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Thousands of Protesters Greet US War Games in Philippines
MANILA, Philippines - Demonstrators calling for US troops to withdraw from the Philippines protested the start of annual joint military exercises Monday, with hundreds of American troops heading to southern islands where al-Qaeda-linked militants operate.
The two-week drills -- called Balikatan, or "shoulder-to-shoulder" -- bring together 6,000 US and 2,000 Filipino troops at a time when Philippine forces are battling militants from the Abu Sayyaf and its allies from the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah terror network.
About 30 protesters from the left-wing coalition Bayan burned a US flag and chanted "US troops out now!" outside the gate of the military headquarters in Manila, where US Ambassador Kristie Kenney, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo and top military officials led the opening ceremony.
Rallies also were held in at least four southern cities to demand US troops leave because of alleged involvement in combat operations -- prohibited by Philippine law -- and human rights abuses, activists said.
In Cagayan de Oro, police estimated the crowd at 3,000, including priests and nuns who joined lawmakers and Muslim activists, although rally organizers said more than 5,000 joined the protest march.
Representatives Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza of the Bayan Muna and Garbriela partylist, respectively, led the protest march early Monday which had the city's traffic paralyzed for hours.
Disputing the government's claim that the holding of the Balikatan exercises was based on the provisions of the Visiting Forces Agreement, Ocampo said that there was no provision in the agreement allowing for successive military exercises.
"Continued or successive joint military exercises violate the Constitution and even the provisions of VFA. And as we see now, these are not even joint exercises but a one-sided conduct of civic actions by American troops," Ocampo said.
Maza also lambasted the government for allowing American troops to conduct civic action in the country, saying the humanitarian mission was just a cover.
"These humanitarian missions are just an excuse to allow US troops to enter our communities and pursue their real agenda of justifying their war against terrorism," she said.
Maza warned that the presence of US troops in Mindanao will lead to more human rights abuses, especially against women and children.
Nuns, priests, and students joined farmer's groups in the protest, bearing anti-US placards and chanting slogans calling President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a terrorist.
In Davao City, around 3,000 protesters belonging to Bayan and the Out US Troops-Mindanao Coalition marched through the streets demanding the immediate pull-out of American soldiers from Mindanao.
Protests were also held in Pikit, North Cotabato, and Davao City.
Zainab Ampatuan, chair of the partylist Suara Bangsamoro (Voice of the Moro People), told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone that the contingent coming from Kidapawan City was harassed by government troops along the highway in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao.
"They accused us of failing to secure a permit from them. We were able to secure from the local government of Pikit," Ampatuan said.
She said that activists from Kidapawan City were forced to abandon their chartered vehicles and had to walk going to the venue of rally in the town proper of Pikit.
Ampatuan estimated the number of protesters in Pikit at 7,000.
"Instead of these exercises, we are calling the government to resume the peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. We fear that hostilities may happen considering that Philippines and US troops will hold their humanitarian missions in controlled areas of the MILF," Ampatuan said.
US troops will conduct medical missions and repair schools in Mindanao, where Muslim rebels have waged a decades-long separatist insurgency, US officials said.
The areas include Jolo island, an Abu Sayyaf stronghold, and central Mindanao, a base of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country's biggest separatist group, now holding peace talks with the government.
Tensions flared recently on Jolo after villagers accused the military of killing seven civilians and an off-duty soldier during operations to hunt down suspected terrorists.
Rawina Wahid, whose husband was killed in the raid early this month, said she was tied up and put on a naval boat with several US soldiers on board.
President Arroyo has ordered an investigation into the deaths. Last week, US Embassy spokeswoman Rebecca Thompson denied American soldiers took part in any combat operations.
Military chief General Hermogenes Esperon said the emphasis of the exercises, which have been held since 1981, has shifted to humanitarian assistance, part of efforts to win over local Muslim populations.
America's soft counterterrorism approach here has won praise in contrast to mounting criticism of US-led incursions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A manhunt continues on Jolo for Abu Sayyaf commanders and two top Indonesian militants wanted for alleged involvement in the 2002 nightclub bombings that killed 202 people on Indonesia's Bali island.
