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<a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=44&ItemID=14456" eudora="autourl">
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=44&ItemID=14456<br>
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<dd><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=5>Is Canadian Military Aid Funding
Assassinations in the Philippines? <br>
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<dd><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>by Stefan Christoff; December
06, 2007</b> <br><br>
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<dd> A history of popular rebellions is woven into politics in the
Philippines, from the 1986 "People Power Revolution" of street
protests that overthrew the US supported dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, to
the ongoing left-wing guerrilla insurgency of the New People's Army
(NPA). <br><br>
<dd>Economic inequality is a central element fueling political turmoil
and grassroots rebellions in the country. According to the United
Nations, an estimated 45 million people in the Philippines live on less
than two US dollars per day. <br><br>
<dd>Instability in the Philippines extends beyond the current economic
crisis, as a growing international controversy surrounds the
administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Political killings
in the country are on the rise; the Philippines is estimated by Amnesty
International to have one of the highest rates of politically-motivated
murders in the world. <br><br>
<dd>In 2006, Amnesty concluded that "over recent years reports of an
increased number of killings of political activists, predominately those
associated with leftist or left-orientated groups, have caused increasing
concern in the Philippines and internationally." <br><br>
<dd>Today, political organizers implicated in movements for social change
in the Philippines are under the gun. <br><br>
<dd>In Manila, human rights advocates point to aid from the governments
of Canada and the US as supporting the governmental-backed targeting and
killing of local activists. <br><br>
<dd>It is commonly estimated that over 860 people have been killed in
acts of politically motivated violence in the Philippines since the
beginning of Arroyo's term in 2001, which many local human rights
activists attribute partially to a US backed
"counterinsurgency" program of the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP). Union leaders, religious figures, progressive
politicians and community organizers have all been targeted in killings
that leave a bloody trail pointing to the highest levels of political
power in the nation. <br><br>
<dd>"Despite major international pressure, Arroyo's government has
not halted the ongoing political killings," explains Benjie Oliveros
the managing editor of Bulatlat, a popular alternative online news
publication based in Quezon City. <br><br>
<dd>"The Armed Forces of the Philippines denies that they are
involved in the killings, although everyone understands implicitly that
the military is directly involved," Oliveros told the Dominion over
tea in Manila, "we believe that international media has a
responsibility to amplify the untold violence that progressive movements
are facing in our country today." <br><br>
<dd>In 2007 Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations
Human Rights Council, accused the current government of "encouraging
or facilitating the killings" through the AFP. According to Alston,
President Arroyo and the national military were not only in a "state
of denial" about the political killings, but "complicit"
in the systematic executions of those labeled "enemies of the
state." <br><br>
<dd>"In some areas, the leaders of leftist organizations are
systematically hunted down by interrogating and torturing those who may
know their whereabouts," outlines a additional United Nations report
released in August 2007, "they are often killed following a campaign
of individual vilification designed to instill fear into the
community." <br><br>
<dd>"I cannot agree on that," Lieutenant-General of the state
military, Alexander Yano, told Reuters news agency in a recent interview,
in contradiction to the recently published UN report, explaining
"that there could be some rogue elements in the military", but
it was "not state policy to allow extra-judicial killings and
disappearances." <br><br>
<dd>Until today the Armed Forces of the Philippines and left-wing
guerrillas of the 10,000-strong New Peoples Army (NPA), remain locked in
a decades-old battle for political control throughout the Pacific
archipelago. Commonly viewed as one of the longest running guerrilla wars
in the world, the battle between state military forces and the NPA dates
back to the 1960s, when communist-driven national liberation movements
spread throughout Asia. <br><br>
<dd>Since 9/11, the ongoing struggle between state forces and the leftist
guerrilla movement in the Philippines has been swept into the
international "War on Terror," as both the NPA guerrilla
movement and also the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
(NDFP), an umbrella organization representing left movements in the
country, have been designated as "terrorist" organizations
domestically and internationally by western governments, including the US
and Canada. <br><br>
<dd>Today, the Canadian government delivers approximately $20 million on
