When Uncle Sam comes marching
in By Herbert Docena
SULU, Philippines - About 5,500 US
soldiers are coming to the Philippines this month,
the latest and reportedly the largest batch in the
continuing and uninterrupted deployment of US
troops to the country since the "global war on
terror" was launched after September 11, 2001.
About 250 of them will join an
undetermined number of US troops already in Sulu,
an island in the southern Philippines where the
Abu
Sayyaf group supposedly fled after being driven
out of neighboring Basilan island, where US troops
were also previously deployed. If official
pronouncements are to be believed, US troops are
coming only to train Filipino soldiers, give away
medicine, build schools and even give veterinary
services.
According to people who claim to
have actually seen them in action, however, US
troops who have been coming to the country are
doing more than that. The target: not a terrorist
group but legitimate liberation movements in the
country.
The never-ending games
In 1991, the Philippine Senate voted to
close down what were once the largest US military
installations in Asia, signaling an end to
permanent US military presence in the country.
While there were regular US deployments to the
country even after the closure of the bases, these
were limited to small, short, and close-ended
training exercises with Filipino soldiers as part
of the Philippines' military alliance with the
United States. From 1991 to 2000, not one US
aircraft or warship came.
Since September
11, however, the United States has maintained what
former US ambassador to Manila Francis Ricciardone
has described as a "semi-continuous" presence in
the country. The prefix "semi" may be unnecessary,
since not a day has passed when not one US soldier
is in the country; on any given day, between one
and more than 5,000 US troops are deployed
somewhere in the archipelago. Not only has the
duration of the "war games" been extended to as
long as nine months, for the first time, they
began being held in actual conflict areas with
live enemies whom US troops are allowed to shoot
in case they get fired at.
For the past
four years, there have been about 17-24 training
exercises annually; this year, that number jumps
to 37. Apart from the exercises, US troops are
also engaged in different and overlapping
humanitarian and civil- works programs under
different names scattered all over the country.
Aside from stationing troops, the US also began
enjoying access to various ports, airports, depots
and other military infrastructure throughout the
territory, under the Mutual Logistics and
Servicing Agreement signed in November 2001.
At one level, US and Philippine officials
justified the deployments as part of the "global
war on terror". With the presence of the Abu
Sayyaf in the Philippines and its alleged links
with terrorist groups Jemaah Islamiah and
al-Qaeda, various US officials have repeatedly
branded the Philippines as "the next Afghanistan"
or a "doormat for terrorism in the region" - a
charge Philippine officials both echo and deny,
depending on the circumstances.
At the
local level, however, officials have tended to
play down the counter-terrorist aims of the
deployments and instead emphasize their
accompanying civil or humanitarian projects.
The Philippine constitution prohibits the
presence of foreign military troops in the country
without a treaty. While the Supreme Court has
qualified this and allowed the entry of foreign
troops for military exercises, it bans their
involvement in actual combat. The Mutual Defense
Treaty and the Visiting Forces Agreement, which
are often invoked to justify the US military
presence, also do not allow participation in
actual fighting. So legally to justify and counter
formidable domestic opposition to the US
deployments, Philippine officials have
consistently maintained that the troops keep
coming for a variety of reasons - but never to
engage in war.
The unconquered
colony Involving about 1,300 US troops,
including 160 special-operations forces, the first
and most controversial of the new type of
post-September 11 "exercises" was held in Basilan,
an island in the southern Philippines, where the
Abu Sayyaf was holding foreign, including
American, hostages. It was the largest US
deployment to Mindanao since the US war of
pacification against the Moros (predominantly
Muslim Malay tribespeople of the southern
Philippines) from 1901-13.
Tagged a
"terrorist" group by the United States, dismissed
as a bandit group by some and suspected by others
to be a creation of the military, the Abu Sayyaf
could not be understood accurately if not in the
context of the long-running struggle by the
Bangsamoro against the central Philippine
government. The Bangsamoro, who are mostly Muslim
people from the southernmost parts of what is now
considered the Philippine nation-state, claim a
national and historical identity distinct from
that of the mostly Christian northern and central
areas. Once ruled under independent sultanates
prior to the arrival of Spanish colonizers in the
16th century, the Bangsamoro were never fully
ruled over by the Spanish throughout their three
centuries of colonization. It is often said that
the Spanish sold what they never really possessed
to the Americans at the end of the 19th century.
