Oplan Bantay Laya:
U.S.-Arroyo Regime’s ‘Final Solution’
Having run out of
counterinsurgency options Bantay Laya I & II appear to be the
U.S.-Arroyo regime’s “final solution” to the long drawn-out
conflict. A novel and significant feature is its special emphasis on
punitive measures in dealing with the political component of the
insurgency. This includes suppressive measures against Congressional Party
List representatives and constituencies and “neutralization” of legal
institutions and organizations..
BY CAPTAIN DANILO P. VIZMANOS, PN (RET.)
Contributed to Bulatlat
To fully understand
the worsening human rights situation in the
Philippines one must take certain facts
into account:
First, President
Gloria Arroyo now depends mainly on the US-supported and trained Armed
Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for political survival.
Second, the AFP today
is the same military institution that served as the punitive instrument of
the erstwhile Marcos dictatorship. Except that the overzealous junior
officers who committed or were responsible for human rights violations
under Marcos have become generals and field-grade officers of the
repressive AFP in the Arroyo regime.
Third, the AFP
continues to serve as an instrument of suppression and extra-legal
operations under the Arroyo regime with the support, advice and guidance
of US counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism agencies, i.e., Department of
Defense & Central Intelligence Agency.
Fourth, since Arroyo
became president in 2001, human rights organization Karapatan (as
of February 2007) has documented 833 legal personalities as
victims of assassinations, 357 as survivors of assassination attempts, and
198 as victims of involuntary disappearance (desaparecidos).
Hundreds of thousands have become victims of forced evacuations and
sub-human conditions in concentration centers due to never-ending military
operations in the countryside. This is the consequence of all-out war or
so-called “holistic approach” in Operation Plan Bantay Laya that
has been carried out by the Arroyo regime since 2002.
Fifth, civil and
military authorities (such as the Cabinet Oversight Committee in the
Executive Branch) categorically assert that there is no government policy
that advocates or condones human rights violations as a means
to an end, i.e., the defeat of the long drawn-out
insurgency in the country. Needless to say, no government in its right
mind will admit even an attempt to commit illegal and extra-legal acts and
practices in its counterinsurgency campaigns.
Yet it is public
knowledge that the US-Arroyo regime has been carrying out an
unwritten policy that manifests itself through a pattern of
extra-judicial killings, assassinations and attempted assassinations of
legal personalities in the execution of counterinsurgency plans. That such
heinous crimes are actually happening with regularity throughout the
country as fully documented by human rights organizations and factually
reported by the mass media cannot be denied. Nor can it be denied that
despite a surfeit of government investigators and prosecutors, no
honest-to-goodness and conclusive investigation and prosecution of
extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations have been
conducted under the US-Arroyo regime.
Total denial of a
formal and written policy is one thing; covert implementation of an
unwritten policy on extra-judicial killings and other atrocities
against legal personalities is another!
Sixth, the alarming
human rights situation in the Philippines has been confirmed by the recent
findings of United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston after a 10-day
inquiry into phenomenon of extra-legal killings of legal personalities by
the military. The AFP’s vehement total denial and Justice Secretary Raul
Gonzales’ slander that Alston was brainwashed by “leftist” groups only
bolstered the credibility of the findings. Actually the data cited by
Alston are already common knowledge to the majority of the Filipino people
and even to many decent members of the AFP.
Seventh, latest
findings of reliable opinion survey institutions in the country – Social
Weather Station, Pulse Asia, and Ibon Foundation – show that the majority
of those surveyed nationwide are for the ouster of Arroyo from the
presidency. Reasons given are:
·
Gross and systematized
cheating in the 2004 presidential elections with the connivance of members
of the Commission on Elections and AFP generals who, later, were rewarded
with promotions to the highest positions in the armed forces by Arroyo.
·
Graft and corruption. On
many occasions media has reported the involvement of Arroyo and her
husband on irregular and questionable deals in large government projects.
The latest corruption survey conducted among foreign businessmen in Asia
by the Hongkong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy shows that
the Philippines is now perceived as the most corrupt in the region.
·
Deterioration in the human
rights situation in the country. Information gathered by media and CMO-sponsored
public assemblies reveal special emphasis given to the political
component and White Area operations in Oplan Bantay Laya.
This is reflected in the surge in extra-judicial killings of legal
personalities and extra-legal suppressive measures against legal
institutions and organizations.
·
AFP commander-in-chief
Arroyo’s involvement in the worsening human rights situation was most
conspicuous in her special recognition of Gen. Jovito Palparan. In the
whole armed forces, Palparan’s various commands had the most notorious
record in extra-judicial killings of legal personalities. Despite vehement
public outcry and intense opposition from human rights organizations,
Arroyo rewarded Palparan with rapid promotions to brigadier general and
major general.
