New Peoples’ Army ledes af Filippinernes Kommunistiske Parti, og har i flere årtier ført en langvarig folkekrig mod Marcos-diktaturet og efterføgernes proimperialistiske politik for at styrte den herskende klasse og dens korrupte regimer.
Et interview med en kommandant fra befrielseshæren i det filippinske blad Bulatlat.
Han understreger at øget amerikansk deltagelse i oprørsbekæmpelsen kun vil resultere i ‘et kraftigt opsving i de revolutionære aktiviteter i Filippinerne. KP-Netavisen
A top NPA leader stresses that increased US involvement in the counter-insurgency campaign will only result in a “resurgence in revolutionary activities in the Philippines.”
BY CARLOS H. CONDE
Bulatlat.com / MindaNews
COMPOSTELA VALLEY — The United States’s role in the Philippines’s counter-insurgency campaign is becoming increasingly significant – thanks, according to the New People’s Army in the Southern Mindanao region, to the “unabashed puppetry” of the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
In a recent interview with journalists somewhere in the mountainous part of this province, Ka (Comrade) Benjie, one of the leaders of the NPA’s operational command in the region called Merardo Arce Command, said the US — in the guise of going after terrorism – is getting more and more involved in the Philippines’ counter-insurgency campaign. This is done, he said, through the granting of more military loan and aid packages to the Armed Forces of the Philippines as well as the training of Filipino troops by American “advisers” in supposed counter-terrorism.
“We can be sure that the engagement of US troops in the Philippines will not be limited to the Abu Sayyaf,” Ka Benjie said, pointing out that the mainstream revolutionary movement in the country led by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA are fair game to the US, which earlier classified the latter as a terrorist group.
The US’s move to classify the NPA as a terrorist group is not actually new, but in the context of the ongoing peace negotiations between the government and the National Democratic Front, the umbrella group of national-democratic forces in the Philippines, the classification puts the Arroyo administration in a dilemma, mainly because it has a standing no-negotiation policy with alleged terrorist groups. Indeed, both the NDF and Malacañang have announced that the peace negotiations will resume in Oslo next month, thus deepening the dilemma.
However, Ka Benjie said that the Arroyo administration only has itself to blame for its predicament. “Because of the Arroyo administration’s unabashed puppetry to the US, it is bound to be put in contradictory and uncompromising positions,” he said.
Sabotage
Another significant implication of the US’s intensifying involvement in the country’s counter-insurgency campaign, Ka Benjie said, is that the US will use its anti-terrorism campaign as well as its military assistance to the Philippines to sabotage the peace process. The objective, he said, is to “stop the resurgence of anti-imperialist and anti-globalization” backlash all over the world, particularly in Asia, and to ensure the continued reliance by governments such as the Philippines’ on US military assistance. The latter, Ka Benjie said, is consistent with the Bush administration’s policy of increased military spending to boost the US economy that has been faltering of late.
But this US policy that is being enforced by the Arroyo administration, Ka Benjie said, “will produce the opposite effect. Precisely because of these US actions, we expect a resurgence in revolutionary activities in the Philippines.”
Ka Benjie made these statements on December 26, the 33rd anniversary of the re-establishment of the CPP. The journalists were with the group of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who paid the NPA a visit in their territory in this province.
“The morale of the revolutionaries and the masses is high. The propaganda by the military and the government that our number is dwindling cannot negate this fact,” Ka Benjie said. He attributed this to the Second Great Rectification Movement launched by the movement in 1991. In his anniversary message released on Thursday, CPP central committee chairman Armando Liwanag boasted that the movement already has “more than 100 guerrilla fronts” all over the country.
“No amount of US intervention can stem the tide of revolutionary fervor in our country,” Ka Benjie pointed out.
Military Package
After the September 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration promised a military loan/aid package to the Philippines worth $100 million. Some equipment, such as a new C130 plane and 16,000 pounds of weapons and ammunition, have already been delivered to the Philippine government.
The granting of the package was part of the US government’s campaign against “world-wide terrorism.” Immediately after the meeting with Bush in November, Arroyo suddenly changed her tune and started referring to the Abu Sayyaf as a “bunch of terrorists,” whereas the standard line of Malacanang pre-September 11 was that the bandits were just that – plain bandits.
But the most visible form of US engagement in the Philippines was the deployment of US Special Forces troops to Mindanao to train Filipino soldiers in counter-terrorism, specifically how to vanquish the Abu Sayyaf, which has remained scot-free despite repeated promises by the AFP to destroy it.
The US troops arrived in trickles in Zamboanga City the past two months but in mid-January, about 100 of them are expected to arrive there to start actual training in the terrains of Western Mindanao and, according to military sources in Zamboanga, “possibly Basilan,” the biggest lair of the Abu Sayyaf.
The Americans will be armed, raising fears that they could end up engaging the bandits during the trainings, thus plunging the US deeper in its involvement in the Philippines while the Philippines would be confronted with constitutional questions. This brings to mind America’s involvement – and subsequent blunder — in Vietnam in the ’60s.
“Their firearms are part of their uniforms, so we cannot expect them not to carry those,” said one AFP official in Manila. “If they’re going to be here alongside our troops, which is what it looks like they are planning, it could be fairly risky,” the Washington Post quoted an anonymous military officer as saying. The same paper reported that US officials have acknowledged the possibility that the US troops “may have to defend themselves” if they are attacked by the Abu Sayyaf.
Adm. Dennis Blair, the commander of the US forces in the Pacific, told the Post last week that the US training is “the largest and most comprehensive” his country has done in Asia in recent years.
The Post also quoted Col. David Fridovich, one of the US military officials here, as saying that the Abu Sayyaf, which still holds two Americans hostage, is “a shared problem that requires a special degree of cooperation. We’re going to help them (Filipinos) but it’s for them to fight, not for us to fight.”
During her visit to Bush in November, Arroyo reportedly turned down an offer by the US president to send US grounds troops to Basilan and Jolo, pointing out that it would be a violation of the Constitution. On Friday, this “offer” was reiterated by US congressman Todd Tiahrt (Kansas), who came to the Philippines to press Arroyo to use US ground troops. A Philippine Navy official said Tiahrt’s proposal is unnecessary.
US-trained
Be that as it may, the US troops might as well be the ones chasing the Abu Sayyaf. The Southcom’s Light Reaction Company, which has been tailing the Abu Sayyaf since September 11 and which has engaged the bandits in a number of firefights, was trained by US forces in Fort Magsaysay, in Nueva Ecija, before September 11. They are equipped with uniforms and weapons supplied by the US military.
Col. Roy Cimatu, the commander of the AFP’s Southern Command, conceded the difficulty in going after the bandits, mainly because of the terrain. The military, he said, would need sophisticated equipment to crush the bandits once and for all. These equipment can only come from the US. And these equipment – such as the Black Hawk helicopter that is capable of flying at nighttime, one of which the US military has reportedly committed to lend to the Philippines – can only be flown by American troops, at least in the short term.
This again raises the possibility of more direct US engagement in the campaign against the Abu Sayyaf. And to the NPA, this engagement will not stop with the demise of the Abu Sayyaf. “If the US is engaged in the campaign against a small group of bandits such as the Abu Sayyaf, how much more against the NPA with its clear resurgence of mass base and a clear anti-imperialist line?” Ka Benjie said.
Bulatlat.com/MindaNews
Den originale artikel
Tidsskriftet Bulatlat
Netavisen 9. januar 2001
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