Home Kapatiran
Issue Number 22, January 2003
|
Kapatiran Issue
No. 22, January 2003
THE LEGACY OF THE
SECOND FRONT OF THE WAR ON TERROR
- Moana Cole
"For
globalisation to work, America can't be afraid to act
like the almighty Superpower it is... The hidden hand
of the market will never work without a hidden fist.
McDonalds cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas,
the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that
keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's
technologies is called the United States Army, Air
Force, Navy and Marine Corps". (Thomas Friedman,
New York Times, 28/3/99).
In September 2002 I was
invited by the National Council of Churches of the
Philippines to participate in a fact finding mission on
the effects of the "war on terror" on the most
vulnerable of society, women and children. With an
international delegation consisting of twenty-five women,
I traveled to Central Luzon, one of the most militarised
areas of the Philippines. Central Luzon was hosting 2,665
US soldiers in the latest Balikatan (literally
"shoulder to shoulder". Ed.) exercise with the
Philippine military. It was there that we met with
farmers, indigenous communities, sex workers and the
children of the US servicemen. After 18 days of intensive
investigation, I concluded that, in order to understand
what's going on, New Zealanders are going to have to look
beyond the rhetoric of the "war on terror" and
understand that for many countries, the war waged by the
US and its allies has only served to undermine peace
negotiations, democratic movements and pluralism, and
aggravates the terrible plight of farmers, workers, women
and children.
In launching the new project of empire building, the Bush
Administration took decisive steps to destroy all
restraints on the exercise of power. Through skillful
mass media imagery repeated endlessly throughout the
world, a localised terrorist incident was transformed
into an event of world significance, which in turn was
used as the basis for a worldwide military crusade. As
part of his State of the Union address on January 29th,
2002, President Bush referred to the expansion of the war
on terror to new fronts - "We now have troops in the
Philippines". Thus, the second front was opened in
South East Asia. President Bush's speech on June 4th,
2002, took the war to a new doctrinal plane. Emphasising
that that the doctrines of defence and deterrence were
inadequate for the war on terror, he said "we must
take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and
confront the worst threats before they emerge".
The pro-US Philippine President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
readily rode on the wave of the fantastic Western media
characterisation of the Abu Sayyaf Group as an
ideologically driven Muslim fundamentalist group with
connections to Al Qaeda. This served to justify US
involvement in an essentially domestic matter of
enforcing the law against kidnapping and murder. Despite
this popular characterisation, the head of the Catholic
Church in Basilan (where the Abu Sayyaf is believed to be
hiding) said that to attribute the spate of kidnappings
on the island of Basilan to Islamic fundamentalism is
wrong; Islam "was merely being used as a cover of
these people". The characterisation of Abu Sayyaf as
Islamic extremists is particularly irresponsible because
it tends to ferment anti-Muslim sentiment among a broad
segment of a misinformed Christian majority and serves to
undermine the concept of a pluralistic society. Despite
this, the Philippine government has committed its support
and offered its land, air and seas for any US military
offensive against any nation the US considers its enemy.
With the demise of Indonesian strongman Suharto, on whom
Washington had relied heavily, the US Council of Foreign
Relations Report pointed out that the region's strategic
significance as "a place of great geopolitical
consequence that sits aside some of the world's most
critical sea lanes". The Balikatan military
exercise, in the context of the "war on
terror", should be seen for what it really is: a
permanent US presence in the Philippines.
The Daily Reality Of Human Rights Abuses
Rather than terrorists, the majority of Filipinos are the
victims of exploitation and terror on a daily basis. The
result of Philippine peasants demanding land reform has
led to massacres, harassment and illegal arrests and
detentions. Political parties that advocate social change
and human rights organisations are also targets.
Organisations such as GABRIELA, a national alliance of
women's organisations, whose aims include "a self
reliant economy that is primarily geared to people's
needs", "giving equal value to the role of
women in production", "genuine agrarian reform
which includes recognition of women's equal right to own
land" and, most dangerously, "national
sovereignty in Philippine economic and political
life", has been labeled a "communist
front", and thus a legitimate target for anti-terror
initiatives.
