PHILIPPINES
Back In Bed With Uncle Sam
-
Murray Horton
A decade ago, in 1991, the world’s most persistent anti-bases campaign succeeded, after a struggle that had spanned many years, in getting the Philippines Senate to vote not to renew the treaty allowing the US to continue to have its huge military bases in that country. Those bases, of which the biggest and most important were Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base, were amongst the Pentagon’s most prized assets in Asia and had been in business for nearly a century. So their closure (greatly aided by the catastrophic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, in the case of Clark) was very definitely a Big Deal. The last US military personnel duly departed in 1992 and the bases closed, awaiting a new lease of life as civilian facilities.
The closure of the bases did not sit
well with the rulers of either country. The then President, Cory Aquino, vainly
campaigned to keep them open. Her successors, Fidel Ramos and the benighted
Joseph Estrada, did all they could to get the military relationship with the US
back to the status quo. They didn’t try to re-establish the bases themselves,
nor did the US push for that. But there’s more than one way to skin a cat. The
1951 Mutual Defense Treaty was dredged up and dusted off, allowing for US
military exercises in the Philippines. This sat dormant until both Presidents
Ramos and Estrada had spent years getting the controversial Visiting Forces
Agreement (VFA) past the Senate. When this was finally operational, in the late
90s, it gave the US military unrestricted access to designated Philippine ports
and airfields, and exempted all US military personnel from Philippine legal
jurisdiction for any offences committed whilst in the country on exercises,
etc. Effectively it extended diplomatic immunity to the entire US military.
Then there was the unsuccessful attempt, since 1992, to get the Acquisition on
Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) through the Senate. This would have committed
the Philippines to a much greater level of logistic support and temporary
basing services for the US military in Asia.
Exercises were held (and actively
opposed) in the Philippines, under the highly controversial VFA. More and more
were scheduled in an obvious attempt to soften up public opinion (in exactly
the same way that the late Piggy Muldoon, NZ’s Prime Minister from 1975-84,
used to connive with the US to maximise the number of US nuclear warship visits
to NZ, in the 1970s and 80s, to bludgeon public opinion here and force a
showdown with the anti-nuclear movement. He lost). Essentially though, it was
nothing like the good old days when the US military used the Philippines as the
American colony that it, indeed, had been for the first half of the 20th
Century.
Even Filipino conservatives acutely
recognised that the US military was only in the Philippines to serve its own
strategic aims, not to help the Filipinos. During the civil wars that have
raged in the Philippines since the 1960s and 70s – with the New People’s Army
of the Communist Party of the Philippines; and the two rival Muslim separatist
armies, the Moro* National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front – the US stayed away from direct involvement, beyond providing the
Philippine military with obsolete equipment that it wanted to dump on some
Third World mugs, and a general training role. During the external disputes
that have embroiled the Philippines – such as with China and other countries
over the Spratley Islands, or with neighbouring Malaysia over the contested sea
border and fishing encroachments – the US has stayed right out. * Moro – generic name for Filipino Muslims.
Ed.
One of the world’s nastiest and most
effective terrorist organisations, the Abu Sayyaf Group, has spent years
running amok on the islands between the Philippines and Malaysia – kidnapping,
beheading, murdering, extorting, looting and pillaging. The US wasn’t interested – a “war on
terrorism” wasn’t on the agenda then. Abu Sayyaf was founded by Filipino
Muslims who had gone to fight the Soviet invaders in the jihad in Afghanistan,
in the 1980s (one in which the US Central Intelligence Agency played a major
part). There was evidence of a link
between the group and Osama bin Laden, the Saudi holy warrior and
multi-millionaire who had built up a legendary reputation during the Afghan
war. The Yanks didn’t want to know. In 2000, Abu Sayyaf was sufficiently
emboldened to spectacularly kidnap a number of foreigners from a Malaysian
resort island and hold them hostage in their strongholds in the southernmost
Philippines. They made fools of the Philippine military and reaped tens of
millions of US dollars, in hard cold cash, for their efforts.
In May 2001, Abu Sayyaf struck again,
this time kidnapping numerous Filipino and foreign hostages from a resort on
Palawan and transporting them hundreds of kilometres across open sea,
outrunning the Philippine Navy, back to their stronghold on the Philippines’
southernmost pirate islands. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo vowed to crush
them and sent in the Army and Air Force, just as Estrada had done in 2000.
First time round, all that the military had succeeded in doing was bombing,
terrorising and killing innocent Muslim civilians. In 2001, the Army actually
cornered the Abu Sayyaf band holding the hostages, on the island of Basilan;
there was a battle, with more civilian deaths and then the kidnappers simply
vanished. Compelling evidence emerged later in the year that senior military
commanders were in cahoots with Abu Sayyaf, were easily bribed and had made a
profitable arrangement to split the huge ransom payments from the previous
year’s takings.
