Coalition ‘partially lauds’ SC ruling, reiterates call for probe on ‘unconstitutional’ US basing

MANILA, Philippines - The Stop the War Coalition-Philippines, a broad network of over 80 civil society organizations, today expressed its “partial approval” at the Supreme Court’s decision to order the transfer of convicted rapist US soldier Daniel Smith to Philippine authorities even as it continued to challenge the constitutionality of the Visiting Forces Agreement.

“This is a partial victory for all those who’ve been fighting for justice for Nicole and for all those who’ve been fighting for the sovereignty of the Philippines,” said lawyer Corazon Fabros, one of the coalition’s spokespersons.

“However it is only partial because the Visiting Forces Agreement should have been declared unconstitutional,” Fabros added, while pointing out that the transfer of custody could prompt the United States to revisit the agreement.

“What the US wants through the VFA is to put its soldiers above the law, beyond the reach of local authorities,” Fabros explained. “By preventing this, the Supreme Court has struck at the heart of the VFA’s ability to give immunity to US troops.”

Meanwhile, the Stop the War Coalition reiterated its demand for an impartial investigation into what it calls the “obvious and undeniable” US basing in the southern Philippines.

“The existence of then US Special Forces’ Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines base in Zamboanga City can no longer be denied; it is there for everyone to see,” says Fabros. “Its existence is an affront to the Constitution and it is high time the government – and the Supreme Court – step in to stop this continuing attack on the rule of law.”

The Stop the War Coalition-Philippines claims there is “incontrovertible proof” that the US has effectively re-established US basing in the country since 2002.

“Unless this illegal basing is ended, there may be more Nicoles in the future,” Fabros warned.

Anti-US groups to picket outside Philippine Senate

US soldiers pose with a Muslim girl in Sulu province in the southern Philippines, where American forces are active in humanitarian missions. (Mindanao Examiner Photo)

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 6, 2008) – A Filipino anti-war coalition opposed to the continued stay of US forces in the Philippines said it would picket in front of the Senate building to demand the closure of American military bases in Mindanao.

It said US troops have put up small bases inside Philippine military facilities in Zamboanga City and in other parts of central Mindanao where the American forces are said to be participating in combat operations against rebels.

Filipino Senator Rodolfo Biazon and members of the Legislative Oversight Committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement (LOVFA) who had inspected US facilities in Zamboanga City last week said they found no military bases, but administrative buildings used by the US forces in humanitarian missions and joint trainings with local troops in Mindanao and Sulu archipelago.

“The US military base in Zamboanga City poses a clear and present danger to the Constitution and to the lives of people, but it seems that the LOVFA is more interested in covering up for the Americans instead of protecting the constitution and promoting peace in the country,” Mitzi Chan, a spokesperson of the Stop The War Coalition, said in a statement.

Chan’s group has criticized the LOVFA's pronouncement that it found no US bases in Mindanao. “This is clearly a case of feigned ignorance or a deliberate cover-up,” she said, adding, the inspection headed by Biazon was a “sham” considering that it was hosted by those who were supposed to be investigated.

She said the LOVFA failed to interview anyone apart from those who have a stake in maintaining the base.

”How can we expect anything impartial from the so-called inspection when it was organized by VFA proponents, defenders of US military presence in the country, and officials who directly benefit from perpetuating the US base?” asked Chan.

”As a former soldier, Biazon could not know that the US troops in Mindanao are not filing reports, doing bookkeeping, or other boring clerical work.

They are very much at war and their presence is contributing to fanning its deadly flames,” she said. “Senator Biazon could not be unaware that the US military has been transforming the form that US military bases take. They may no longer look like (the US) Subic (naval base) and Clark (air force base), they may not fly American flags – but they are still US bases in essence and purpose regardless of the nomenclature that pro-US politicians prefer.”

Biazon was a former military chief before he became a senator.

“The LOVFA members are either blinded by their ideological preference for US basing or by the Philippine military's dependence on US military aid, genuinely ignorant of the ways by which the forms of US basing have been transformed in recent years, or are deliberately attempting to cover-up the US bases in order to perpetuate their stay,” Chan said.

Chan also assailed former military general and now VFA Executive Director Edilberto Adan, who once headed the Southern Command headquarters, for failing to monitor the bases put up by the US forces.

“The VFA commissioner has an impossible job: On the one hand, he is mandated to go after Americans who commit any wrongdoing in the country. On the other hand, it also appears to be his task to tell the public that the Americans can't possibly do anything wrong,” Chan said.

