Anti-Pentagon anger grows
Bush's 'war on terror' faces challenge in Philippines
By Scott Scheffer
Manila, Philippines
George Bush's phony "War on Terrorism" is facing a challenge
in the Philippines. It isn't from the Abu Sayaf Group
(ASG)--the pretext used for the six-month intervention that
U.S. troops finished on July 31, as well as the plan to resume
joint exercises in October. The real fight is coming from the
Filipino people.
The people of this former U.S. colony want U.S. troops gone
and gone for good. Popular anti-U.S. troop sentiment made
successes of a series of events organized here by mass
organizations between July 24 and August 3. The actions spanned
the geography of the country, and had the pro-U.S. Arroyo
government scrambling for new ways to spin their unpopular
collusion with the Bush administration.
At the center of all the anti-war work were the
International Solidarity Mission (ISM) and the People's
Caravan. Grassroots groups representing different sectors of
the progressive movement, including BAYAN, BAYAN Muna, Out Now,
Moro-Christian People's Alliance and Gabriella Network,
organized the actions.
The ISM was a fact-finding mission that had the
responsibility of gathering information about human rights
abuses during the joint operations between the U.S. military
and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). This reporter
was among about 65 participants from nine countries that were
given the opportunity to take part.
The morning after arriving in Manila, delegates traveled
more than an hour by air to Zamboaga City in the southwestern
part of Mindinao. The next morning they traveled south another
half hour by boat to Basilan Island. Muslim peoples who
successfully resisted Spanish colonization, and therefore
retained their own cultural identity, populate the southern
part of the Philippines. Anti-U.S.-troop sentiment is strong
there.
When the delegates came off of the boat, there was a great
welcome for them. A demonstration of hundreds of people with
signs and banners against the intervention of the U.S. in the
Philippines spanned the area where the boat was docked. Small
fishing boats in the surrounding water were also decorated with
colorful banners.
Arrests, torture and deaths
As the delegates set about their work over the next two
days, dozens of people from Zamboanga, Basilan, and General
Santos City met with ISM members at great personal risk, often
inviting them into their homes to tell the stories of wholesale
arrests, injuries and deaths of their loved ones since the U.S.
troops arrived in January.
They heard from a woman whose 11-year-old son and husband
were taken away by the AFP and found dead the next day. The
news media reported that they were members of the ASG. People
spoke again and again of soldiers demanding that their young
men admit to being specific ASG figures that they had never
heard of, and being beaten and arrested for refusing to
"confess." Ironically, some of them had lost family members to
ASG attacks.
After being jailed, many prisoners had been tortured and
beaten for up to three days. When we visited Basilan Provincial
Jail, there were 131 prisoners in a tiny two-room dwelling with
no beds. Some prisoners reported having been there for five
months without any contact with a lawyer.
A priest told ISM members how he nearly lost his life in an
ASG attack at the Dr. Jose Torres Hospital where he served, and
then watched the ASG slip away in broad daylight, as the army
did nothing to stop them. The ASG is a small group that spreads
terror throughout the oppressed Muslim areas of the
Philippines, particularly Basilan and Sulu, and provides a
pretext for the U.S. military presence.
The real targets of the U.S./AFP operations, it's believed
by movement leaders, will be the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF), the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and the New
People's Army (NPA). The three are larger guerilla operations
that are genuinely linked to the people's progressive movements
of the Philippines.
U.S. soldier shoots civilian
Of course the most explosive testimony was the reported
shooting of an unarmed civilian by a U.S. soldier during an
arrest operation that should not have been a military matter.
Upon hearing the news, ISM participants visited the home where
the shooting occurred, interviewed family members and
neighbors, collected physical evidence, and held a series of
press conferences that became national news for three to four
days. (See accompanying article.)
Before returning to Manila, ISM participants were able to
attend the final rally of the People's Caravan, which took
place in the soccer stadium in Zamboanga City. The 900-plus
caravan participants had traveled for days from all over the
Philippines. They held "U.S. troops out" rallies in villages
and towns along the way.
A government-orchestrated stone-throw ing mob, and roads
covered with spikes and blocked by heavy equipment, delayed the
last day of their journey by nine hours. But it failed to stop
the caravan from rendezvousing with the ISM.
The day after their arrival in Zamboaga, the ISM delegates
joined the Caravan group inside the soccer stadium. The two
groups traded cultural presentations, shared food, and prepared
to march outside for the final rally. That rally came off in
spite of a huge number of riot police and AFP troops that
blocked them from marching through the city. Regional leaders
of the groups that had sponsored the ISM, in addition to the
Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU or May First Movement), the militant
trade union federation in the Philippines, addressed the crowd.
Militant chants demanded "U.S. troops--out now!!"
Bush fears mass movement
Ralliers laughed and cheered at a skit that comically
depicted President Arroyo, a U.S. general and President Bush
cowering in fear of an uprising of the Filipino masses. Their
puppet figures were then burned in effigy.
But fear of the Filipino mass movement by the U.S. is more
than just the stuff of comedy.
Washington closed its enormous Clark Air Force base and
Subic Bay Naval base in 1991 because the U.S. were very afraid
of the momentum of the great mass struggle against those bases.
The Pentagon brass were sent packing and they have never gotten
over the sting of their loss. Bases in the Philippines were a
crucial staging area during the criminal U.S. war against the
people of Vietnam.
The Bush administration is working to extend U.S.
imperialist domination of the world, and is using the so-called
war on terrorism as its justification. The stakes in Asia are
high. In addition to the estimated $4 trillion worth of oil in
the Caspian Sea area, there is an undetermined amount of oil in
the South China Sea. Bush and Co. are maneuvering to regain the
use of the Philippine Islands that are key to their military
plans to grab everything they can in Asia.
ISM participants left for home with enormous respect for the
leaders of the people's struggle in the Philippines and renewed
determination to build solidarity with their struggle for
sovereignty. The Filipino people's movement is posing a real
challenge, and with solidarity from progressive forces in the
imperialist countries--particularly the United States--they can
send the U.S. troops packing again.
Reprinted from the Aug. 15, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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