Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume 3, Number 37 October 19 - 25, 2003 Quezon City, Philippines |
Oplan
Greenbase is Real, Trillanes Says
Government policies corroborate Oplan’s successLt.
Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes IV, acknowledged leader of the junior military
officers who seized the posh Oakwood Hotel July 27 this year to demonstrate
against state-sponsored terrorism and corruption in the armed forces, asserts
that the government’s Operational Plan (Oplan) Greenbase is not a spurious
document as earlier dismissed by Malacañang.
By
Gilbert L. Pacificar
Bulatlat.com/Mindanao
Bureau DAVAO CITY- Lt. Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes IV, acknowledged leader of the junior military officers who seized the posh Oakwood Hotel July 27 this year to demonstrate against state-sponsored terrorism and corruption in the armed forces, asserts that the government’s Operational Plan (Oplan) Greenbase is not a spurious document as earlier dismissed by Malacañang.
Roel Pulido, legal counsel of the six core leaders of the junior military officers, presented “The Greenbase Expose,” a document penned by Trillanes before an investigative panel of the citizen-led Mindanao Truth Commission during the group’s second inquiry session in this city last Oct. 16. In
the paper, Trillanes said he based his own findings from facts, circumstances
and official pronouncements of government officials including President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo herself. Pulido
said events that occurred as predicted in the Oplan Greenbase paper would
validate the authenticity of the document.
He also said the Oplan was “highly successful” in terms of objectives
attained. Government policy papers, according to Trillanes, highlighted his group’s assertion that Malacañang and top officials of the Department of Defense (DoD) had a hand in the spate of terrorist acts in Mindanao. NICA document Pulido
said his clients got hold of the document from their network inside the National
Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), the government’s chief spy agency.
He said it was leaked sometime in February this year right after the
start of the AFP’s offensive against the Buliok Complex of the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF). Trillanes
said the Memorandum of Instruction (MoI) signed by Macapagal-Arroyo, as well as
Malacañang’s Four-Point Policy Framework (FPPF) in Addressing the Southern
Philippine Secessionists/MILF Problem signed by then adviser on the peace
process and former general Eduardo Ermita are the focal points of the Oplan.
Both papers have been called by Trillanes as the Greenbase Documents. The
MoI is the President’s authorization to then Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes to
carry out Oplan Greenbase, which is mainly an action plan to capture and occupy
the Buliok Complex surrounding the Liguasan Marsh while the FPPF is the detailed
and expanded action plan that would operationalize the approved MoI, Trillanes
said. AFP’s
psywar operations Trillanes
also revealed the AFP’s plan to conduct comprehensive psychological warfare (psywar)
operations through the print and broadcast media.
The plan, according to him, included destabilization efforts in urban
Christian-dominated areas, particularly in the airports of Davao, Cotabato,
General Santos, Zamboanga and, Cagayan de Oro cities, principal ports and
wharves, foreign embassies and consulates, hotels and restaurants, shopping
malls, hospital churches, public markets and terminals, radio and television
stations, factories, oil depots and gasoline stations, buses, cinemas, schools
and plazas. Pulido
said, with the mystery bombings at the Davao International Airport last March 4
and at the Sasa Wharf April 2, the junior officers have reason to believe that
Oplan Greenbase is a real government operation.
He said an operational plan has specific targets and most of the
objectives of the Oplan Greenbase have been met. But
the Macapagal-Arroyo government through Presidential spokesperson Ignacio Bunye
has dismissed the Oplan Greenbase paper as merely propaganda and that it has
been circulated purportedly to agitate the Muslim population in Mindanao. The
young junior officers involved in the Oakwood incident concluded likewise that
the presence of Gen. Victor Corpuz , then chief of ISAFP, in Davao had something
to do with the implementation of the Oplan Greenbase. As far as Reyes is
concerned, Pulido said quoting the junior officers, as defense secretary
“logically, he knows the activities outlined in the Oplan Greenbase.”
Pulido said the evidence against Reyes are circumstantial but added that
a plan as comprehensive as Oplan Greenbase would not be implemented without
authorization from the highest authorities, including Reyes and Arroyo. Blame
on the MILF The
document also included a plan of putting the blame on the MILF as responsible
for the alleged AFP-backed spate of bombings in urban areas and the destruction
of several Napocor transmission towers, power sub-stations and barges. Subsequently,
charges of rebellion, sedition, multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder
were filed against MILF leaders in various courts in order to secure warrants of
arrest against them. This scenario
is also prescribed in the FPPF. The
FPPF also warranted the declaration of the MILF as a foreign terrorist
organization by the U.S., Asean and European Union and of Chairman Salamat
Hashim as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” because of the
“gravity and magnitude of threat he and the MILF pose on the national security
and territorial integrity of the Philippines and Asean Countries,” the
document said. Hashim died of heart attack recently. The
FPPF added that Hashim’s capture or death, and MILF’s designation as an FTO,
will ensure the smooth conduct of Balikatan 03-1 in Central Mindanao and the
U.S. troops’ planned basing in Sarangani-General Santos City. CIA-Meiring
angle In
a related development, Dr. Robinson Montalba, convenor of the Initiatives for
Peace in Mindanao, urged U.S. President George Bush to bring with him the
American national Michael Terence Meiring to face questions on his possession of
explosives at the time of mysterious bomb threats and actual attacks in various
parts in Mindanao. Meiring
figured in a bomb explosion at the Evergreen Hotel Davao City on May 16, 2002.
The bomb nearly killed the owner of the explosives, identified as Meiring. “We
want Meiring to be subject to investigation by Philippine authorities as much as
we demand Gen. Angelo Reyes and Gen. Victor Corpuz to explain their parts in the
bombings,” Montalba said. “We strongly believe that Meiring is a missing
link in the series of Davao bombings that were used as justification for
increasing military intervention of the U.S. in its so called war on terror.” “It is obvious that Meiring’s handlers belong to the higher ups in the U.S. But how can the Arroyo government solve the case of mysterious Davao bombings when it allows the mysterious handler of explosives to be fetched by American plane and evade investigation? Why wasn’t he immediately arrested, while our Muslim brothers here have been abducted and illegal detained?,” Dr. Montalba asked. Bulatlat/Mindanao Bureau We want to know what you think of this article.
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