press that on June 2, popular resistance had forced the postponement of the latest scheduled joint military exercises.
Until an erupting volcano and a mass protest threw them out in 1991, U.S. forces inhabited two major military bases on the major Philippines island of Luzon. These were Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base, which saw its first U.S. troops in 1901 and became the largest U.S. land base in the world. Both were used heavily during the war on Vietnam.
After the bases were closed, the Filipino people made it part of their constitution that U.S. troops would not be stationed on their national territory.
In the days following Sept. 11, 2001, the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was one of the first to throw in support behind the Bush administration. Throughout this winter and spring the Pentagon and the Philippines Armed Forces have increased joint operations. In April they carried out joint military exercises and U.S. troops entered both the old bases.
U.S. "advisors" have been training Filipino troops who are hunting down the Abu Sayyaf organization in the southern Philippines. When Macapagal- Arroyo made a state visit to Washington for four days, beginning May 19, Bush promised to carry out another joint operation known as the Balikatan exercises. The two leaders vowed to crush the Abu Sayyaf group "once and for all."
BUSH OFFERS $30 MILLION IN WARFARE GOODS
Bush also offered $30 million in new aid for training and equipping the Philippine armed forces, and 20 UH-1H helicopters. The Philippines government, representing only the few wealthy Filipinos, looks to the U.S. to save it from insurgencies it faces--and not from the Abu Sayyaf group, which is relatively insignificant.
Philippine popular organizations consider Abu Sayyaf to be simply a bandit group, without a political program. With only a few hundred fighters and no popular support, Abu Sayyaf would of course be doomed in a serious military battle with Filipino and U.S. troops.
But there are two legitimate liberation movements with popular followings that both Manila and Washington are really targeting. One is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), with 12,500 fighters in the South. The Philippines armed forces are currently waging an offensive against the MILF, without success.
The other movement is the New People's Army (NPA), whose political organization is the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). A leading organization in the NDFP is the Communist Party of the Philippines. The NPA and the MILF have a united front against the government.
These groups represent serious popular insurgencies that can challenge the pro-U.S. government in Manila. Prospero Pichay, head of the armed forces committee in the Philippines House of Representatives, says the U.S. aid "will be welcome assistance. If we have to modernize the armed forces using local funds, we will not be able to modernize it at all."
With the Abu Sayyaf story so obviously a ploy, Washington and Manila are looking for a better way to justify the joint exercises. On May 31 the New York Times ran a front-page story not only on Abu Sayyaf but also on alleged connections between the MILF and al-Qaeda. It quoted unnamed "intelligence officials" from assorted countries on the Pacific rim who described in vivid detail alleged MILF explosives training camps.
FILIPINOS DON'T BUY STORY
Whether or not this story convinced anyone in the U.S. is yet to be seen. It failed miserably in Sulu in the southern Philippines.
According to a story in the Manila Times of June 2, "Sulu residents opposed hosting the Balikatan exercises when they learned that U.S. soldiers would take part in combat against the Abu Sayyaf.
"Sulu officials also said that residents remain resentful of foreigners a century after suffering at the hands of American soldiers in the pacification campaign during the Filipino-American War." That war followed the 1898 Spanish-American war and wiped out about 600,000 Filipinos, who fought the U.S. occupation for 17 years.
Philippines Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes said on June 2 that the Balikatan war games scheduled for June will be postponed while the "terms of reference"--the relation of the U.S. troops to the Filipino troops--are sorted out.
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