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| Why the Americans are in Basilan and Sulu By Antonio C. Abaya June 6, 2002 As I wrote in my column of February 7 (See �Is it Abu Zedung They�re Eyeing?�, the most immediate task that the Americans set out for themselves when they began to station troops here this year was to prevent the then shaky government of President Arroyo from being overthrown by the mobs loyal to the disgraced Joseph Estrada and his designated successor Ping Lacson, who had threatened to do a repeat of their May 1 assault on Malacanang last year. Not because the Americans are especially fond of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the Filipinos, but because they are wary of the Chinese connections of Erap and Ping and their suspected involvement with the Chinese in drug trafficking and money laundering. To some American officials, China is the next strategic enemy of the US. Thanks in part to the presence of American �advisers� in military camps in the Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog regions, the recruitment of mercenaries from the military and the police � necessary for the success of any coup � had a lean harvest, and May l thus came and went without the threatened assault. ***** The American presence in Basilan is, of course, directed at their current strategic enemy, the Islamic fundamentalists, who are believed to be regrouping for another spectacular assault on the Americans after their phenomenally successful bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Islamic fundamentalism is much more widespread and militant in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the Americans cannot station troops there because the environment would be hostile to their presence. In Indonesia, for example, the white-smocked warriors of Lashkar Jihad, which includes volunteers from Malaysia and Mindanao, have all but declared war on Christians, Americans included, and have been blamed for thousands of Christian dead in Ambon and Moluku. Two (of the 13) states in the Malaysian union are now controlled by PAS, the Islamic fundamentalist opposition party. In Mindanao, at least, the overwhelming majority of the Christian population � who make up the bulk of the island�s inhabitants � genuinely welcome the presence of the Americans, and no amount of carping from the communists and their allies in media is going to change that. Additionally, the Americans have a good excuse for stationing troops in Basilan: they are ostensibly there to try and rescue two American missionaries who have been hostaged by the Abu Sayyaf for more than a year now. (This article was written before the botched rescue by Philippine troops in which Martin Burnham and Filipino nurse Edilborah Yap were killed, and Marcia Burnham was wounded. This was also written before the announced pullout of the Americans from Basilan by end of July and the deployment of a smaller unit in Sulu.) But there should be no illusion about this: the Americans are here for the medium haul, with or without the Burnham couple, with or without the Abu Sayyaf. They are just convenient covers. What the Americans are worried about is the stated goal of militant Islamists based in Indonesia to form a new pan-Islamic state comprising the territories of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand and the southern Philippines. Such an Islamic state, implacably hostile to Western interests, would smother the �good Chinese� enclave of Singapore, inundate Australia with hundreds of thousands of Islamic �refugees�, snuff out East Timor (the darling-of-the-year of Western media), and wreak havoc on the maritime commerce of Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan. All these potentially threatened countries (with the exception of East Timor) are major trading partners of the US and collectively buy more than 55% of America�s exports. This putative pan-Islamic state would therefore be a direct threat to the prosperity and security of the US way beyond the fate of the Burnham couple and the Abu Sayyaf. Furthermore, this region is awash with oil and natural gas, from the Gulf of Thailand to the incredibly rich island of Kalimantan to the untapped deposits believed to lie in the Timor Gap between East Timor and Australia., and possibly to the waters off the Sulu islands. Just as the Americans went to war in 1991 to prevent Saddam Hussein from cornering the petroleum wealth of the Persian Gulf, so are they preparing to go to war in the near future, if necessary, to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from cornering the natural wealth of Southeast Asia. And not just the natural resources, but the industrial infrastructure and the human resources that go with it, as well. Shipyards, aircraft repair and oil refineries in Singapore. Oil wells, automotive and motorcycle industries, steel mills, cyber industries, dozens of world-class manufacturing plants in Malaysia. Aircraft and helicopter industries, naval and maritime shipyards, steel mills, oil wells, factories that turn out diesel engines, electric generators, telecom equipment, armaments and munitions, railway equipment and rolling stock, and machine tools in Indonesia (which I was privileged to see as a guest of their chief architect, Dr. B. J. Habibie, who invited me to Indonesia four times before he became interim president). More oil and gas wells in Brunei. Seaweed farms in Sulu. The Persian Gulf may be richer in petroleum deposits. But if one were to include the industrial infrastructure and the indigenous skilled personnel that operate it, Southeast Asia would carry more geostrategic weight. So it should come as no surprise that the Americans are digging in for the medium haul. The infrastructure they have built in Basilan and will build elsewhere are not just to win hearts and minds. They are designed to