an annual basis in overseas development aid to the Arroyo government in
Manila, mainly through the Canadian International Development Agency
(CIDA). Officially, the outlined objectives of CIDA’s development
strategy in the Philippines is to "foster efficient, responsive,
transparent and accountable governance at all levels." <br><br>
<dd>Canada's international development agency describes the Philippines
as a "functioning democracy with a vibrant civil society,"
despite the rise in political killings in the country. <br><br>
<dd>In addition to Canadian "development aid," Canada's
Military Training Program (MTAP) has provided army personnel from the
Philippines with training in Canada on "peace support operations,
staff training and language" since 1997. <br><br>
<dd>According to the Department of National Defense, military personnel
from the Philippines participate in training activities in Canada on an
annual basis, despite official Canadian policy guidelines barring the
government from offering military support "to countries that are
involved in armed conflict or whose governments have a persistent record
of human rights violations." <br><br>
<dd>As Canadian military aid to the Arroyo government continues to flow,
the southern Philippines has been labeled a "new front" to the
US-driven 'War on Terror' opened shortly after 9/11, in an effort to
legitimate the heightened targeting of armed movements rooted in the
minority Muslim community by both the Philippine military and US forces
stationed in the country, according to human rights advocates. <br><br>
<dd>In 2002 the Bush Administration launched Operation Enduring Freedom –
Philippines, in which thousands of US soldiers and military personnel
were deployed, including more than 1200 members of the United States
Special Operations Command, Pacific. Armed Muslim movements such as the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the shady Abu Sayyaf group are
facing an overt military campaign from government and US troops in this
new battleground of the War on Terror." <br><br>
<dd>A 2007 feature article in USA Today claimed that in the Philippines,
the "US is making progress in war on terror; US special forces have
helped kill, capture or rout hundreds of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas."
According to one US Army Major operating in the Philippines,
"they've been kicking some butt... I think they're close to breaking
this thing open." <br><br>
<dd>Hundreds of Filipinos civilians are missing or have been killed in
the military violence. Those affected by the military campaigns are
overwhelming the Philippines' impoverished majority. <br><br>
<dd>Muslims in the Philippines are estimated to comprise five per cent of
the national population, known locally as Moros -- the term dates to
Spanish colonial forces which ruled the islands from 1565 to 1898 -- and
widely regarded as playing a central role in the struggles against both
Spanish and US colonization. In recent years, grassroots political
parties representing minority Muslim communities in the Philippines such
as Suara Bangsamoro -- "Voice of the Moro People" -- have built
alliances with left movements running in national elections. <br><br>
<dd>100 years ago, US forces battled Moro fighters in the southern
Philippines, during the Philippine-American War, in which an estimated
one-tenth of the Filipino population lost their lives. Violent US
military campaigns in Philippines during the early 20th century are a
haunting historical reference point for the current US military role in
the southern islands; until today, US forces have never been able to
permanently subdue the Moro population. <br><br>
<dd>US writer Mark Twain authored a disturbing account of US military
action in the early 20th century. "We have pacified some thousands
of the islanders and buried them," Twain wrote, "destroyed
their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and children
out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of
disagreeable patriots." <br><br>
<dd>Silencing "disagreeable patriots" in the Philippines
remains a seemingly impossible task today, as modern weaponry and US
troop deployments to the Philippines as part of the "War on
Terror" manifest echoes of the history of US colonialism in the
country. <br><br>
<dd>"People in the Philippines today are facing a deathtrap, as the
international economic system creates a massive monetary outflow from the
country, with over 70 per cent of our annual budget going to payments on
our national debt, as administered by international creditors including
the World Bank," explains Teddy Casino, sitting congressman for the
progressive political party Bayan Muna. <br><br>
<dd>"This economic system squeezing the people of the Philippines is
a new colonialism, enforced by the Arroyo government through military
force," continues Teddy Casino, "a government that is waging a
war with US support against the progressive movements in this country
with armed violence and repression." <br><br>
<dd>A battle of ideas is apparent everywhere you visit in the
Philippines, a battle that pits western-backed economic and military
policies endorsed by the government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against
grassroots progressive movements in the country, which according to all
indicators are on the rise throughout the nation. <br><br>
<br><br>
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