This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 8, March 25-31, 2007
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.) 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 Destroy NPA guerrilla
units & political infrastructure. (Failed) Mamamayan
-- ditto-- (Failed) Aquino & Ramos Lambat Bitag
Strategic defeat of
NPA (Failed) Kaisaganaan
--ditto-- (Failed)
Estrada Makabayan
Defeat of NPA & MILF
(Failed) Balanghai
--ditto-- (Failed) Arroyo Bantay Laya I
Strategic defeat of
NPA (Failed) BantayLaya II
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. 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. 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 © 2007 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Contributed to Bulatlat
(1980-85)
(1986)
I,II,III,IV
(1987-98)
(1998-2001)
(2002-06)
(2007-10)
The “Final Solution”
Delusion on People’s Support