Montreal - February 4, 2002
The Centre for Philippine Concerns condemns the intervention of US troops in the Philippines. With the Bush administration's war on terrorism as a pretext, the US military is getting its foot back in the door that the Filipino people slammed when they shut down US bases there in 1991. For four decades, the US had 15,000 permanently stationed troops on two major bases, Clark and Subic, and used them as a launching pad for American aggression in Asia and the Middle East. The bases were shut down by a militant anti-bases movement.
The 650 combat troops that stomped into the Philippines in the past two weeks were invited by President Gloria Magapagal Arroyo, ostensibly to act as "advisors" to the Philippine military in dealing with the terrorist Aby Sayeff group, which has been kidnapping foreigners and Filipinos for ransom. The Abu Sayyaf was originally a creation of the CIA and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to counter the influence of the Moro liberation movements in the southern Philippines.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) already has over 6000 combat troops of its own in the heavily-militarized region of Mindanao, home to the predominantly muslim Bangsamoro people.
Meanwhile hundreds of additional US troops have been deployed to the Northern Luzon region - the other end of the country. Clearly Abu Sayyaf is not the only target for US operations. In fact, Philippine military Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes revealed that the next and bigger target of the joint operations would be the National Democratic Front and the New People's Army, neither of which are "terrorists" or could be construed to have any connection with September 11. The NDFP is waging a national liberation struggle against imperialism and the subservient big landlord-comprador regime.
Progressive groups throughout the country and Filipino communities abroad have been in an uproar over the renewed US military presence. In the Philippines, Bayan, New Patriotic Alliance said in a statement earlier last year : "We cannot allow the country to be once more made a dumping ground for military toxics and nuclear waste, an R&R paradise beset with prosititution and vice, a practice target area where children are �mistaken' for wild pigs and an abject country devoid of national sovereignty and dignity."
Bayan and other patriotic and progressive groups have denounced Philippine president Gloria Magapagal Arroyo as a loyal puppet to Uncle Sam, a zealous defender of US interests. Two days after Sept. 11, President Arroyo had scrambled to offer the use of the former military bases for the US-led war in the Middle East, and even offered to send troops to Afghanistan. These became part of her "14 pillars" and "six measures" to combat terrorism.
Magapagal Arroyo's invitation to the US to send in troops has been roundly denounced as illegal and unconstitutional. Some members of congress tried to block the move, but the troops streamed in regardless.
Magapagal-Arroyo is out of the same mold as her predessors, seeking foreign assistance to prop up the corrupt semi-feudal and semi-colonial system, and her own ruling elite of landowners and local capitalists. They have relied on foreign support to keep down the growing movement for fundamental change. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) sees the assistance of US troops as a way of modernizing its weaponry, communications and surveillance to wage war on its own people in counterinsurgency operations in the Philippine countryside.
In its statement January 19, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines recalled the significance of February 4: "Our history is filled with lessons about US imperialist treachery and aggression. On February 4, 1899, the US started the Philippine-American War by intitiating an encounter with Filipino revolutionary forces. It used the false allegation that Filipino troops would start killing all foreign residents in Manila. US imperialism sent more than 126,000 to pacify the Filipino people and caused the death of up to 1.4 million Filipinos from 1899 to 1913. A great number of Bangsamoro people were also killed in Mindanao."
The NDF points out : "US intervention in Vietnam started with the sending of advisors and trainers, followed by combat troops. In the Philippines all these are coming in one go. (In Vietnam) The US manufactured the Tonkin Gulf incident to justify its war of aggression. Now it uses the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US to wage a so-called global war on terrorism. The Abu Sayyaf group, their own creation in collaboration with their assets in the Philippine military, is their convenient excuse to intervene militarily again in the Philippines."
People's organisations in the Philippines have held vigils and protests in front of the US Embassy in Manila since the troops arrived. In Canada, Filipino community groups in Vancouver, Toronto , Ottawa and Montreal held coordinated protest rallies last Tuesday when President Magapagal-Arroyo made an official visit to Ottawa, looking for financial support for being such a good ally in the "war on terrorism".
The Centre for Philippine Concerns is an anti-imperialist solidarity group which has supported the Filipino people's struggle for national democracy since 1982. The CPC calls on all freedom-loving people to oppose the US military presence in the Philippines and to join our campaign of information and protest. Please inform your friends and contacts of the danger to world peace posed by this latest US incursion into the Philippines.
Oppose the Canadian government's shameful knee-jerk support for US military policy!
Stop US intervention in the Philippines!
Justice not War!
To stay abreast of developments, please consult the following web sites :
Daily Inquirer
http://www.inquirer.net/
Bulatlat news service
http://www.bulatlat.com/
Cyberdyaryo
http://www.cyberdyaryo.com
ILPS
http://www.geocities.com/ilps2000/index.html
Bayan
http://www.geocities.com/bayanorg/