So Abu Sayyaf and its hostages simply
melted back into the Basilan jungle. They were holding three American hostages
– in June, they beheaded one. But they have held onto the other two, a
missionary couple from Kansas. The US showed no interest beyond sending out
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to look into a crime involving US
citizens.
(In November 2001 there was a further
twist in Mindanao’s tortured story. Nur Misuari had been for decades the
charismatic leader of the Moro National Liberation Front {MNLF}, the largest of
the Muslim separatist armies. In 1996 he came home from Libyan exile, under a
peace deal with President Ramos, and was duly elected Governor of the
Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, spanning several provinces. But he blew
his opportunity, proving corrupt and incompetent, and earlier in 2001 was
dumped as Governor and MNLF leader by the MNLF’s own ruling council. A week before
the November election for his replacement he launched an armed rebellion, on
the southernmost islands, allegedly linking up with some elements of Abu
Sayyaf. The Philippine military made its standard heavyhanded response and the
civilian death toll was high; Misuari fled across the sea border to Malaysia,
where he was promptly arrested. The military claimed that Misuari and Abu
Sayyaf had been working together from the start; Malaysia replied that there
was no evidence of any such link).
Extremely
detailed information on the Abu Sayyaf Group can be found at the Philippine
Daily Inquirer Website. Go to www.inquirer.net, click on to Special Sites and go to the
one on the ASG. Ed.
The September 11 2001 terrorist attacks
on New York and Washington DC changed all that (Filipinos were amongst the
thousands who died in the World Trade Center atrocity). In the subsequent
hysteria of the “war against terrorism”, the Philippines suddenly loomed large
on the US agenda. The link between Osama bin Laden (the man blamed for the
attacks) and Abu Sayyaf was dusted off and invested with new significance. Abu
Sayyaf was placed on the global list of proscribed terrorist organisations
announced by President Bush, with the effect of freezing any bank accounts and
assets (although it tends to raise tax free cash by kidnapping and extortion,
not term deposits). And the leadership of both countries saw a golden
opportunity to restore their military relationship to (almost) what it had been
before 1991.
President Macapagal-Arroyo immediately
announced unconditional support for Bush’s global war without end against
terrorism. No Filipino military forces were to be deployed outside the country
but American warships and fighter planes en route to and from Afghanistan were
allowed to refuel and replenish themselves at Philippine ports and airports,
including the former US bases (when the US military withdrew, a decade ago, it
left in place the 40 mile long underground pipeline that allows fuel to be
pumped between Clark and Subic). US warplanes were allowed to overfly the
Philippines; warships were allowed to transit Philippine waters. And a small
number of US Special Forces “advisers” were sent to the southernmost
Philippines to liaise with, and train, the Philippine military for their war
with Abu Sayyaf (it’s worth remembering that America’s illfated war in Vietnam,
which cost it so dearly, started with a handful of military advisers).
“Already, Pentagon officials tell Time, 100 US special-ops commandos will
deploy to train Philippine soldiers in counter-terror and close-quarter battle
tactics against the Abu Sayyaf insurgents... The US military advisers won’t
engage in combat but will set up an ‘intelligence fusion center’ to help clamp
down on terrorist activities. ‘It’s one of the areas that have to get cleaned
up’, says a US Intelligence official…” (Time,
24/12/01; “Can al-Qaeda find a new nest?”. Al-Qaeda is the organisation headed
by bin Laden). So, with breathtaking suddenness, the US military was back in
the Philippines – on the ground, in the air and waters – and showing every sign
of getting involved in internal security matters.
And there’s more – the ACSA, which has
languished in the Senate since 1992, has been reinvented as the Mutual
Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA). This will allow the US to have access to
its former bases as well as facilitating US military personnel in transit and
short term stays. In return, the Philippines will get US military hardware and
supplies. The 50 year old Mutual Defense Treaty has been looked at again, with
a view to expanding its scope to include “counter-terrorism”. In November 2001,
Macapagal-Arroyo went to the US and met with Bush. This was her first trip to
the US since becoming President – she and Bush have a strange symmetry. They
are both the children of presidents and both were inaugurated, in controversial
circumstances, on the same day, in January 2001. She came home crowing about
the military equipment and investment deals secured from the US (in reality,
the US has never provided the Philippine military with anything other than old
and unsophisticated hardware).
This reintroduction of the US military
into the Philippines has not gone unopposed. There have been protests in Metro
Manila and at the former bases themselves (for instance, such as when US planes
and military personnel have been in transit at Clark). And this is happening
while the legacy of the previous century of US military presence still
manifests itself in all sorts of problems, from the abandoned Amerasian “GI
babies” and their prostitute mothers at Olongapo and Angeles (the “rest and
recreation” cities which serviced Subic and Clark, respectively) to the
pollution, deaths and sickness caused by the toxic wastes left by the US
military at those bases. The Filipino people fought long and hard to free
themselves of Uncle Sam and his bases – they will not take the reappearance of
the US military in their country lying down.