What followed was a long - and still
ongoing - attempt to subordinate the area and its
people under the Philippine nation-state. Perhaps
the most decisive of these efforts was a massive
resettlement policy in which mostly Christian and
mostly landless people from the north were
encouraged to migrate to the south. Filipino
landlords and elites, multinational corporations
and settlers claimed ownership of the lands that
historically belonged to the Moros or the
non-Muslim and non-Christian indigenous groups in
the area.
In 1913, Muslims constituted 98%
of the region's population and "owned" all the
lands prior to colonization. But so successful was
the long-running resettlement program that by the
time war broke out during the Moro uprising in the
1970s, Muslims accounted for a minority of the
population but a majority of the landless. They
accounted for only 40% of the population and owned
less than 17% of the land, with more than 80% of
them landless. Today, the Muslim-majority areas
are the poorest provinces in the country.
In the late 1960s, the Philippine military
- widely believed to be supported by loggers and
politicians - organized and financed paramilitary
groups that massacred entire Muslim communities to
drive them from their lands. This finally sparked
massive, organized resistance on the part of the
Bangsamoros (Bangsamoro is the name of the area
claimed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or
MILF). In 1972, the Moro National Liberation Front
(MNLF, from which the MILF split in 1978) formally
emerged, with widespread legitimacy and popularity
among Muslims. War followed, but even after more
than 100,000 were dead, neither the government nor
the MNLF had won decisively.
A protracted
period of negotiations ensued. The MNLF eventually
gave up its goal of establishing an independent
state by accepting a degree of autonomy under the
Philippine government. Hawks in the military and
other forces that had an interest in keeping
control of the Bangsamoro consistently attempted
to deprive the Moros of what they had settled for.
The peace talks dragged, and faltered. But in
1996, the MNLF and the government forged what they
called - or hoped would be - a final peace
agreement in which the MNLF would once and for all
lay down its arms and the government would give
real power to the Bangsamoro under Philippine
sovereignty.
The invincible
enemy It is in this context that what later
came to be known as the Abu Sayyaf first emerged.
It started out in the early 1990s as a loose
grouping of mostly former MNLF leaders and their
followers who split from the MNLF after it
negotiated for autonomy with the central
government. Disenchanted with the MNLF leadership
under Nur Misuari, the group attracted mostly
young recruits. With the MNLF lying low, with
Misuari abroad, but with certain interests
continuing to sabotage the negotiations and the
military continuing to commit human-rights
violations against Moros, the group filled the
vacuum vacated by the MNLF and was seen by many as
taking over the struggle on behalf of the Moros at
the period when it emerged.
Initially, the
group launched operations to push for political
demands, including the banning in the Sulu seas of
large fishing trawlers from the north that were
displacing Moro fishermen in the south. While the
group eventually decided to conduct kidnap
operations, it was supposedly divided on whether
only to make political demands or also to ask for
ransom in exchange for releasing hostages. After
its founder and ideologue's death in 1998 and
after reportedly being infiltrated by agents
planted by the military and by politicians, what
was once a highly political group became
increasingly known for its high-profile kidnapping
and bombing operations. After abducting mostly
foreign Catholic priests, tourists, journalists
and local residents, the group raided a diving
resort in neighboring Malaysia in 2000, taking
hostage mostly European tourists and local
workers. In May 2001, the group kidnapped another
batch of hostages, including three Americans.
US Special Forces then joined the hunt for
the Abu Sayyaf in February 2002. Prior to the US
entry, Philippine officials discounted, if not
altogether ruling them out, the reported links
between the group and the so-called al-Qaeda
network of Osama bin Laden. As late as November
2001, presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said
of alleged links between the Abu Sayyaf and
al-Qaeda, "Of course there are historical ties,
but our investigations have yielded no signs that
these international terrorists are at work here."
The national security adviser then confirmed that
there was no proof al-Qaeda was financing the Abu
Sayyaf. Since then, however, the group's alleged
association has simply been assumed as a given;
almost all media reports now prefix the Abu Sayyaf
as "al-Qaeda-linked" or mention its alleged
association with the regional grouping Jemaah
Islamiah.
