Photo: Anti-US Protests In Southern RP

WE NEED INDEPENDENCE, NOT BALIKATAN: Members of the civil society groups and human rights activists hold an anti-US protest rally in Marawi City in Lanao province in southern Philippines where American and Filipino troops participating in the Balikatan 2008 were stoned and driven away by locals opposed to the presence of the foreigners. US troops have been accused of violating human rights in Sulu province after one of them, Sgt. Ron Berg, forcibly closed down a government hospital every night in Panamao town for three weeks late last year. Four US troops were also spotted by a Muslim woman, Rawina Wahid, whose husband Pfc. Ibnol Wahid, was killed by Filipino troops during a raid on a fishing village in the town of Maimbung, also in Sulu on February 04, 2008. (Mindanao Examiner Photos/Merlyn Manos)