The Abu Sayyaf, blacklisted by Washington as a terrorist organization, has been blamed for deadly bomb attacks, beheadings and high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans. With Reports from Charlie C. Señase, Jeffrey M. Tupas, Jeoffrey Maitem, Richel V. Umel and Ma. Cecile Rodriguez, Inquirer Mindanao
© 2008 Associated Press
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Show AllI love this striking photograph! I don't know how anyone could look at it and not question U.S. intentions in the Phillipines. I don't know how an U.S. military officer could look at these faces without it stirring his conscience, knowing the history of colonial violence against Asian women.
US Out of the Philippines NOW!
I held that sign 6 years ago at an antiwar rally when the US first started moving its so-called terror war into and against the Philippine Muslim community. But it's not just that element of Philippine society that suffers from our government's intrusion into their affairs.
Philippines is another feather in the crown of the US empire and the promotion of its form of democracy and freedom.The brutality and occupation of Philippines highlights that the stars and stripes stand for inseparable U.S. commercial interests and "Pious humanitarian" intervensions. Armed with the mandate from GOD, as affirmed by the former US Attorney General Ashcroft that US freedoms are "not the grant of any government or document, but...our endowment from God" (Why bother with the United Nations when God himself is on hand?,) the Empire has conferred upon itself the right to go to war at will, and the right to deliver people from corrupting ideologies, from religious fundamentalists, dictators, sexism, and poverty by the age-old, tried-and-tested practice of extermination.
Before Iraq, it was Philipphines. Before "the born-again" Christian Bush, it was the "pious" Christian US president William McKinley who "prayerfully" invaded Philippines by killing thousands of innocent citizens of the land: "I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me: 1) That we could not give them [the Philippines] back to Spain — that would be cowardly and dishonorable; 2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany — our commercial rivals in the Orient — that would be bad business and discreditable; 3) that we could not leave them to themselves — they were unfit for self-government — and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and 4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the ... War Department map-maker, and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large wall map), and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!"
Until 1933, 120,000 U.S. troops occupied the Philippines. "Pacifying" those "heathens" took longer than McKinley thought and brought out the brute in the soul of U.S. Christian soldiers. Long before troops destroyed the Vietnamese village "to save it," and GIs decimated Falluja and killed thousands of its residents to bring "democracy" to Iraq, their predecessors committed atrocities in the Philippines. A frustrated U.S. general even ordered troops to kill every Philippine male over age ten. Fortunately, that order was not carried out, but U.S. troops did slay up to 200,000 Philippine men and women and scores of children in three years, until overwhelming superiority in weapons and sheer cruelty and ruthlessness of the American christian invaders overcame local resistance forces.
One critical citizen satirized McKinley's war: "G is for guns/ That McKinley has sent/ To teach Filipinos/ What Jesus Christ meant."
As American christianity is founded on a violent and bloodthirsty GOD, the American democracy and freedom are based on extermination of the owners of the land. Those owners of the land who oppose American democracy and freedom are labeled as "militants" "insurgents" and "terrorists". Death is a small price for the owners of the land to pay for the privilege of sampling this new American product: instant-mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil, add oil, then bomb).
And without Moro assistance, the islands would have remained Spanish.
Then we slew them. We even developed the .45 caliber Colt Automatic pistols and .45 caliber Thompson submachine guns specifically to kill them.
"that we could not leave them to themselves — they were unfit for self-government" --- That about sums up the American point of view on the rest of the world doesn't it.
Or, as Mark Twain put it in "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," his first major satire of the war: "What we wanted, in the interest of Progress and Civilization, was the Archipelago, unencumbered by patriots struggling for independence; and War was what we needed."
This is a rather long essay, but it says everything anyone should need to know about u.s. imperialism. I used to read parts to my students during the Vietnam war, and they thought that's what Mark was writing about and no wonder.
for example, he spoke of bringing to the "Persons Sitting in Darkness" "torches of enlightenment and progress (patent adjustable models, suitable for burning villages)"
If Puerto Ricans can halt military excercise in Vieques, Filipino's can do the same in their country.