While such connections to
external groups could not be altogether ruled out,
the ideological affinity of the Abu Sayyaf with
them and the extent of their operational
cooperation are widely disputed and meet with
great skepticism in the country. By 2003, even
officials from different countries interviewed by
the New York Times admitted that their information
on al-Qaeda presence in the Philippines was
"sketchy". The Washington Post also reported that
Abu Sayyaf's alleged ties to al-Qaeda "appeared
dated and tenuous". While US officials continued
to trumpet Jemaah Islamiah's growing links to
Philippine-based groups, a White House assessment
concluded that the Philippines had "more or less
contained the terror group in Mindanao".
With numerous and credible accusations
that the Philippine military has been conniving
with the Abu Sayyaf, the group's supposed lines to
the generals resonate more than its alleged links
with bin Laden. For many, the Abu Sayyaf is
understood less as a branch of a global "Islamic
terrorist network" and more as the fringe of a
local secessionist movement - its survival more
dependent on the solution of the Bangsamoro issue
and less on the intensification of military
operations.
'By far the most dangerous
group in the country today' The Abu Sayyaf
hostage-taking ended in June 2002 and since then,
there have been contradictory assessments by US
and Philippine officials as to the threat posed by
the group. At times, the Philippine government has
tended to portray it as a spent force even as
other officials and analysts talk of the group as
if it were stronger than ever.
The
supposed number of Abu Sayyaf members, and the
accompanying pronouncements, tell the tale: in
December 2001, the chief military commander in the
south said there were only 80 members. A
Department of Defense report in late 2002, after
the deployment of Americans, put the number at
250, down from 800 in 2001. A few months after,
just as the government had announced the
deployment of US troops to Sulu, the military
chief of staff said a review of military documents
showed that the membership is actually bigger,
closer to 500.
Near the end of the US
deployment to Basilan, US Army Brigadier-General
Donald Wurster remarked that the Abu Sayyaf "are
non-functional as an organization". And Philippine
presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said, "It is
widely acknowledged that the training, advice and
assistance we received in Basilan [from the US]
were critical factors that led to the defeat of
the Abu Sayyaf there." A senior US diplomat was
quoted by the New York Times as saying that the
Abu Sayyaf is "practically null and void".
In May 2004, President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo triumphantly said the Abu Sayyaf
"can no longer resuscitate itself under other
guises or names". As of June 2004, a government
report states that the group counts only 508
members, down from 1,300 in 2001. Last August,
just as some military officials were blaming Abu
Sayyaf members for a spate of bombings in the
south, newly installed army chief Major-General
Hermogenes Esperon said, "We are on full offensive
and the Abu Sayyaf are not likely to be able to
launch any offensive that could inflict harm to
our people."
Almost all the Abu Sayyaf
leaders have now been killed. Those who remain are
those leaders and factions that are more political
than criminal and which reportedly objected to the
kidnapping operations. According to people in
Sulu, the primary reason the Abu Sayyaf is still
able to draw people to its fold is that the
military continues to commit atrocities against
Moros and victims feel the only way to get justice
is by joining armed groups. Stop the military
atrocities, they say, and the group will fade
away. Despite the limited popular support, the Abu
Sayyaf's ranks are depleted; it is isolated, with
few sources of funds, and has very little capacity
to inflict damage.
And yet, if one listens
to the government and the media, the Abu Sayyaf is
still everywhere and nowhere; everyone and no one.
Everywhere because almost all "terrorist"
incidents are still routinely blamed on the group.
And yet nowhere because - despite more than 50,000
troops based in the south running after them for
more than 10 years and despite the US military's
help - the Abu Sayyaf continues to elude pursuit
and to be cited as the justification for military
offensives in the region, for efforts to institute
more repressive laws throughout the country and,
bizarrely, even for justifying a raid on a house
where evidence of alleged electoral fraud against
Arroyo and Vice President Noli de Castro was
stored. Everyone because almost all of those
killed or arrested by the military as part of the
anti-terror campaign are labeled Abu Sayyaf
members. And yet seemingly no one, because - for
all those arrested or killed - the Abu Sayyaf
lives on and continues to be projected as, in the
words of National Security Adviser Norberto
Gonzales, "by far the most dangerous group in the
country today".
The right to name thine
enemy Last February, the Abu Sayyaf,
according to the military, struck again. Four
people were killed in Maimbung town in Sulu,
including a pregnant woman and a child, in what
the military called an encounter with the group.