The Southern Command headquarters, now called Western Mindanao Command, houses the US Joint Special Operations Task Forces-Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner)

Anti-War Advocates Urge RP Lawmakers To Look Into US Bases In Mindanao

A US soldier examines the foot of a Muslim villager during a medical mission in Marawi City in southern Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner Photo Service)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / 28 Aug) – An independent anti-war coalition on Tuesday urged Filipino lawmakers to investigate the presence of U.S. forces in southern Philippines.

The Stop the War Coalition, which is composed of people’s organizations, NGOs, social movements, women’s, students’, religious, youth and other organizations, said the presence of US troops and small American military bases in the country must be investigated because it violates the Constitution.

“We at the Stop the War Coalition call for an immediate independent investigation as to the constitutionality of allowing the establishment of US bases in Mindanao,” it said in a statement sent Tuesday to the Mindanao Examiner.

“We urge our elected legislators to call for an independent investigation into the issue and demand that they be given access to inspect the bases, and to summon US and Filipino officials to explain. We call for the Abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement. We demand an immediate end to the war in Mindanao and an end to US intervention in the war,” it said.

The Bangkok-based Focus on Global South, an international research institute that monitors US military activities in the Philippines, said an American-based construction unit has been spending $14.4 in Mindanao.

It said the US Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) had in June 6, 2007, awarded a six-month $14.4-million contract to a certain “Global Contingency Services LLC” of Irving, Texas for “operations support” for the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P).

According to its own website, the NAVFAC is the unit within the US military that is in charge of providing the US Navy with “operating, support, and training bases.” It “manages the planning, design, and construction and provides public works support for US Naval shore installations around the world.” Among their business lines are “bases development” and “contingency engineering.”

The JSOTF-P is the unit established by the US Special Operations Command that has been stationed in the southern Philippines since 2002 and which Focus on the Global South believes has established a new kind of US basing in the country.

Global Contingency Services LLC is a partnership between DynCorp International, Parsons Global Services, and PWC Logistics. The $14.4 million contract is actually part of a bigger $450-million five-year contract for Global Contingency Services to “provide a full range of world-wide contingency and disaster-response services, including humanitarian assistance and interim or transitional base-operating support services.”

A US Embassy official admitted that the American government has commissioned the construction of facilities across Mindanao for US soldiers, but insists the projects are not permanent military bases.

Karen Schinnerer, US Embassy deputy spokesperson and deputy press attaché, said the American construction projects are for “medical, logistical and administrative services” to be used by the American soldiers. She said the structures are “definitely not permanent US bases.”

US soldiers will use the facilities only on a temporary basis for them to “eat, sleep, and work,” she said.

Earlier on Friday, an official from the Philippine commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement said that the US was not building bases but living quarters for troops training local soldiers.

US troops are currently deployed in Zamboanga City, Jolo and Tawi-Tawi islands in the Sulu Archipelago and Maguindanao province in southern Philippines, where local soldiers are battling terrorism.

They have their own base inside Philippine military facilities where US troops maintain communication and intelligence facilities which are only accessible to the Americans, although sometimes senior Filipino military generals tour the facilities on special permission from US military.

A Philippine Air Force base in Mactan island in Cebu province also is being used as base to a fleet of US Orion reconnaissance planes, while US ships in international waters are where unmanned spy aircrafts are flown to conduct reconnaissance missions over the southern region.

Last year, villagers in Jolo island recovered an unmanned aerial vehicle called “Predator” which crashed in the hinterland. The crash of the spy plane was never reported by the US military and kept secret until the craft was found. A similar aircraft also crashed at sea off Zamboanga.

And as Schinnerer said, there are facilities—however, they are temporary quarters and not a military base. She added that the US government does not even have plans of leading any kind of military operations against rebels in Mindanao.

Schinnerer said the US troops are in Mindanao upon the invitation of the Philippines.

“We will work with the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] as it is by invitation of Philippine government to work beside them we work on the medical services,” she said, adding that the project has been contracted privately.

Stop the War Coalition also urged other independent groups to protest the presence of US facilities in the region.

“Because of the ongoing war in Mindanao, Stop the War Coalition believes that US basing in the country and its involvement in the war will complicate the situation and move us away from peaceful and just solutions to the problems.”

“Stop the War Coalition believes that neither the US nor the Philippine government has the incentive to tell the truth about the US bases in Mindanao.
We therefore call on all Filipinos to oppose these bases, call for their abolition, and demand the withdrawal of US troops from the country,” it said.

