ANALYSIS
Terror in Anti-Terror
Will Gloria’s
‘end-game strategy’ vs the Left work?
The present campaign
against the Left has practically closed all avenues to the peaceful
resolution of the armed conflict, including the peace talks, which belies
the claim of Macapagal-Arroyo to root out the endemic problems of poverty
and social injustice by socio-economic means. It also closes the option of
using Congress as an arena where the poor classes, through their
party-list representatives, can seek social, economic and political
reforms. Furthermore, it closes the parliament of the streets as an open
cafeteria of ideas and public advocacy.
By Edmundo Santuario III
Bulatlat
The Philippine
military may definitely be gaining the upper hand vis-à-vis the civilian
administration as its counter-insurgency or “anti-terrorist” campaign
escalates by the day. But Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cannot evade any
responsibility for the mounting cases of politically-motivated killings
victimizing hundreds of activists and political personalities.
In recent weeks, the
Arroyo government has been in the hot seat following confirmations by the
state’s own Commission on Human Rights (CHR),
the London-based Amnesty International and other rights watchdogs about
reports of unprovoked armed attacks against civilians identified with the
militant left that, reports add, have been committed with impunity by
military, paramilitary and police forces.
At the latest count,
605 persons have been executed extra-judicially since Macapagal-Arroyo
became president in January 2001 following a people’s uprising. Several
others have been reported missing and are presumed dead. What is alarming
is that all of the victims were unarmed civilians who included rights
volunteers, peasant and labor leaders, church leaders, lawyers, local
executives, party-list progressives, as well as women and children.
Many of the killings
are said to have been perpetrated by motorcycle-riding, hooded gunmen in
the style of death squads. Fact-finding missions, eyewitness accounts,
circumstantial evidence, pattern analysis and other investigations made by
international groups point to military, paramilitary and police units as
the culprits. The killings have been synchronous with declarations by both
executive officials, military top brass and notorious communist-hunters
like Gen. Jovito Palparan naming progressive party-list groups and
cause-oriented organizations as “terrorists” with links to the
communist-led underground revolutionary movement and its armed component,
the New People’s Army (NPA).
A complaint about
these political killings has been filed by rights groups with the United
Nations Human Rights Council and a session on this has been set in Geneva
later this year. Preceding the UN case are several other complaints filed
with the CHR,
Justice Department and Congress itself. Calls have been made here and
abroad asking Macapagal-Arroyo to rein in her armed forces as well to
condemn and stop the killings. In the works is a proposed wide-ranging
in-depth investigation into the cases leading to the prosecution of those
found guilty.
Yet despite all
these, why do the killings continue?
First of all, the
killings have spread in many regions tagged by the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) as NPA
strongholds. The sound of assassins’ gunfire has gotten louder with every
military threat against so-called communist “front organizations” becoming
unrelenting. Given the impunity of the killings and with no investigations
done by the government which has instead incredibly linked the incidents
to a “leftist purge,” it is no wonder more and more people believe the
terror campaign against the alleged “enemies of the state” could not be
unleashed without orders from higher authorities.
“War against terrorism”
The probability of
this scenario ensues from the fact that since 2001, Macapagal-Arroyo has
renewed a counter-insurgency campaign that has been integrated into – or
been the thrust of – her so-called “war against terrorism.” As early as
that year, the military’s counter-insurgency campaign adopted a new tactic
aimed at “neutralizing” the progressive party-list groups, with one top
official warning publicly that the Bayan Muna (BM or people first) won’t
be allowed to take a seat in Congress.
To win the support of
U.S. President George W. Bush and, hence, the AFP’s
loyalty, Macapagal-Arroyo backed Bush’s global war on terror by allowing
the Philippines to be used as the
war’s “second front.” In turn, Macapagal-Arroyo received pledges of bigger
U.S. military aid and more military training through regular war
exercises, special operations and logistical, sometimes even combat,
support for her government’s anti-terrorist campaign. More military aid
and training were guaranteed with a mutual agreement to use such resources
not only against so-called Muslim extremists but eventually, on a larger
scale, against the leftist armed guerrillas.