People who know the casualties and other people in
the province maintained otherwise. Frustrated by
government's failure or refusal to look into the
incident and other previous human-rights
violations allegedly committed by the military,
the MNLF attacked military camps, sparking clashes
that lasted for a week and that killed more than
70 people. As early as then, a US military
official confirmed the presence of US troops on
the island during the fighting but denied that
they were involved in combat.
In April,
more groups of US soldiers started arriving in
some of the very towns in Sulu that the Philippine
military claims to be the base of the Abu Sayyaf
and that would later be the site of military
offensives. The Americans were supposedly on a
mission to conduct an "assessment" of Sulu's
infrastructure ostensibly for the civil projects
they were going to implement. Among the things
they checked out was whether US military ships and
planes could use the island's infrastructure. US
officials declined to specify exactly how many US
soldiers were involved. By November, six months
after they arrived, the Americans were still
conducting their "assessment".
On November
11, Philippine marines attacked what they
initially again claimed were members of the Abu
Sayyaf in Indanan town in Sulu. Almost all media
reports of the fighting followed the military's
story line. Those who were being attacked - and
who were fighting back - claim they are not
members of the Abu Sayyaf but of the MNLF. The
Philippine military then revised its story by
reporting that it was also clashing with members
of the so-called "Misuari Renegade Group" (MRG) or
"Misuari Breakaway Group" (MBG) because this group
was allegedly coddling members of the Abu Sayyaf.
The MNLF, however, flatly rejects these labels
imposed on it by the military. It questions why
the military should reserve for itself the right
to rename it and why the media should
unquestioningly follow the military's labels.
Various accounts of what transpired in
that offensive challenge the military's version of
events. According to Brigadier-General Alexander
Aleo, chief of the military's Sulu-based task
force assigned to root out remaining Abu Sayyaf
members, fighting erupted when patrolling soldiers
were attacked by Abu Sayyaf members. Witnesses and
residents in the area, however, claim the fighting
was initiated by the military when it forcibly
entered a known MNLF camp, despite warnings from
the area's village official that it was indeed an
MNLF camp and that the MNLF was not just going to
sit back and watch them.
Supposing the
military was really chasing Abu Sayyaf members,
there are questions as to why the armed forces
insisted on passing through the MNLF camp even if
there was a shorter and more direct route to the
area where the military claims the Abu Sayyaf
members were located. Even Esperon was quoted in
newspapers, four days after the fighting, openly
contradicting his subordinates in the field by
saying there was no confirmation that the MNLF
were protecting the Abu Sayyaf.
Invoking
the 1996 peace agreement, which they claim allows
them to maintain their camps, the MNLF leadership
said they were forced to defend themselves when
the marines intruded into their territory. The
MNLF's military chief of staff, Jul Amri Misuari,
believes the attack was a deliberate attempt by
hawks in the military to sabotage back-channel
talks between them and the government. General
Nehemias Pajarito, the commander who supervised
the offensives in November, disputes this,
maintaining that the MNLF is not allowed to run
camps and that the marines were not crossing any
bounds when they decided to enter their area. He
also said that while his forces were aware that
they were entering what he calls the "MRG/MBG"
camps, they went ahead anyway despite the risk of
provoking the "MRG/MBG" if only to seek the Abu
Sayyaf.
'Dirty tricks'
department Certain sections in the
Philippine military have long held that the Abu
Sayyaf is the "dirty tricks department" of the
MNLF, a charge that the MNLF has consistently
denied. What the MNLF stands to gain from joining
ranks with the Abu Sayyaf is not clear.
Associating with the Abu Sayyaf would only have
given the MNLF's opponents in the government -
those factions who continue to insist on wiping
the MNLF out once and for all - justification to
undermine the 1996 peace agreement and continue
military offensives against the organization,
something the MNLF presumably doesn't want, as
shown by its insistence that the peace agreement
be respected.
Moreover, the MNLF could
presumably have calculated that in this "global
war on terror", associating with the Abu Sayyaf
would only train the guns of the world's only
superpowers at them - a prospect the MNLF might
not necessarily relish, especially in its current
condition.
The Philippine military, on the
other hand, seems to have much to gain from
blurring the lines. Given the prevailing opinion
against the Abu Sayyaf, to claim that one is
running after that group - or those who are
coddling it - is a sure way to garner public
support, elude scrutiny and label those who
question the military's actions as, in the words
of Arroyo, "Abu Sayyaf-lovers". Under the "war on
terror", to claim to fight against the Abu Sayyaf,
even as one is really targeting other groups, is a
way to argue for a bigger budget from the national
government and more military largesse from the
United States.