I met the eldest son of Expedito Albarillo, a Bayan Muna
(a progressive Philippine political party also labeled a
"communist front") coordinator and local
councillor, whose 12-year-old sister saw members of the
16th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army drag her
mother and father out of the house on April 8th, 2002.
Expedito sustained eight gunshot wounds to his body, had
one of his eyes gouged out and the back of his skull
beaten open. His wife was shot under her right eye, which
shattered her neck. They left behind eight children.
Because their lives are in danger, the children have been
located to an internal refugee camp, living in absolute
poverty away from their extended family, the land their
family has lived on for generations and entirely
dependent on the outside world to survive.
Behind the beautiful resorts of Mindoro, the seventh
largest island in the country, lie thousands of
threatened lives and violations of basic human rights. At
Quezon City Jail, I met the "Mamburao Six",
poor farmers belonging to the Golden Country Farmers
Organization in Mamburao, Mindoro Occidental. They were
falsely accused of "stealing mangoes" in the
Golden Country Farm where the powerful landlord, former
Representative Ricardo Quintos, stood in the way of their
604 hectare land that was long overdue for distribution
under the Government's land reform programme. In 1998,
when the two sons of Quintos were gunned down, Police and
Intelligence agents arbitrarily arrested the farmers and
they were bought to Manila jails under the orders of
Quintos. The New People's Army (NPA) of the Communist
Party of the Philippines (CPP) claimed responsibility for
the killings, but Quintos continues to use his power to
keep the six in jail. If found guilty, they face the
death penalty.
As a response to the brutal repression of peasant
organisations, the NPA was established in Central Luzon
in 1969. While we were in the area, the military and NPA
were skirmishing. During an earlier encounter, the
commander of the military unit was killed and the NPA
fled to the mountains. The military went back to the area
of the encounter and killed five fishermen from the local
area. Thus, the peace process constituted a sign of hope
in a country engaged in civil war. However, on August
9th, 2002, the US State Department tagged the CPP and the
NPA as "foreign terrorist organisations".
Because the Philippine government announced it would not
negotiate with terrorist organisations, the pronouncement
only serves to undermine the peace talks and imperil its
resumption. In an article (1/10/02) in the Philippine
Daily Inquirer, the Philippine National Police Director
was quoted as saying: "This (the armed conflict) is
a political problem. If we look at it only as a military
problem, them we can't solve it... It starts as an
economic (problem), then it grows into a social,
political and military problem".
Who Are The Terrorists Here?
A close scrutiny of the list of 34 "foreign
terrorist organisations" designated as such by the
US Secretary of State clearly show that only a few
(ironically, those created or mentored by the US) could
really be considered as terrorist organisations. The
majority are either humanitarian organisations or
national liberation movements espousing causes and
programmes opposed to US intervention and economic
domination. International law experts are unanimous in
their view that, any definition of terrorism must
consider the gains in the development of international
law, particularly in the field of human rights and
humanitarian law, and the current international realities
of tyranny and injustices that result in struggles of
oppressed and exploited peoples all over the world. Some
advocates further believe that the causes of terrorism
must likewise be examined. In this context, the US
"war on terror" must be condemned in the
strongest possible language because this "war"
seeks reprisals, makes a mockery of State sovereignty and
territorial integrity, violates human rights and
international humanitarian law and, above all, is a mere
pretext to promote US global strategic goals at the
expense of other nations and peoples.
During my stay in the Philippines, one bomb blast took
place outside a bar frequented by US soldiers (in
Zamboanga, southern Mindanao. One American soldier was
killed. Ed.). Since my departure, several more bombs have
exploded in Metro Manila, killing and injuring many more.
But to treat the blasts as isolated incidences is a
mistake. I saw evidence of many unreported (by the media)
instances of repression and terror committed by those
very same forces fighting the "war on terror".
If the New Zealand government is serious in its
condemnation of terror, its first act must be to withdraw
its troops from the State terror still being inflicted
against the people of Afghanistan. A war that has killed
almost 8,000 civilians, half of the casualties being
children. For the "war against terrorism" is
the foremost terrorist operation of them all.
Moana Cole is a law student at the University of
Canterbury and a well known peace activist.
Go to top
|