·
Deteriorating economic
situation. The Arroyo regime now focuses on the improved value of the peso
vis-à-vis the dollar. What it fails to mention is the increasing number of
Filipinos who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition, job insecurity
and lack of local employment opportunity in the country that forces the
unemployed and underemployed to accept any kind of exploitative job
overseas. Making matters worse is Arroyo’s connivance with big business in
perpetuating slave wages for the working class.
Operation Plan
Bantay Laya
OPlan Bantay Laya
is an end product of more than three decades of failures and
frustrations of U.S.-GRP-AFP to crush and defeat the National Democratic
people’s struggle led by the CPP-NPA-NDF in the country.
Bantay Laya
is the latest formulation of previous
counterinsurgency plans initially crafted during the Marcos dictatorship.
Due to reverses suffered by government forces, these plans have undergone
revisions by succeeding regimes under different names:
Regime |
Name of OPlan |
Objective |
Marcos dictatorship |
Katatagan
(1980-85) |
Destroy NPA guerrilla units & political
infrastructure. (Failed) |
Mamamayan
(1986) |
-- ditto-- (Failed) |
Aquino & Ramos |
Lambat Bitag
I,II,III,IV |
Strategic defeat of NPA (Failed) |
Kaisaganaan
(1987-98) |
--ditto-- (Failed) |
Estrada |
Makabayan |
Defeat of NPA & MILF (Failed) |
Balanghai
(1998-2001) |
--ditto-- (Failed) |
Arroyo |
Bantay Laya I
(2002-06) |
Strategic defeat of NPA (Failed) |
BantayLaya II
(2007-10) |
Strategic victory over NPA (?) |
(Note: In 1995 Defense Secretary De
Villa declared that the AFP had attained strategic victory over the
NPA. But in 1997 the AFP acknowledged that the NPA was regaining
strength,) |
Involved in
conceptualization, planning and execution of all these plans is the U.S.
government through the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency as has
been the case since the anti-dissident campaigns against the PKP-HMB
during the Magsaysay regime in the early 1950s.
Having run out of
counterinsurgency options Bantay Laya I & II appear to be the
U.S.-Arroyo regime’s “final solution” to the long drawn-out
conflict. A novel and significant feature is its special emphasis on
punitive measures in dealing with the political component of the
insurgency. This includes suppressive measures against Congressional Party
List representatives and constituencies and “neutralization” of legal
institutions and organizations. Bantay Laya’s focus on the
political component and White Area operations is best described
by veteran reporter and columnist Amando Doronila in Philippine Daily
Inquirer (21 June 2006):
“The
blueprint of war outlined in the ‘orders of battle’ of OPlan Bantay Laya
envisages decimation of non-military segments of the communist movement.
It is not designed to engage the New People’s Army in armed conflict in
field warfare. It is designed to butcher and massacre defenseless
non-combatants. It is therefore a sinister plan for civilian butchery, a
strategy which exposes the military and police to fewer risks and
casualties than they would face in armed fighting with the communist
guerrillas.”
In dealing with legal
institutions and organizations the term “neutralize legal
personalities” is conspicuous in media reports on Bantay
Laya. Again we cite the following revelation of Doronila:
“The emphasis of this strategy on ‘neutralizing’ sectoral/front/legal
organizations helps explain why most of the victims of the past five years
have been non-combatants and defenseless members of the Left. During that
period the number of murdered aboveground members of the Left has far
exceeded fatalities of the New People’s Army in armed encounters with
security forces.
“This strategy is blamed for the systematic massacre of non-combatants. It
offers a huge potential for human rights abuses and atrocities. It makes
the regime look more cold-blooded in its methods in trying to crush the
insurgency than its predecessors, not excluding the Marcos dictatorship.
It opens the path to the slaughter of the defenseless.”
The U.S.-Arroyo
regime probably believes that giving license to military commanders to
carry out extra-legal draconian measures that include physical
elimination of legal personalities and non-combatants will
intimidate, terrorize and decapitate the National Democratic struggle
leading to its demoralization, political disintegration, loss of will to
struggle and eventual capitulation.
Operation
Phoenix,
Jakarta Solution, Death Squads
What is unfolding
today under the U.S.-Arroyo regime evokes memories of Operation
Phoenix
conceived by the Pentagon and CIA during
the Vietnam war. In this nationwide operation at least 41,000 Vietnamese
legal personalities and civilians were tortured and murdered by
U.S.-directed Saigon troops in a desperate bid to reverse the unfavorable
trend in the war situation.
In Indonesia in
1965-66 the U.S.-supported Suharto dictatorship unleashed what came to be
known as the “Jakarta solution.” This was no ordinary massacre but a
“blood bath” directed against members and sympathizers of the Communist
Party of Indonesia (PKI) and constituencies and followers of the Sukarno
government, almost all of whom were legal personalities and plain
civilians. Estimate of murdered and massacred “blood bath” victims range
from a minimum of 500,000 up to a high of one million. It was reported
that many rivers in Indonesia where the bodies were dumped turned bright
red and maintained that color for many days.
