| EODX - specialized inter-operability training between the demolition and ordnance experts of the two armed forces. Exercise includes lectures and drills on day/night LIMPET and Improvised Explosive Devise (IED), underwater ordnance, demolition training and VIP protection. Salvex - this is a navy exercise designed to improve Philippine and US skills in ship salvage operations, usually requiring actual operations on sunken ships. The current large-scale Balikatan exercises in the Philippines were started in 1991 as a navy-to-navy exercise sponsored by the US CINCPAC (US Pacific Command). The Visiting Forces Agreement (1999) may have succeeded in reversing what the Senate did in 1991. Philippine courts cannot, under the VFA even assume jurisdiction over U.S. soldiers and try them for such crimes as rape, murder, or homicide, committed against Filipinos right here in our own country. Under Art. 5 of the VFA, any offense committed by US soldiers or personnel, no matter how grave or heinous, may be considered "official acts" provided the US commander issues a "military duty" certificate. This was how the United States gave immunity to thousands of accused American soldiers from 1947 until Sept. 16, 1991 for their criminal acts on Philippine soil. Although Balikatan military exercises have been going on since 1991, these were temporarily stopped after the Senate rejected the proposed bases treaty. The proposed Military Bases Agreement which was rejected in 1991, covered transient U.S. forces undergoing training. This was, however, resumed after the ratification of the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement. A shift in the orientation and implementation of Balikatan exercises, however, has occurred after Sept. 11, 2002. Balikatan in early 2002 was intentionally conducted in the Basilan and Zamboanga war zones, this time with live targets in actual military operations, during what National Security Adviser Roilo Golez calls "on-the-job training." This shift in Balikatan only refers to the open and publicly acknowledged role of the war exercise in current AFP counter-insurgency campaigns. In a TOP SECRET Memorandum to former President Joseph Estrada dated May 9, 2000, of the TASK FORCE BLACK CRESCENT which analyzed the TOP SECRET OPLAN MINDANAO II/BLACK RAIN operations against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the TF Black Crescent headed by former Secretary of National Defense Fortunato Abat referred to the "Conduct of military advance training on anti-guerrilla warfare under the guise of 'Balikatan 2000' RP-US military training exercises, in consonance with the ratified Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) (p.5); "The arming of the Alliance of Christian Vigilantes for Muslim-Free Mindanao and the Spiritual Soldiers of God in Mindanao to whom 20,763 units consisting of M14s and M16s had already secretly been distributed."(p.8). This TOP SECRET document WHICH I HAVE DECLASSIFIED for us all, clearly shows the wanton use of vigilantism against so-called terrorism in Mindanao, now reinforced by the rewards system for bounty hunters. Perils of American intervention The U.S. experience in Vietnam should be an eye-opener for those wishing to invite more US military advisors and trainors from the US Special Operations Forces. When the first 400 Green Beret special advisors to South Vietnam were sent in 1961 ostensibly to train the South Vietnamese army in methods of counter-insurgency against the guerrillas of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, the United States immediately clarified then that its soldiers were not in Vietnam to engage in combat, according to Stephen Ambrose, in his book, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938. With the increased success of the National Liberation Front guerrillas, however, the U.S. eventually began to run covert operations directly to harass the Vietnamese people's army. In 1964, after an alleged torpedo attack by North Vietnam of the American destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Johnson administration decided to retaliate by conducting bombing raids in North Vietnam and blockading the Gulf of Tonkin. The Vietnam War eventually resulted in the deployment of no less than half a million US combat troops by 1967-70, the death of two million Vietnamese and injuries to three million civilians. Twelve million Vietnamese became refugees and thousands of children were orphaned. Millions of acres of Vietnam's forests and farmlands were defoliated by Agent Orange herbicide, sprayed from planes whose pilots were eventually contaminated themselves. Millions of mines and unexploded bombs and artillery shells are still scattered in the Vietnamese countryside, posing constant danger to life and limb. Operation Phoenix laboratory Is the Philippines now becoming a laboratory for a new type of militarization to be initiated by a borderless U.S. military? Recent events in Southern Luzon, especially in the island of Mindoro, could show that an Operation Phoenix-type of operation may be taking place. Within one year, 20 local coordinators of the Bayan Muna political party, including its provincial coordinator, were assassinated. The U.S.-trained and armed Philippine military has intensified its counter-insurgency campaign against New People's Army guerrillas and against the political infrastructure of the National Democratic Front (NDF). This is reminiscent of the most secret and deadliest U.S. covert operation in Vietnam where the U.S. launched a massive assassination campaign against what it believed was the political infrastructure of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam as well as local leaders and local officials known to sympathize with the Vietnamese resistance. Between 25,000 and 30,000 civilians in South Vietnam, mostly non-combatants, were later acknowledged by the CIA to have been liquidated in the US-directed Operation Phoenix which had the objective to "disrupt and destroy enemy assets." Next Page Back to Main Page |