In fact, a group of
Filipino soldiers who staged a mutiny in July 2003
had accused the military top brass of setting off
bombs in Mindanao to pin the blame on "terrorists"
and thereby demand more military aid from the
United States. Among all other countries in the
region, the Philippine armed forces has received
the most dramatic increase in foreign military
funding from the US since 2001.
In January
2003, the military launched an offensive in Pikit,
Cotabato, initially claiming it was chasing the
Pentagon gang, a kidnap-for-ransom group, only to
admit later that it was really going after the
MILF. After the fighting, military officials
couldn't identify the alleged Pentagon gang
members from among the casualties. An intelligence
officer was quoted as saying the threat posed by
the Pentagon gang was exaggerated and that the
military's oft-repeated allegations of supposed
links between the gang and the MILF were
inconclusive.
Training in
action In pursuing the so-called Abu Sayyaf
members, the military assembled about 1,500
soldiers. Military planes dropped
500-to-1,000-pound (227-454-kilogram) bombs.
Troops bombarded the area with howitzers and
mortars for three days. In the end, Pajarito
admitted that of the 200 Abu Sayyaf members the
military claimed to be pursuing, his forces were
not able to retrieve any of the bodies of those
they had killed in their offensives.
Through all that, various civilian
witnesses claim US forces were in the middle of
the action. They say they spotted US soldiers in
full battle gear together with their Filipino
counterparts aboard trucks and Humvees at the
battlefield. One witness reported seeing at least
four US soldiers aboard a military truck proceed
to the combat zone. Another report states that US
troops were seen aboard rubber boats along the
shores very close to the scene of the fighting.
Others claim to have sighted US soldiers helping
their Filipino counterparts mount heavy artillery,
operate military equipment and remove land mines.
Throughout the fighting, a US military spy plane
was seen constantly hovering above the area where
fighting raged. One spy plane crashed and was
later recovered by farmers in the area.
There were even reports that at least four
US soldiers were killed in the operations,
including one identified as "Sergeant Grant".
Witnesses allegedly saw their remains in body bags
being transported by helicopter back to the
military bases. This cannot be verified
independently, however, unless the US military
releases the complete and uncensored list of its
casualties in its operations. In October 2002, one
US Special Forces soldier was actually killed in a
bombing in Zamboanga city, supposedly by the Abu
Sayyaf, but this incident only made it to the
foreign news - and only as an aside - a few months
later.
Witnesses who attest to seeing US
forces during the operations have executed sworn
affidavits and have testified at a closed session
of a Philippine congressional committee that went
to Sulu to hear the allegations. But their
allegations seem not to have caught the national
attention. Other witnesses decline to speak on
record because, on an island where massacres and
killings almost always end up unresolved, they are
afraid the military would seek revenge if they
refute its claims.
Is the US engaged in
'actual combat' in Mindanao? US officials
dismissed the allegations as "absolutely not
true". While they admit US soldiers were indeed on
the island during the fighting, US Army
Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Zimmer, public affairs
officer of the Joint Special Operation Task Force
Philippines, said, "We are not in any way involved
in military operations conducted by the Philippine
armed forces." According to Zimmer, the Americans'
mission has not changed: "We are there to advise,
assist and to train the armed forces" and "also
share information with counterparts".
Philippine military officials, however,
corroborated some of the witnesses' claims. One
colonel who refused to be identified was quoted by
Reuters as saying US troops have been asked to
clear land mines. Pajarito confirmed witness
reports the soldiers were where they were seen.
According to him, at the time of the fighting, he
was asked by the mayor of the municipality of
Indanan to fix minor damage to a water pipe but,
since his troops didn't have the resources nor the
expertise to do so, he asked the US soldiers for
help instead. The US troops hitched with them on
the way to the battlefield, he said, so that
Filipino troops would not have to provide a
separate security convoy for them.
Such an
explanation has only served to raise more
questions regarding the US troops' actual role in
the November clashes, in particular, and their
mission to Sulu in general. Why do fully armed US
soldiers - and not civilians - have to conduct
"humanitarian" missions? Why was the minor
water-pipe damage such a pressing concern in a
time of war and why was no less than the top
general leading the war worrying about it? Why did
US soldiers - and not Filipino soldiers or
civilians - have to fix the water pipes? Weren't
the US troops aware that fighting was going on?