Is New Zealand Military Getting Involved In Philippines?
It is not only the US military getting back into the Philippines after an enforced absence. New Zealand military personnel used to be regularly there in the good old Marcos days, using the former US bases for joint exercises, until the mid-80s when NZ was unilaterally “suspended” from the 1951 ANZUS Treaty with the US and Australia, as punishment for our anti-nuclear policy (coincidentally the US announcement of our suspension, which continues to this day, was made in Manila).
But the global “war without end on terrorism” may be changing that as well. In October 2001, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that 15 military attaches of various countries, including New Zealand, visited Zamboanga, at the southern tip of Mindanao, to “assess the (Philippine) Army’s efforts in fighting terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States” (PDI, 24/10/01; “Foreign military attaches visit Zamboanga for anti-terror effort”). Lieutenant General Roy Cimatu, the southern military chief, said: “They are here to assess and find ways of helping the Philippine military fight terrorism. If this did not happen in Afghanistan, they would not have come here” (ibid). Their visit coincided with the arrival of US military advisers in Zamboanga.
This visit (completely unreported in New Zealand) should be ringing large alarm bells in this country. Are we now going to be sucked into a messy little war in the southern Philippines? And, if you didn’t know that NZ has a military attache in the Philippines, you’re not alone – neither did we. We wrote to the Government trying to find out more about this particular visit and, more generally, what role the Government sees New Zealand playing in any “war against terrorism” in the Philippines. The Secretary of Defence replied (21/12/01):
“…A briefing was provided on 24 October (2001) to the New Zealand Defence Attache by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as part of a regular official Defence Attaches tour of the country. The briefing and tour were not associated with a separate visit by a team from the United States Military Assistance Program to assess the operational capabilities and training requirements of the AFP. In this respect, the newspaper article you cite is mistaken, as its report refers to the United States visit rather than the Defence Attaches tour. There was only one other briefing of Defence Attaches during the period of your enquiry, which was on 11 December (2001).
“The two briefings given to the Defence Attaches were
confidential in nature and their content must therefore be withheld…. I can
tell you, however, that the 24 October briefing covered details of the Abu
Sayyaf Group, the Philippines government strategy in dealing with the group,
and its progress in negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF)*, and that the 11 December briefing summarised recent developments in
the Southern Philippines….In regard to your final question, no consideration
has been given to New Zealand playing a part in the war against terrorism in
the Philippines”. * The MILF split off
from the MNLF many years ago and is the biggest Muslim separatist army fighting
the AFP. Currently there is a ceasefire in place.
New Zealanders need to be very, very careful indeed about being quietly sucked into the quicksand swamp that is the internal security situation in the southern Philippines.
OKINAWA
Another Rape Case
For several years now Peace Researcher has chronicled abuses and outrages committed by US military personnel against local civilians, principally women and children, on the Japanese island of Okinawa, the very reluctant home to a number of huge US bases and 26,000 US GIs (more than 50% of the total stationed in all of Japan). One such outrage – the gang rape of a school girl – led to huge demonstrations in the 1990s, demanding an end to the US military presence on Okinawa. But the hapless Okinawans are fighting not only the US government but also their own Japanese one, which wants both to retain the massive US military presence and to keep a lot of it on a remote island, away from Japan itself.
In July 2001 another outrage occurred. A local woman complained that she had been raped by a US Air Force man. This provided a test for the Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the US, which had been revised in the 1990s following the earlier pack rape. It gives Japanese authorities the right to charge and detain US servicemen for crimes committed outside the bases, involving civilians. That seems straightforward enough. But the US military prevaricated for four days before handing over the rape suspect, whilst publicly casting doubt over the Japanese legal system. This response rapidly escalated a simple criminal matter to a major diplomatic incident, with the Japanese expressing great disappointment at the US attitude, and the highest level of the US government (President Bush) having to mollify the Japanese.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Japanese Parliament unanimously passed a resolution calling for a review of the Status of Forces Agreement, saying that the case “gave great concern and shock to the people of Okinawa and the people of Japan are feeling indignation” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10/7/01). The Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said: “Such an incident should never happen again. I would like to request tighter discipline and guidance to soldiers as well as the thorough implementation of rules” (ibid, 9/7/01). But that is likely to remain wishful thinking, as long as tens of thousands of US servicemen continue to be stationed on the island. As one Marine told Time (9/7/01): “Hey, we’re 19 year old guys, we’re away from home, we’re pumped up and we’re horny. Of course it’s all about sex”. Exactly. And in light of the post-September 11 geopolitical reality it is unlikely that either the US or Japanese governments will be withdrawing the US military presence from Okinawa any time soon. The long suffering Okinawans have a long campaign ahead of them.
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