The integration of
Macapagal-Arroyo’s counter-insurgency into her “war on terror” was
anticipated following a secret deal between top U.S. and Philippine
authorities to name NDFP senior political consultant Jose Maria Sison and
the CPP-NPA in the U.S.’ and European Union Council’s “foreign terrorist
organization” lists. This sent a signal to Philippine defense and military
officials to intensify a demonization campaign tagging alleged front
organizations and progressive party-list groups and their leaders as
“terrorist.” Newsletters, primers and PowerPoint presentations of the AFP
circulated, triggering speculations – not without basis – that these
paraphernalia were actually hit lists or OBs (orders of battle) with the
intent to “neutralize” the so-called “enemies of the state.” As understood
by many activists, rights watchdogs and church people, “neutralize” smacks
of physical elimination.
Operation Plan Bantay
Laya (Oplan Freedom Watch), alleged to be an AFP
strategic paper that was implemented beginning 2002, sheds some light on
this. A recent report by the alternative newspaper, Pinoy Weekly,
which obtained a copy of the document, says that OBL is originally an
internal security blueprint designed against Moro secessionist groups in
southern Philippines including the
armed bandit group Abu Sayyaf, and the “CPP-NPA-NDF.” The last group has
been seen by the defense department as the “top national security threat.”
A briefing paper on the OBL reads: “We have been in this game for decades.
Perhaps it is high time to put into play an end-game strategy that will
terminate this lingering problem.”
6 to 10 years
Indeed, underscoring
this goal, Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz would reiterate sometime in 2005
that the government is bent on eliminating the leftist threat in six to 10
years. Cruz’s warning was reminiscent of previous agenda that date back to
the Marcos years more than three decades ago.
As far as the Left is
concerned, OBL is to be carried out in priority regions combining combat,
intelligence and civil-military operations. But the oplan also stresses
that to be effective the military strategy should also neutralize the
communists’ legal organizations.
Pinoy Weekly does not
say whether the OBL explicitly suggests the actual physical elimination of
leaders and members of these “legal organizations.”
However, government’s
record of counter-insurgency in the Philippines tells some truth about how
such campaign operates.
Since the Marcos
dictatorship, the doctrine of counter-insurgency has been waged through
unrelenting military suppression campaigns, psychological warfare and
assaults on civil liberties. The doctrine was refined further during the
Aquino government’s “total war policy” through the CIA-inspired
low-intensity conflict that mobilized local government units, paramilitary
units and about 50 vigilante bands or death squads. Counter-insurgency
campaigns have been launched not only against the Marxist guerrillas but
also Moro fighters. The impact of such brutal campaigns in terms of human
lives lost and communities displaced would be too numerous and lengthy to
mention in this paper.
Both previous
campaigns and the current OBL have the makings of the counter-insurgency
or “counter-terror” doctrine devised by the U.S. military since the 1950s
and which, according to former CIA operatives, had been used extensively
in at least 43 countries particularly in the Philippines, Indochina and
Korea. Similar doctrines have also been crafted in central and Latin
America and, today, in Colombia, Iraq and other countries.
Unconventional
warfare
Based on U.S.
military field manuals, the heart of this counter-insurgency doctrine is
the deliberate use of terror “as a legitimate and highly effective
tactical tool of unconventional warfare.” This unconventional warfare is
designated as a national policy with the military assigned the primary
responsibility in “the conduct of punitive operations” backed by police,
paramilitary and civilian agencies. Operations used for this terror
campaign include assassinations, disappearances and mass executions.
Although terror is supposed to be part of the counter-insurgency program,
experience shows that it may in fact gain primacy thus making the program
primarily an unconventional war.
The doctrine further
suggests that the use of terror as a legitimate weapon for
counter-insurgency aims to sow fear among the population and thus deny
suspected cadres and members of target political organizations of their
mass support. Mass executions or massacres often take place alongside
selective political assassinations for greater effect. The psy-war message
these operations try to send is that advocacy – especially the radical
type – is risky and is not worth fighting for. Being highly-secretive and
known only to top military officials, terror invests both the hitmen and
architects with the license to kill as well as immunity from prosecution.