Did they know the Filipino soldiers they tagged
along with were attacking fighters of a
national-liberation movement, or were they led to
believe they were running after a "terrorist"
group? Or were they aware that the fighting was
against the MNLF but they went along anyway? And
what interest, if any, does the United States have
in joining the fight against the MNLF?
Humanitarian spy planes, medical
assault ships This is not the first time
reports of involvement by US forces in fighting
surfaced. In a little-known incident, the Los
Angeles Times reported that US troops fired back
and killed guerrillas when they were in Basilan in
June 2002. In June 2005, US forces also allegedly
joined the Philippine military in operations
against Abu Sayyaf members in Maguindanao province
in mainland Mindanao - even when no training
exercises or civil projects were announced.
A Bantay Ceasefire mission, a coalition of
groups monitoring the Philippines armed forces and
the MILF, reported recovering empty MRE (meals
ready to eat) packages that were issued to US
soldiers in the area. As in Sulu, a P-3 Orion
surveillance aircraft for pinpointing enemy
positions was sighted and was even caught on
video. An Associated Press report suggested the
operations were "backed at times by US
surveillance aircraft". A Philippine military
official denied this, saying the US is not
permitted to conduct reconnaissance flights in the
country, but claimed the surveillance aircraft may
have been used for a "humanitarian" mission, not
for spying. Another spy plane that had crashed and
gone missing would also be recovered a few months
later in Central Luzon.
At times last
year, unannounced appearances of US military ships
and planes appeared to have caught Philippine
government and military officials by surprise,
giving rise to questions as to the extent by which
the US military informs Manila of its actions
within the country's territory. In October, for
example, an 11,000-ton US military ship was
spotted off Basilan near Zamboanga city. Foreign
Ministry and military officials gave the ship
different names and conflicting explanations as to
its mission. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson
initially claimed the US didn't inform the
government of the presence of the ship, only to
retract that later. US officials eventually stated
the vessels had come for medical, dental and
civil-works projects.
The foreign media
have a description for all these mysterious
sightings of soldiers, spy planes and ships.
According to the Associated Press, the Philippines
is fighting the "war on terror" with "covert US
non-combat assistance" in Sulu. Another key US
ally in the region, Australia, is also helping out
by sending personnel who are involved in what
Australian media refer to as a "covert operation"
in the country.
'Emerging targets for
preemptive war' The possibility US troops
are not just playing games, building schools or
handing out pills in Mindanao is not such a wild
allegation. In an editorial questioning the
vagueness of the stated objectives of US troop
deployments abroad, the New York Times had earlier
warned, "The Pentagon has a long and ignoble
history of announcing that it is dispatching
American forces abroad as 'advisers' when they are
really meant to be combatants."
That these
"advisers" are doing more than looking after pets
is not a conspiracy theory: certain factions in
Washington are known to have been agitating for
more action since 2002. Some of the
highest-ranking US military officers, such as
former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff
Richard Myers and Pacific Command commander
Admiral Thomas Fargo, were reported to have been
advocating a "longer and more intense mission" in
the country after the initial deployment to
Basilan.
Outside the US military, there
have been calls for US forces to assume a more
direct role in the fighting. In an opinion column
for the International Herald Tribune, Brett M
Drecker wrote: "If Washington and Manila are
serious about eliminating Abu Sayyaf, the US
Special Forces should be given the assignment. The
terrorist group consists of about 100 poorly
trained amateurs. They would be no match for
American soldiers already in the Philippines, but
they are still eluding Filipino troops."
In an editorial published after the July
2003 mutiny by Filipino soldiers, the influential
conservative Wall Street Journal echoed the
suggestion, saying, "If the US wants to defeat
terrorists in places like Mindanao and Basilan, it
should insist on a more hands-on role in the
partnership with the Philippine military."
The Philippines has since been included on
the list of "emerging targets for preemptive war"
of a new US military unit authorized to conduct
clandestine operations abroad, according to a
memorandum prepared by the same Myers who had been
pushing for deeper involvement in the country.
Seymour Hersh, a prominent investigative
journalist, has written about a US presidential
order that allow the Pentagon "to operate
unilaterally in a number of countries where there
is a perception of a clear and evident terrorist
threat". Though the list of countries was not
revealed, the description fits that of the
Philippines: "A number of the countries are
friendly to the US and are major trading partners.
