US digs in deeper in the
Philippines By Noel Tarrazona
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - As the Armed
Forces of the Philippines expand the scope of
their offensive against Muslim insurgent groups on
Mindanao, some are wondering if the escalating
conflict could lead or already has led to the
establishment of a permanent US military presence
in the restive region.
Since the September
11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and
near
Washington, the United States has, as part of a
Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the
Philippines, poured hundreds of millions of
dollars' worth of military aid and technical
assistance toward the army's counterinsurgency
campaign against Abu Sayyaf, a radical separatist
group that Washington contends has links to
regional and global terror groups, including
Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiya and al-Qaeda.
More recently, the Philippine Army has
resumed low-intensity hostilities with two Muslim
ceasefire groups, the Moro National Liberation
Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF). Manila has accused the MNLF of harboring
members of the 300-member Abu Sayyaf. With US
military assistance, though not full-fledged
fighting forces, the Philippine Army is believed
to have largely hobbled the dwindling Abu Sayyaf
by decapitating its top leadership.
With
the spiraling fiasco in Iraq and the re-emergence
of the Taliban as a fighting force in Afghanistan,
the US has no clear-cut victories to show after
President George W Bush launched his "war on
terrorism" in 2001. Southeast Asia, including
combating Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines,
was identified by Washington as an important
theater in the global campaign and by certain
measures now represents the only front were the US
could conceivably declare any sort of a military
victory.
The irony, of course, is that US
soldiers have reputedly not done any of the
fighting in Mindanao and that the Philippine Army
is now threatening to widen the conflict seemingly
beyond the United States' original strategic
objectives. Some political analysts believe that
the recent army operations against the MILF and
MNLF have been driven by military leaders keen to
keep the United States' financial assistance
flowing - despite the new offensive's only tenuous
link to Washington's stated counter-terrorism
goals. The US has so far remained mum on the
Philippine Army's recent allegations that the
MNLF, and to a lesser degree the MILF, are in
league with Abu Sayyaf.
But a widened
conflict and longer stay in the Philippines could
serve Washington's broader strategic goals beyond
the "war on terror" in the region -
counterbalancing China. Since 2002, the US has
invested millions of dollars toward the
construction not only of military facilities, but
also of development and humanitarian projects in
and around Zamboanga City, where the US and the
Philippine Army have staged a series of ever
larger "shoulder to shoulder" joint military
exercises, including June's joint Cooperation
Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) naval
exercises. More than 600 US troops took part in
the original six-month exercises here in 2002, and
the US has established a counter-terrorism
training camp in the area.
Those joint
exercises have now extended into the
Muslim-dominated neighboring provinces of Sulu and
Basilan, conflict-ridden areas where the fighting
between rebel and government forces has been most
intense. In Sulu alone, the US has allocated more
than US$100 million for infrastructure and social
services, an attempt to address the abject poverty
that Manila contends has driven the region's
unemployed youth into insurgent camps, but also
possibly to pave the way for future resource
extraction.
Ever since the Philippines'
former colonial overlord was ousted in 1991 from
its long-held military bases at Subic Bay and
Clark, local law has strictly prohibited the
re-establishment of foreign military bases in the
country. The legislation was put in place
specifically to guard against a repeat of the
country's experience under the late dictator
Ferdinand Marcos, who for years was financially
propped up by Washington and symbolically
fortified by the United States' military presence
in the country.
Yankee come home Now some in President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo's camp are believed quietly to
favor maintaining some sort of US military
presence in the country - both to consolidate
recent US-supported battlefield gains against
Muslim separatist groups and more broadly to
counterbalance China's growing military might in
the region.
Outwardly Manila's bilateral
relations with Beijing are cordial, but the two
sides have in recent years skirmished over their
competing claims to the reputedly oil-rich Spratly
Islands. The recent joint CARAT exercises with the
US notably coincided with a Foreign Ministry
announcement of a new joint seismic marine
undertaking with Beijing to settle their disputed
claims in the South China Sea.
For their
part, US officials deny harboring any ambitions to
establish a permanent military base in Mindanao,
or for that matter anywhere else in the
Philippines. Joint Special Operation Task Force
commander Colonel David Maxwell, who leads the
joint exercise with the Philippine Army, says the
US presence is strictly consistent with the
provisions of the VFA.
Left-leaning
groups, such as Focus on the Global South (FGS), a
research institute based in Thailand that has
closely monitored the US military's presence in
the Philippines, contend that the US has, in
apparent violation of Philippine laws, already
established de facto bases in Mindanao. According
to VFA commissioner Edilberto Adan, the technical
definition of a US base entails US troops and
supplies being located inside a host nation's
facilities - as is now the case in the southern
Philippines.
FGS noted in a recent
statement that the US Overseas Basing Commission
(OBC), an official US government body, has
recently listed the Philippines as developing
"cooperative security locations" - a category of
military bases in official US parlance - and that
US troops in Mindanao refer to their locations
there as "Advanced Operating Base 920".
The research outfit also said that the OBC
currently describes the Philippines as a supply
base for military operations throughout the region
and asked why the US base-construction unit, the
Naval Facilities Engineering Command, recently
allocated a P650 million ($14 million) six-month
contract to US firms offering "base operations"
services in the Philippines.
It also asked
why the US has launched a series of new
military-related projects across the region -
estimated to be worth at least $14.4 million - at
a time the campaign against the emasculated Abu
Sayyaf should in theory be winding down.
FGS argues that, consistent with US
practice and that of governments in other
countries that host US bases where they face
domestic opposition, in an attempt to obscure the
precise definition of what constitutes a base,
Washington and Manila are deliberately keeping the
exact nature of the US military presence in
Mindanao under wraps.
Although the
so-called "Cooperative Security Locations" are
technically run and maintained by Manila or
private contractors, the Pentagon considers them
US military facilities that may be activated for
pre-positioning logistics support and as venues
for joint operations with host militaries during
actual combat operations.
VFA commissioner
Adan has reacted to the allegations by saying that
the said facilities only serve to provide living
quarters for the small number of US troops who are
providing technical and logistical assistance to
the Philippine Army in its operations against Abu
Sayyaf.
He said the facilities are "not
bases inside our camps; these are lodgings that
are under Philippine control", and emphasized that
US troops are not engaging in actual combat but
rather are sharing intelligence with the
Philippine Army and providing humanitarian,
engineering, medical, veterinarian and explosive
and disposal services.
Other Philippine
officials contend that the US-financed
construction of the contested facilities will
benefit the impoverished region by creating
hundreds if not thousands of new jobs. Several
local leaders and residents have been openly
supportive of the United States' presence in the
historically restive region, noting that the
Philippine Army failed to come to grips with Abu
Sayyaf until US soldiers arrived on the scene.
Whether those same local groups would be willing
to accept a more outwardly permanent US military
presence is altogether unclear.
Noel
T Tarrazona is a journalist and training
consultant to non-governmental organizations
promoting Christian-Muslim peace dialogue and
leadership training in the southern Philippines.
He may be contacted at zpressclub@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