It is precisely when
terror is used systematically to fight dissenters and critics known for
advocating genuine social and political reform, that the Macapagal-Arroyo
regime has been accused of resorting to state terrorism. State terrorism
it could be given the fact that the president has lost any legitimacy to
govern owing to alleged electoral fraud and flagrant violations of the
constitution and that the only reason for her staying in power is the use
of iron fist and the support that she’s getting from the U.S.-backed armed
forces.
For too long, the
Philippines has been maintained by the U.S., its former colonial master,
for the latter’s strategic economic and military objectives in Asia, the
Pacific and the Middle East. This special relationship has been guaranteed
by making the AFP dependent on
U.S. military aid and training in
order to make it useful for its proxy war in the Philippines as well as
for ensuring that whoever sits as president remains friendly to the U.S.
For decades, the U.S.
military has maintained strong influence on the AFP
not only in the field of counter-insurgency but also in the current global
war on “terrorism.” At present, the
U.S. military and intelligence operatives
provide training for special covert operations as well as logistical,
sometimes combat, support. U.S. armed intervention in the country has been
boosted by a new agreement signed with the Macapagal-Arroyo government
allowing U.S. forces to operate not only for “training” or “war exercises”
but also to conduct “humanitarian” and “anti-terrorism” missions. Actually
such missions have been ongoing in recent years particularly in suspected
NPA lairs.
As in previous
campaigns, U.S. economic aid funneled through the USAID has also been
geared to anti-terrorism. Based on the 2003 Conflict Vulnerability
Assessment, the new aid strategy covering 2004-2009 is designed to
“address conflict more comprehensively and with a broader geographical
focus, particularly on areas outside Mindanao where poverty and social
injustice can help to create fertile ground for organized violence and
terrorism.”
Meanwhile, Macapagal-Arroyo’s
hand in the counter-insurgency a.k.a. “anti-terror” program is evident not
only because she is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces but also
through the Cabinet Oversight Committee on Internal Security (COC-IS)
that evaluates counter-insurgency operations and other national security
issues. Presided by a former Marcos general, Eduardo Ermita, the committee
includes National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, Justice Secretary
Raul Gonzales, Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz,
AFP
chief Gen. Generoso Senga and National Police Director General Arturo
Lomibao.
This powerful
committee sits atop a civilian bureaucracy whose agencies have been packed
with retired AFP and national
police chiefs and other generals including Angelo Reyes, Leandro Mendoza,
Hermogenes Ebdane, Edgar Aglipay, Efren Abu, Narciso Abaya, Honesto Isleta,
Roy Cimatu, Dionisio Santiago, Thelmo Cunanan, Roberto Lastimoso,
Florencia Fianza, Reynaldo Berroya and many others. Not since Marcos has
the civilian government been highly militarized making it a fertile ground
for a no-holds barred anti-terror campaign.
The implications – if
true - of hitting unarmed leftist activists and veiled threats to destroy
the revolutionary movement’s alleged legal political infrastructure are
broad-ranging. The present campaign has practically closed all avenues to
the peaceful resolution of the armed conflict, including the peace talks,
which belies the claim of Macapagal-Arroyo to root out the endemic
problems of poverty and social injustice by socio-economic means. It also
closes the option of using Congress as an arena where the poor classes,
through their party-list representatives, can seek social, economic and
political reforms. Furthermore, it closes the parliament of the streets as
an open cafeteria of ideas and public advocacy.
That is why, in the
long run, the persecution campaign attributed to the present regime is
essentially an assault on the people themselves; an attack on their
advocates is an attack on the masses. What is morally incomprehensible is
that despite documentations that trace the trail of blood to the doors of
Malacañang, Macapagal-Arroyo remains silent or feigns innocence.
The question is, will
Macapagal-Arroyo’s “end-game strategy” really work? Bulatlat
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