Arroyo/U.S.
"Low Intensity"
State Terrorism
By Brian McAfee
26 December, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Philippine
President Gloria Macapagati Arroyo's Melo Commission to investigate
the killings of leftists and journalists has apparantly concluded that
investigation and will submit their report in early January.
Most in the Phillippines
believe the Melo Commission and its upcoming report to be part of an
ongoing ruse by the Arroyo government to cover up that the government
itself, in colusion with the military and state police are the actual
perpetrators of the mass killings.
The ongoing killings now
number 803 after the shooting death of Francisco Bantog, provincial
chairman of the Bayon Muna party-list group. Then the shooting death
of Nelson Asocenor a 19 year old youth leader and member of a peasant
group. Karapatan. The nation's leading human rights
group, has kept an ongoing tally along with amnasty international and
the Asian Human Rights Commission. The human rights groups, particularly
Karapatan have meticulously kept the name, locations, and circumstances
of the murders, by contrast. The Arroyo government's Melo Commission
puts the number of dead at 136.
Others killed this past week
were Gil Gujol, a human rights leader and his driver Danilo France,
Jesus Servida, a Labor Leader.
According to Gabriela, a
Philippine women's organization, there have been 83 women killed and
54 children since the beginning of the Arryo government in 2001. Aside
from the numbers listed above there are 206 listed as missing. The types
and locations of Philippine people among the victims are widespread
and diverse. All regions of the counts report dead and/or missing. Aside
from journalists there are elderly couples, priests, students, social
workers, peasant leaders, health workers. The common denominator among
the victims is that they are all empathetic figures, people before profits
minded individuals.
Recent polls in the Philliippines
indicate the majority of people view themselves as poor. The Arroyo
government, her right wing congressional supporters, the Armed Forces
of the Philippine and the National Police are at odds with the majority.
The Arroyo government has
a powerful ally that also seems to have a disregard for the lives of
innocent people.
The United States, which
for decades has trained the Philippine military, continues to do so
through the Joint Combined Exchange Training program (JCET), which engage
in small unit training, rifle marksmanship, day and night navigating,
small unit killing in short. Another U.S. training program that has
been training the AFP for years is the U.S. international military Education
and training program (IMET) Imet graduations populate ranks and activity
promote a close U.S.-Philippine military relationship. IMET has had
a disastorous effect on the Philippine n eighbor to the south, Indonesia.
The U.S. supported the Violent
take over of East Timor, a relatiede small island tothe south. Indonesian
engaged in mass killing of about 200 thousand Timorese civilians beginning
in 1975: finally in 1993 the U.S. banned I on ET funds - the killing
and oppression continued with the mass supplyy of weapons and amunitionthe
U.S. had supplied through IMET earlier
IMET and JCET trainees, Like
the U.S. school of the Americas alumni in the western hemisphere, have
a continuous string of human rights abuses. Continuing with examples
from Indonesia, Kopassus also known as "red berets" recieved
JCET training in "Military Operations in Urban Terrain" only
to later have these trained units engage in attacks on civilian populations,
a
notorious attack on ethnic Chinese women and girls in 1998 and their
continuous attacks in East Timor until their independence in 1999. Indonesian
security forces, now known as TNI again are receiving U.S. training
in the "War on Terror" as they continue to commit atrocities
against civilians in West Papua, New Guinea.
The flippant attitude the
Arroyo administration at times has shown towards the killings and the
families and friends, and the the wider community effected by the killings
is suspect. No one in the Arroyo government shows this more than Justice
Secretary Raul Gonzalez. Gonzalez,
rather than showing an interest in getting to the truth, has from the
beginning accused the NPA of all the murders even though there is no
evidence leaning towards them. In another case that is indicative of
his lack of common decency and his servile attitude towards the U.S.
government
he has chosen sides from the beginning in the U.S. Marine rape case.
The case in which "Nicole", filippina, was raped by Lance
Corporal Daniel Smith, Gonzalez continuously displayed a preferential
attitude towards the U.S. Marine. Even interfering after the guilty
sentence was reached, trying to hand Smith back over to the U.S. and
verbally attacking the Judge in the
case.
The obsequious attitude displayed
by the Philippine government towards the U.S. government and corporate
interests is a betrayal to the people of the Philipines. The poor and
the Philippine people in general deserve a system and an infrastructure
that will address their needs. This will not come from the United states
or in paying homage to them but in changing the structure to address
the needs of the people, for real.
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