Most have been cooperating in the war on
terrorism."
'We can always cover it
up' When US troops were first supposed to
come to Sulu in February 2003, they had already
announced that they were going to fight. A US
defense official said then, "This is not an
exercise, this will be a no-holds-barred effort."
Reportedly worried about the possibility of
suffering casualties and not being able to explain
them to the public if they presented the
operations as mere games, US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld decided to call a spade a spade.
He said: "Whatever it is we do, we describe in
language that is consistent with how we do things.
And we do not tend to train people in combat."
That triggered a public outcry in Manila,
prompting denials from Philippine officials. This
was despite the fact that a Justice Department
undersecretary had already previously declared
that the government would allow Americans to
participate in combat. After Pentagon
pronouncements, then Philippine defense secretary
Angelo Reyes stuck to the official justification,
saying, "It's a question of definitions and
semantics," implying Manila and Washington were
both referring to the same thing but just had
different names for it.
But however the
operations are labeled, the fact is that US forces
in the Philippines are sent to actual conflict
areas with the right to shoot back at real
enemies. Whether merely providing military aid to
the Philippine military to fight enemies, giving
them training and advice, sharing information or
actually joining them in the battlefield
constitutes "participation in combat" is, as Reyes
put it, a question of semantics.
Though it
was eventually called off, the US government never
took back its characterization of the planned
deployment as an actual combat operation.
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, US
officials maintained their Filipino counterparts
asked them to lie to the public in case Americans
were killed or wounded in action. "We could always
cover it up," one Filipino official was quoted as
telling them.
'Like rats in a
trap' With the recent military offensives
and with successive unexplained and unresolved
killings gripping the island in the past few
weeks, Sulu is again teetering on the precipice of
full-scale war. With spy planes and helicopters
hovering above and naval ships berthing and
dislodging military equipment, residents of Sulu
say it feels like the 1970s all over again - but
this time, with American GIs around. One thing is
for sure: if true, the involvement of US troops in
attacks against the MNLF will not push the island
away from the edge.
Even before the
November offensives, the 1996 peace agreement
between the government and the MNLF already was in
tatters. It began disintegrating even before 2001
when open clashes resumed between the MNLF and the
government and Misuari was subsequently arrested
by the government.
According to the
government, only factions loyal to Misuari - the
so-called MRG/MBG - attacked the military after
the administration refused to support Misuari's
candidacy for governorship of the Muslim-majority
autonomous region. According to MNLF fighters,
however, they were finally provoked into taking
action then by successive military attacks on MNLF
forces despite the ceasefire, continuing military
atrocities against Moro and continuing government
and military attempts to render meaningless the
concept of autonomy.
While Misuari, who
remains in prison, has ordered the MNLF to
maintain "peace and order" for the duration of the
US troops' indefinite stay, MNLF commanders said
they will remain on the defensive and will not
just sit back when they are again attacked.
Further military offensives in the name of
fighting "terrorism" will only escalate the
fighting and, as has been the case for the past 30
years, they will likely result in more
human-rights violations and killing of innocent
civilians. It will do nothing to address the roots
of the conflict.
According to one
official, the MNLF is not only reconsolidating but
also, because of the failure of the 30 years of
peace talks, becoming more radicalized. Having
learned its lessons from the past and having cast
off its dependence on outside support, the MNLF,
the official says, is now even stronger and more
determined to carry on with what the Bangsamoro
have been doing for the past 500 years: resisting
and fighting. Even the military concedes that the
movement continues to enjoy wide popular support.
And as American GIs roam Sulu, many
residents can't help but remember what they did
the last time American soldiers were around. In
March 1906, about 500 US troops supported by
Filipino members of the constabulary climbed up
Bud Dahu, an extinct volcanic mountain in Sulu,
and surrounded at least 900 Moros who had fled to
the bowl of its crater to escape from and resist
the rule of the US colonizers in the towns below.
From the rim of the crater, US troops
bombarded the Moros below for four days - "like
rats in a trap", wrote American novelist Mark
Twain. Following their commander Gen Leonard
Wood's order to "kill or capture those savages",
US troops spared no one, not even women and
children - "not even a baby alive to cry for its
dead mother".
A hundred years ago, the
Americans also said they had only come to help.
Herbert Docena is with Focus on
the Global South, a research and advocacy
organization.
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