Puerto Rico and the Philippines share a common history.
What? The U.S. are holding war games to practice getting their asses kicked in the Philippines?
"Thousands of Protesters Greet US War Games in Philippines"
Thank You!
As an American expat living in the Philippines I would like to give my point of view. I love this country and consider it my home. If they would let me I would become a citizen here. 99% of Filipinos love Americans. In truth, they are kind and friendly to everyone (although there is some dislike of Koreans but that is a long story).
Filipinos know their government is corrupt (instead of pretending it is not like Americans do). They care only for living their lives day to day, for enjoying family and friends and a good cock fight. They understand that the entire terror deal is about the Philippine military getting money from rich America. They do not like it but what can be done? That is the way things go.
Fortunately here, when the shit hits the fan, and government abuse becomes to much the people have the power to protest and change things. You see here, the government fears the people, unlike the US where people fear the government.It is to bad that what goes on in remote parts of Mindanao has little affect on the lives of the rest of the country and so is ignored as one of the evils of life.
Slowly but surely this country is moving away from America and towards the rest of Asia. I tell my Filipino friends that the US is no friend of the Philippines.
when will they ever learn...
how many times must the white dove die?
till the weapons are beat into plowshares and we will learn war no more,
The future of Iraq is the past of the Philippines, which the U.S. invaded 100 years ago and only crushed its resistance by burning their crops and starving over 250,000 filipinos to death: mostly women and children.
But the U.S. meant well for the Philippines, as it does for Iraq. It's just that these countries have their own futures to head toward, and American foreign policy is too easily co-opted by the only powerful who really care (hint: they often aren't even Americans). Most American's are pretty dumb when it comes to the rest of the world and react ONLY when someone is trying to 'get away' from their sphere of influence. That reaction is negative and predicated on the idea that such a movement must be 'anti-American' (rather than pro-filipino, etc).
One hopes that Iraq will 'educate' another generation of Americans about the justifiable fact that they really dont give a cr*p about anywhere but America, but given the American experience in the Philippines and Vietnam, that hope begins to run thin.
Lets cut to the chase: in the Philippines today, 3% of the population owns 70% of all the wealth in the country. And that 3% aren't even filipino (they're ethnic Chinese), (statistics from 'World on Fire' by Amy Chua). America has nothing to do with that (except the perception that we're trying to enforce the 'status quo').
Filipino's have to confront the world as it is: a place where many people are significantly 'greedier' than your average fun-loving filipino. They need to carefully take action to prevent the worst of these depradations before they become so ingrained that filipino's are greatly hurt by them (believe me, it's not like this hasn't happened before: look at American blacks, American Indians, Polynesians, etc). 'Revolution' is always a horrid thing. Filipino's need to make sure the society present in the Philippines represents THEIR values, and not the values of peoples IN the Philippines who frankly left their own countries for the valid reason that they were miserable there, before the country itself is co-opted. They need to be politically aware of what they are doing to their OWN country, and not blame everything that happens on the U.S.
As the accompanying photo suggests... maybe there's hope for the Philippines after all!!
Is there any place where the U.S. military is not running around killing civilians?
Read Richard Drinnon's "Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building" for some well-documented chapters on the U.S.'s glorious past in The Phillippines---where, not least, we virtually perfected waterboarding in interrogating the "militants" of the 1900s....What? U.S. troops killing/harming civilians in the process of bringing light and freedom? Oh, come on now! It's just a practice for the invasion (sorry, I mean liberation) of Cuba---which before long (if businessmen get their wish) will be full of ecological catastrophes, god-awful hotels full of obese Americans, and local shoe-shine boys on their way to becoming "terrorists"....
Paint your face, why carry a sign, way to go.