But many Filipinos in areas where the US troops are operating said they are supporting the presence of the Americans, who are involved in humanitarian missions and development projects.

US troops have built roads and schools and bridges in southern Philippines and at the same time helping the local military defeat terrorism. (Mindanao Examiner, with reports from the Manila Times)

Stop The War In Mindanao, Peace Advocates Appeal

As hostilities between the Philippine military and the Moro National Liberation front escalate in Mindanao, we from the Stop the War Coalition - Philippines, a broad coalition of social movements, NGOs, and other organizations, join the call for an immediate ceasefire, a return to the negotiating table, and full, substantive, and meaningful self-determination for the Moros, indigenous, and other oppressed peoples in Mindanao.

We demand convincing and unequivocal proof behind the government’s reason for its military offensive – i.e. that the Moro National Liberation Front is coddling ‘terrorists.’ We reject the manipulative use of the threat of ‘terrorism’ against the Moro people and we reject military solutions to address the said threat.

We demand the immediate withdrawal of the US troops who have been permanently stationed in Mindanao since 2002 and we demand that they play absolutely no role whatsoever – whether in providing intelligence or assisting in operations – in the ongoing conflict.

We call for justice for all those who have been killed, tortured, or detained and we demand accountability and punishment for all perpetrators.

We demand relief and rehabilitation for all those who have been displaced by the war, protection for all civilians, and compensation for all those who have been affected.

We call on the media to report on the war fairly and accurately. We demand that journalists refrain from being the mouthpiece of the military and we demand that they should have the courage to challenge and verify the military’s claims.

We call for the full implementation of the peace agreements and we call for the expulsion of hawks in the military and in the government who have been working to undermine it. We demand the immediate release of Nur Misuari who has been illegally detained for five years without any trial.

We stand in solidarity with all those who stand for lasting peace and genuine self-determination.

Stop the War Coalition-Philippines

Members:

Alliance of Genuine Labor Organizations (AGLO)
AKBAYAN!
Akbayan! Youth
Alab Katipunan
Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
ALMANA
ALYANSA!
Anak Mindanao Party (AMIN)
APPRA
ASAP

Alliance of Genuine Labor Organizations (AGLO)
ASSALAM Bangsamoro
ASSALAM Party
Bagong Kamalayan Collective, Inc
Bangsamoro People’s Solidarity
Billah Islam
BISIG-Youth
Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP)
Coalition Against Trafficking of Women Asia Pacific (CATW-AP)
Filipino Democratic Movement (FilDem)
Focus on the Global South
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)
Gathering for Peace
Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD)
International South Group Network (ISGN)
Juan Makata
Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission – Association of
Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines
K! Kalayaan NCR-BLC
KAAKBAY AFDM
Kagan People’s Forum – Mindanao
KAISA KA
KALAYAAN
KANLUNGAN
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya
KOMPAK
Laban ng Masa (LnM)
League of Urban Poor for Action
Liga Manggagawa
MAKABAYAN Pilipinas
Movement for Student Power (MASP)
PANGISDA
Partido Manggagawa
People’s Task Force for Bases Clean UP Philippines
Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement
Philippine Peace and Security Council
Pambansang Kaisahan ng Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (PKMP)
PKSK
Progressive Organization of Worker Advocates (PRO-WORKER)
Resource Center for People’s Development (RCPD)
Samahan ng Demokratikong Kabataan (SDK)
SANLAKAS
Solidarity of Unions and Labor Organizations for a New Government
(SULONG)
Task Force Subic Rape
Teatrong Bayan
TW-MAE-W
UP ALYANSA
UP Assabiyah
UP-IIS
Women and Gender Commission AMRSP
Women and Gender Institute
Women’s Legal Bureau, Inc
YES to Change!
Young Moro Professionals Network
Youth for Nationalism and Democracy (YND)


ENDORSED BY (as of 18 April 2007):
Asian Women Human Rights Council- Philippines
Balay Rehabilitation Center
CONZARRD Inc.
GZO Peace Institute
Jihad-al-Akbar Org
Lolas Kampanyera Comfort Women Survivors Group
Mindanao Solidarity Network
Wedpro Inc.
Xaverian Missionaries

(Individuals)
Fr. Archie Casey SX
Lennard Daoud P Tan
Sheila May Tan


[To add your organization to the list of endorsers, please e-mail
herbert@focusweb.org]