Anti-Pentagon Anger Grows:

Bush's "War On Terror" Faces Challenge in Philipines

By Scott Scheffer

Manila, Philippines

Workers World August 15, 2002

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.

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