Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume IV, Number 20 June 20 - 26, 2004 Quezon City, Philippines |
Iraq
Handover Just Like Philippine `Independence’ – NCCP Leader The
fate of Iraq is now being compared to what the Philippines had gone through in
the hands of the U.S. Despite the expected fanfare amid the U.S. handover of
sovereignty to Iraq on June 30, peace advocates are repudiating this event as
nothing more than “window-dressing.” They believe that Iraq will remain “a
colony or a puppet state, subservient to Washington and protective of American
interests.” BY
ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Noting
the similarity between Iraq and the Philippines, Duremdes said that the U.S.
sent troops to the Philippines in the late 19th century in the guise
of helping Filipinos in the latter’s war against Spanish colonialism. However,
the U.S. purchased the Philippines from Spain under the Treaty of Paris in
December 1898. It established civil government in the Philippines in 1901 after
a short but bitter war that claimed 1.5 million Filipino lives. At that time,
the Filipino population was placed at seven to eight million. Though
it “granted” independence to the Philippines on July 4, 1946 after decades
of both armed and legal resistance by various movements, the U.S continues to be
criticized by activists and progressive intellectuals for interfering in
Philippine affairs under a neo-colonial relationship. “Immoral
and illegal”
Koechler,
who is also founder and president of the Vienna-based International
Organization called the U.S.-led war on Iraq which was launched on March
20, 2003 an “immoral and illegal” war that was “based on totally false
assumptions: possession of weapons of mass destruction and the support of the
Iraqi government for international terrorism.” He
also denounced U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell’s presentation of “false
evidence and fake documents” in attempting to justify the war. He
further noted that the war on Iraq had no sanction of the United Nations. In
a similar forum at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City
that afternoon, Koechler, a leading authority on United Nations reform, said
that the U.S.
occupation forces have no political authority in Iraq being a “war
aggressor” and therefore does not have any right to hand over “full
sovereignty” to the Iraqis on June 30. In
the Diliman forum held at Balai Kalinaw, UP Prof. Bobby Tuazon stressed however
that the UN Security Council resolution adopted June 8 which upholds the hand
over of “sovereignty,” only gave a façade of legitimacy not only to the
U.S. occupation but also to the puppet interim council that the Bush
administration installed. Such
legitimacy, Tuazon said, will expedite the push for the Americans’ neoliberal
economic blueprint for Iraq. Under the blueprint, the U.S. occupiers seek to
overhaul Iraq’s once state-managed economy into an American-style free market
economy with trade liberalization and privatization. Priority for privatization
is Iraq’s oil industry, which is second to the world’s major oil producer,
Saudi Arabia. For
his part, at the Shalom forum, Bp. Alberto Ramento of the Iglesia Filipina
Independiente (IFI or Philippine Independent Church) said, “The bases for war
are lies, propaganda, and false documents. Therefore, the war is immoral.” A
United Nations weapons inspection team went to Iraq shortly before the war began
and found that its weapons of mass destruction had been dismantled years before.
Meanwhile, a U.S. commission probing the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001 recently concluded that there is no
evidence linking al-Qaida to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In
the first quarter of 2003, the U.S.-led coalition forces toppled the government
of Saddam – “at the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent
Iraqis,” said Koechler. They then established an Iraqi Governing Council (IGC)
which Koechler described as a body that is “without legitimacy.” Despite
the capture of Saddam in late December last year, Iraqi resistance to foreign
occupation continues and has escalated in the last few weeks. The
Austrian philosophy professor added that the handover of sovereignty to Iraq
would be “fictitious” because the would-be governing authority was
established by the occupying power. He also said that the body would not survive
a single day without the protection of the occupying forces. According
to Koechler, “The only honest alternative would be the Iraqi people’s
sovereign decision after the withdrawal of the occupying powers.” Duremdes,
meanwhile, said, “The sovereignty is going to be placed in the hands of Iraqis
who are like proxies.” She also revealed that the U.S. will be keeping at
least 138,000 troops in Iraq even after the handover. Prof.
Arche Ligo of St. Scholastica’s College’s Department of Women’s Studies
compared U.S. war propaganda to the “logic” of those who beat up women,
calling it a “macho discourse” that “justifies the battery.” Nothing
but a “window-dressing”
In
a statement, the People’s Forum on Peace for Life said, “The ‘transfer of
sovereignty’ issue has become the subject of the new discourse. The shift in
the area of interest will likely redefine the concept of sovereignty, going the
same way of debasement as ‘peace,’ ‘democracy,’ ‘freedom,’ and many
other noble concepts. On June 30, Iraq will not become a sovereign state but
will remain a colony or a puppet state, subservient to Washington and protective
of American interests. As such, despite the ‘Iraqi face’ of the new
government, the insurgency is bound to continue with a likelihood of developing
into a civil war.” “The
handover of sovereignty to Iraq on June 30 would be simply a window-dressing,”
said Duremdes. “After that,” she added, “Filipinos can say, ‘So what’s
new? Welcome to the club!’ But they can also link arms with the Iraqis who
have risen to fight for their freedom.” The Shalom forum had the theme “The U.S. Handover of Sovereignty to Iraq: Moral and Legal Questions” and was sponsored by the People’s Forum on Peace for Life, the NCCP, the Ecumenical Women’s Forum, and Pilgrims for Peace. Bulatlat.com We want to know what you think of this article.
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