facilitate the movement of their troops and their equipment in the near future, should that become necessary. Their strategic objectives go way beyond the rescue of the Burnhams and the obliteration of the Abu Sayyaf. And if this unacceptable to the communists and their allies in media, well��.tough! Those who cannot see beyond the seaweeds of Sulu are condemned to eat nothing but. ***** The bulk of this article appeared in the June 24, 2002 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Why the Americans are in Basilan and Sulu� July 27, 2002 I WISH that I really believed that there were Americans at the policy-making level who were sufficiently clued-in to Philippine politics to formulate the subtle policy that you impute to them, namely intervening in the southern Philippines in such a way as to forestall a coup in Luzon. Unfortunately, knowing my countrymen as I do, I doubt very strongly that such acumen exists at the highest levels of the US government. I�m glad that the US presence has had that effect, but would be much surprised to discover that it was anticipated and intended. MY REPLY. You could have spared yourself the supercilious sarcasm. You obviously did not know that when the first batch of US troops arrived last January, small detachments were posted at the Mactan Air Base in Cebu, Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecia and two other Luzon camps not identified by media. You obviously also did not know that in the 1987 and 1989 coup attempts led by Gringo Honasan, Mactan Air Base and Fort Magsaysay were centers of military discontent and of recruitment of mercenaries for the coups. It is reasonable to assume that these facts were/are stored in the Pentagon�s computers even if you are ignorant of them. ***** THERE is no question that the USG is fully awakening to China�s quest for hegemony in this area. They are of course aware of Chinese designs on Taiwan, but somebody must have studied the map a little more carefully and noticed that there are other ways than a leap across the Taiwan Straits to �unify� China, and that the alternative, indirect approaches have the indubitable strategic advantage of securing the flanks of the invading force and denying the USA a platform from which to oppose or even reverse the annexation of Taiwan. That newfound awareness of a wider strategic threat is all to the good, because some genius in the State or Defense departments might just advocate a change in the US attitude towards Chinese mischief in the Paracels and elsewhere, from the current legalistic maundering to a clear understanding that military encroachment is not tolerable regardless of the excuse. The sooner Chinese �fishermen� are chased out of these waters and their bases occupied by Philippines forces or dynamited, the safer this country will be. I don�t know about you, but I don�t see this country�s forces successfully opposing alone a Chinese assault in, say, five years. And I�m not certain we have even that much time. MY REPLY. For a different take on how China may plan to control (without invading or occupying) the countries around it, see my article Is it Abu Zedung They�re Eyeing? archived in this website. You talk about �Chinese mischief in the Paracels and elsewhere�.� You must mean �the Spratlys and elsewhere.� The Paracels, located off the coast of Vietnam, were grabbed by the Chinese from the Vietnamese in 1975 or 1978 and that grab has been considered a fait accompli since. ***** I NOTE with regret that you too refer to the encounter in which one of the American hostages and the last Filipino hostage were killed as a �botched� rescue attempt. I must remind you, as I have others who ought to know better, that hostages die in even the best organized raids. Entebbe comes to mind. In that raid the location, number and strength of the terrorists were accurately known and the rescuers had ample time to prepare, yet hostages were still killed. Blaming the government forces for the death of hostages in a spontaneous meeting encounter is inaccurate and unfair. MY REPLY. The rescue was �botched� because, of the three hostages being rescued, two were killed and one was wounded. You mention Entebbe, where more than a hundred Jews and Israelis were hostaged. Entebbe was a rousing success because only three hostages got killed. If 70-plus hostages had been killed and the remaining 30-plus wounded � the ratio in Basilan � Entebbe would have qualified as a botched rescue attempt. Do I have to spell out everything for you? See my article Abu Sayyaf: Why the AFP Failed, also archived in this website. ***** YOU ALSO state, incorrectly, that the Americans were using the presence of American hostages as a reason for intervening in the RP. In fact (and you must know this), they have consistently denied that motive, stating instead that this is part of a long-term effort against Al-Quaida affiliates worldwide. MY REPLY. That may have been the US official line, but the Americans knew, and the Filipinos knew, that the local inhabitants saw their presence as deliverance from the bandit-kidnappers and welcomed it as such. The locals couldn�t have cared less about �the global war on terrorism.� ***** LIKEWISE, you attribute strategic motives to the infrastructure improvements being carried out, ignoring the obvious tactical advantage of improving the mobility of government forces while restricting freedom of movement of the Abus. While it is tenable to impute strategic motives to port improvements, that reasoning cannot apply to the improvements of interior road nets! Very sincerely, Marc de Piolenc, Iligan City. [email protected]. MY REPLY. So, what are you beefing about? Seaport and airport improvements for strategic reasons, paving interior road nets for local PR. I really have to spell out everything for you, don�t I? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |