| People's Coalition Against War (PCAW) Updated Statement, February 14, 2002 NO TO THE ESCALATION OF WAR! STOP STATE TERRORISM, NOW! After occupying Afghanistan in Central Asia, US troops and Special Forces are now deployed in the Philippines, a neo-colony of the United States in Southeast Asia. Since January 21, 2002 the US forces have started a military exercise called BALIKATAN (Shoulder to Shoulder) with the Philippine military to flush out the small armed bandit group - the Abu Sayyaf in the island of Basilan. This will be the first time US troops have been deployed in the Philippines since the Philippine Constitution of 1987 banned the stationing of foreign troops in the country. At the same time President Bush has maintained that the US will go after his so-called "Axis of Evil"- namely the nations of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. He has to backtrack with the mounting opposition both from here and abroad. Bush is asking for $2.13 trillion budget for his "war against terrorism.� The more than $2 trillion budget is the largest US military budget in the past two decades, yet the country is going into a steady recession. More than 11 million people are out of jobs. While the US Congress is very fast to commit resources for the war, it is snail-paced on punishing corporate lords like Enron's Kenneth Lay who are the real terrorist who made fortunes out of peoples� miseries. WE SAY NO WAR FOR OIL! NO WAR FOR CORPORATE PROFITS! NO BLOOD FOR OIL! We are against a war based on the policy that the United States can act as a "Global Policeman" for the sake of making the world safe for their so-called �democracy� - a policy that dictates on a small country like the Philippines trampling on its constitution and even its own Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). We denounce the US for coddling the Zionist state of Israel while it butchers the Palestinian people and watches the violence in the Middle East escalate. We say no to a war that is waged for the interest of big multinational corporations. It is clear that US corporations that have links to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and others are after Central Asia and Southeast Asian oil. They are not out for the American peoples� interests. We say no to a war that has no clear directions and time limits. It's Vietnam all over again. We protest the direct US intervention in the Philippines that will turn this Southeast Asian country into another Vietnam and a huge military base against the US enemies it named like the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Iran and Iraq. WE DO NOT WANT A REPEAT OF VIETNAM, LEBANON OR SOMALIA! WE SAY NO TO STATE TERRORISM. We condemn the US carpet-bombing in Afghanistan. We raise our voice against such carnage as we do against the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Are we not practicing double standards if we let bombs fall and kill 5,000 defenseless civilians while we are angered by the death of more than 2,000 caused by the WTC bombings? STOP THE RACIST AND DISCRIMINATIVE ATTACKS ON OUR COMMUNITIES! We protest the increasing racist and discriminative attacks against our Muslim brothers and sisters, South Asians and immigrants. More than 1,200 racist attacks have been recorded since September 11. We are against the anti-immigrant backlash and the scapegoating of people based of their race, immigrant status, religious and political beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity and others. More than 28 million undocumented immigrants (especially people of color) were affected when the US Congress deferred actions on the legalization of immigrants and the non-extension of the family reunification law or the LIFE Act. We ask the US Congress to act on the legalization of undocumented immigrants and enact the law with dispatch. Let immigrant families be reunited and do not make the citizenship process hard for the immigrants especially the people of color. UPHOLD FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY AND FIGHT FOR OUR CIVIL RIGHTS! We are appalled at the stand and the treatment of the Bush administration of the more than 1,500 prisoners taken in Afghanistan. At the same time they do not consider these captured prisoners as Prisoners of War, the same stance they have been taking against political prisoners like Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier in the United States. They treat them inhumanely and in disaccord with their human rights. Just look at the facts: Of the 1,200 arrested and detained against their constitutional rights in the �crackdown on terror� of 9/11, none have been charged with terrorism. We now can see a pattern of repression. We express alarm and apprehension over the unknown powers of the Office for Homeland Security that will play "Big Brothers" above us. Thus, we are alarmed at the provisions of the PATRIOT Act. It infringes on our hard won freedoms that some reactionaries want to take back. We must organize, educate and mobilize to fight such infringements on our human and democratic rights. Vigilance always is the price of liberty! Back to Main Page |