[R-G] Is Canadian Military Aid Funding Assassinations in the Philippines?

[Anthony Fenton]

November 8, 2007

  http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1526

Is Canadian Military Aid Funding Assassinations in the Philippines?
The final article in the "battle of the ballot box" series

by Stefan Christoff

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

Sun setting over the impoverished quarters of Manila, Philippines.  
Photo: Stefan Christoff

This is the third in a series of three articles: Part I | Part II

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).

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.

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.

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."

Today, political organizers implicated in movements for social change  
in the Philippines are under the gun.

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.

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.

"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.

"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."

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."

"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."

"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."

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.

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.
A sign for Suara Bangsamoro, a progressive political party  
representing the minority Muslim community in the Philippines. Photo:  
Stefan Christoff

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."

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.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

"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.

"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."

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.