Macapagal-Arroyo’s
‘Silent War’ Vs the Left
The U.S. Doctrine of
Counter-Insurgency in the ‘Silent War’
Second of three parts
The deliberate use of
terror is “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.
BY BOBBY TUAZON
Bulatlat
Accounts of
government’s internal security plan or of the OBL do not of course show
that the military and other security forces are under explicit orders to
kill leaders and members of suspected front organizations of the
underground left. However, government’s record of counter-insurgency in
the Philippines sheds some light on how such campaign operates.
Since the Marcos
dictatorship (1972, when martial law was declared, to 1986 when he was
ousted from power), 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 presidency’s “total war policy” through the CIA-inspired
low-intensity conflict (LIC) that tapped local government units,
paramilitary units and – unclassified secret documents reveal - about 50
vigilante bands or death squads. Counter-insurgency campaigns have been
launched not only against the Marxist guerrillas but also Moro rebels
fighting for self-determination and autonomy. The cost of such brutal
campaigns in terms of human lives lost and communities displaced would be
huge and lengthy to mention in this paper.
Both previous
campaigns and the current OBL – which is actually recycled from the old
ones – 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.
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 instill fear among the population and, as a
result, deny suspected cadres and members of target political
organizations their mass support. Mass executions or massacres often take
place alongside selective political assassinations for maximum effect. The
psywar 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 hit men and architects of these punitive operations with the
license to kill as well as immunity from prosecution.
For too long, the
Philippines has been maintained by the United States, its former colonial
master, for the latter’s strategic economic and geo-political objectives
not only in the Philippines but throughout Asia, the Pacific and the Gulf
Region. 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 United States. Note the intervention of the U.S. chiefly through the
AFP and the use of economic squeeze in two political-economic crises that
led to the downfall of two presidents – Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada
in 2001. The immediate aim was to prevent the government from supposedly
falling into the hands of the Left and hence keeping the Philippines’
ancillary role in U.S. strategic interests in the region. Before Marcos
and Estrada, previous presidents had also been empowered or suffered
shorter terms depending on their ability to fight insurgent forces and
support U.S. objectives, among other considerations.
Key role
Thus for decades the
U.S. military through its Pacific Command has maintained strong influence
in the AFP not only in the field of counter-insurgency but also in the
current U.S.-led “war on terrorism.” The U.S. has had a key role in
developing and promoting counter-insurgency doctrines that were adopted by
the AFP. The implementation of counter-insurgency doctrines – including
the current “war on terror” – had been tied to U.S. economic and military
aid. Continuing scholarship trainings given to the AFP’s junior officers
as well as police officers at the U.S. military’s special training schools
are used to further hone the country’s security forces anti-insurgency
strategy and skills while maintaining the AFP as a surrogate army of the
U.S.
At present, the U.S.
military, intelligence and “homeland security” operatives provide training
for special covert operations as well as intelligence, logistical, and
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.
The U.S. role in
counter-insurgency-terrorism has expanded alongside the increase in U.S.
economic aid geared to anti-terrorism. Based on the 2003 Conflict
Vulnerability Assessment, the USAID’s new strategy for 2004-2009 seeks 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.”
Records also show,
however, that the greater the level of U.S. aggression through military
presence and increased military and economic aid is in the country, the
more human rights violations occur. The U.S. military and economic aid
that propped up the Marcos dictatorship was also used to intensify
military suppression campaigns that resulted in nearly five million people
displaced and tens of thousands arrested, tortured, killed and
disappeared. The U.S-initiated and –supported low intensity war during the
Aquino years (1986-1992) led to unprecedented cases of forcible
disappearances, massacres, the deployment of vigilante squads and the
extra-judicial killings of many urban-based activists. While pretending to
engage the Left in peace talks, the Ramos government (1992-1998) launched
similar punitive operations with secret plans to restore authoritarian
rule, a policy that was sustained by Joseph Estrada (1998-January 2001)
particularly in the south. All told, it can be said that like her,
Macapagal-Arroyo’s predecessors used counter-insurgency to the hilt to
ensure continued U.S. support. But, at what cost?
Throughout the world,
the U.S. has been condemned for using the “war on terror” as a pretext for
launching wars of aggression on many small countries, for propping up
unpopular and despotic regimes as well as for the increase of crimes
against humanity and human rights violations in these countries. The Bush
government refuses to take heed on calls from around the world to withdraw
its support for the illegitimate Macapagal-Arroyo regime especially
because U.S. military aid has led to more political crimes and that
economic aid only goes to corruption. Bulatlat
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