Does the American 'left' have any idea how many civic leaders, activists, union officials, peasant leaders, religious leaders (especially Protestants and even a Bishop), journalists, intellectuals, elected officials at all levels, honest civil servants, judges and attorneys, doctors and nurses...women's leaders... (and their family members) have been assassinated or 'disappeared' by the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo? The Philippines is a model 'Global War on Terrorism' 'killing field' eliminating some of its most talented, honest, courageous and generous patriots on a daily basis before the eyes of its infuriated people. It is the second most dangerous place for journalists (after Iraq). It has been regularly condemned by the European Union, European jurists and journalists associations and European, Asian and Canadian religious organizations. And yet there is a near-total blackout of information on this situation in the US press - including a large sector of the so-called American progressive press - largely because of a deep, wide-spread colonial contempt Americans have towards its former colony.
The Philippines has always been a laboratory for American imperialism - its historical parallels with the destruction of Iraq are striking. Anyone familiar with the brutal history of the US invasion, occupation and later neo-colonial control of the Philippines could have predicted what hell-on-earth the American Administration had planned for the Iraqi people.
Keep the heroic Philippine struggle in the news and give it your full support and solidarity! Mabuhay!
The truth: There IS no war on terror. There is a war on the non-military-America-loving-"godless"-heathens.
Reality check: seven years later, almost a trillion dollars and we STILL haven't captured Osama bin Laden... Sure, sure, we took over Saddam after the Kurds caught him, but he never was a danger to the U.S. (just George W. Bush's ego).
So now we practice in the Philippines in remembrance of a time long past - I guess the only successful mission nowadays it invading our allies.
And what is the point? Unknown because all they give us is lies.
feloneouscat Said: "Reality check: seven years later, almost a trillion dollars and we STILL haven't captured Osama bin Laden…"
That's assuming Bin Laden is guilty, where as there's enough evidence to make me question that. In fact, whenever Bin Laden was responsible for something, he ALWAYS took credit... yet after 9/11, he said that he had nothing to do with that... you'd think that it would be a "terrorist's wet-dream" to take credit for 9/11... yet he didn't. The video the US released with Bin Laden taking credit for it was a fake... all you have to do is compare his appearance and speaking style to what was on that video and you can see it's fake. The Taliban also offered to give Bin Laden to the Americans not once, but twice... once before 9/11 and once after. Both times they were turned down. The reason why they haven't caught Bin Laden, is because they're not really looking for him very hard. Afghanistan is about the Unocal pipeline. Nothing more.
FELONEOUSCAT -- Perhaps the purpose of the WOT (War on Terror) is that the world didn't have sufficient terror in it ?
FEAR (from terror) is the great motivator, and works so much more cheaply than mere bullets and napalm. We are having our perceptual world sculpted for us to ease our resistance to total the plans of the NWO.
Their plan will not work, as humankind's spirit is far stronger than those heartless NWO strategists could ever understand.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King
A lot of Europeans I know believe that Osama Bin Laden is IN THE UNITED STATES getting the medical care and protection he needs to go on being the new American boogie-man. And given all we know about the old Bush links to him, it makes sense....
My boyfriend participates for several years in Balikatan exercises. Let me tell you, they (US military) getting paid good money (from our taxes!) to go there. He stays in nice hotels, everything paid for, and he makes tax-free money. All of them (US military) looking forward to go there to make extra bucks.
On the top of that, they have fun! I break up with my boyfriend every time he goes there, because he is cheating on me. All of them (US military) are partying at Angels City because it is close to Clark where they live during exercise.
Hi my name is chris, i am in the us military. It breaks me up inside to have the wonderful people of the philippines think that we are all the same.. I hate the fact that stupid people go off and rape, fight, and cause property damage in beautiful countries like Japan, the Philippines and God knows how many more. I would like to recommend that you try and make laws against stuff like that happening. If a U.S. Military member rapes a girl in your country then cut off his "tool" to make sure nothing like that happens again.
These people (gabriela, out now, bayan, whatever, all the leftist craps) are hopeless, they've been doing that since forever, they're basically just annoyance, they're out of touch with reality, they're just part of these bunch of lunatics that blame everything bad on america but embraces everything thats good for them, most of these people that attended their rallies were there because they get paid or promised something not because they're fighting for a cause, i know because i used to be one of the organizers back when i was still in college (thru LFS) and they never run out of funds coming from everywhere which we were never told (unless you're up there). Pathetic...