In Latin America
CIA-supported and trained “death squads” carried out systematic
assassinations, murders and massacres of tens of thousands of legal
personalities in Guatemala, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru,
Colombia, Nicaragua and El Salvador where US-supported dictatorships
reigned since the decade of the 1950s.
The “Final Solution”
As mentioned earlier
Bantay Laya was conceptualized and planned by the U.S.-Arroyo
regime as a “final solution” in a desperate bid to put an end to more than
three decades of failures and frustrations in dealing with the protracted
National Democratic struggle.
As reported in the
Philippine Daily Inquirer (18 June 2006), one military official ended
a briefing on Bantay Laya with this statement: “We have been in
this game for decades. Perhaps it is time to put into play an endgame
strategy (read: ‘final solution’) that will terminate this lingering
problem.” Included in the same report” “This is it. If this won’t
work, I don’t know what else would,” a key security official and one
of the key movers of Bantay Laya told the reporter.
From media reports on
government internal security operations, campaign plan Balanghai
and other aspects of counterinsurgency, one will come to understand why
the need for OPlan Bantay Laya I and Bantay Laya II by a
crisis-ridden and desperate US-Arroyo regime:
·
An AFP assessment carried by
media that the resurgence of the local communist movement is continuing
and the trend needs to be reversed.
·
Media sources cited the AFP
itself admitting that its forces suffered more casualties than the NPA in
2005.
·
The launching of Bantay
Laya II in December 2006 was an admission of failure of Bantay Laya
I (whose objective was the strategic defeat of the NPA) during
the previous five years. AFP Chief of Staff Esperon said that Bantay
Laya II is a 3-year campaign plan whose main objective is strategic
victory over the CPP-NPA-NDF by the end of Arroyo’s term in 2010.
A Dim View of
Bantay Laya
In its desperate bid
to put an end to the protracted people’s struggle, the planners of
Bantay Laya are constrained by ideological “blinders.” Unlike the
CPP-NPA-NDF, the U.S.-GRP-AFP “think tank” cannot come out openly and
honestly with what may be considered as the “bottom line” in the
protracted conflict – the reality of existing antagonistic
socio-economic classes, acute and intense class contradictions, and
seemingly open-ended class conflict in Philippine society.
It is most likely
that Bantay Laya II will also end up in failure and frustration as
was the fate of previous counterinsurgency operations of former regimes.
Mounting human rights violations and atrocities inflicted on an oppressed
and long-suffering people only intensifies class contradictions and
alienation. But the high cost in human lives, personal trauma and
sufferings of victims of the present “dirty war” may in the long run far
exceed the “crimes against humanity” of previous regimes combined.
An explanation of
successive failures of AFP counterinsurgency operations may be summarized
as follows:
-
Bantay Laya,
being no different in essence from the
infamous counterinsurgency operations of the Marcos dictatorship,
can only be described as an act of state terrorism and a continuing
crime against humanity. It serves only the narrow interests of a
minority in Philippine society – local and foreign big business
capitalist predators who have connived with the Arroyo regime in
frustrating the basic rights and interests of workers condemned to slave
wages and job insecurity; landlords with private armies who have
condemned the peasantry to perpetual serfdom and hand-to-mouth existence
as was their fate since the Spanish colonial era. In brief, the
defenders of a semi-feudal and neocolonial system cannot be expected to
be the defenders of the marginalized, dispossessed, exploited and
oppressed toiling masses. Bantay Laya and its “holistic approach”
to insurgency will flounder for as long as it defends and protects an
inequitable, unjust and anti-masses social order.
-
As long as the AFP remains a mercenary
instrument of US imperialist interests and the local dominant classes in
Philippine society, it will always be faced with irreconcilable
contradictions in dealing with the vast majority of the Filipino people.
It will face constantly increasing odds in meeting the challenge of the
CPP-NPA-NDF in “winning the hearts and minds” of the broad masses.
-
A recent phenomenon that has added to
the insecurity and uncertainties of the Arroyo regime is the gradual
awakening of members of the AFP to the unabated corruption and moral
decay in government and within the armed forces. This explains why today
scores of decent officers in the army and marines are confined in
detention centers. They have become “disaffected” with a regime they
perceive has lost the people’s support and must now rely on the bayonet
for political survival.
Delusion on People’s Support
Meanwhile, as
assassinations, murders, massacres, tortures and disappearances of
innocent civilians and legal personalities continue to mount, the
U.S.-Arroyo regime and its armed forces continue to suffer from a delusion
that they have the support of the people. Given the large disparity in
manpower, material and financial resources (plus U.S. military assistance)
between the AFP and NPA, if the former had the support of the broad
masses, the CPP-NPA-NDF would have long been crushed, defeated and
relegated to a footnote in Philippine history. Posted by Bulatlat
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