U.S. troops taking part in Philippines counter-insurgency operations
23 November 2009. A World to Win News Service. In 2002 American troops began openly carrying out military missions in the Philippines as part of the U.S. "war on terror". Since then the U.S. has provided the Philippine government with $1.6 billion in military and economic aid, much of it focused on the historically Moslem (Moro) and deeply oppressed southern island of Mindanao. An elite 600-solider U.S. counter-insurgency unit is operating there alongside Philippine government forces. Officially their main target has been Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic fundamentalist group said to be linked to Al Qaeda. Since August 2008, however, they have also gone on the offensive against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, an organisation whose aim is the autonomy of the island's Moro people. Hundreds of thousands of peasants have been forced into refugee camps. (TheNew York Times, 23 November 2009)
Now there are reports that U.S. troops are also taking an active part in attacking the New People’s Army led by the Communist Party of the Philippines in the Mindanao countryside.
This developing situation comes in the wake of the U.S.-backed massive military offensive to put an end to the uprising of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka and on the eve of an announced unprecedented offensive by the increasingly U.S.-allied Indian government against the upsurge of the advisai (tribal people) led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The relationship between these counter-insurgency offensives and the U.S's. continuing violent attempts to consolidate a political and economic world order suitable for its imperialist interests in the region and the world requires serious vigilance and analysis.
Below are excerpts from a report from philippinerevolution.net, a site maintained by the CPP Information Bureau.
The National Democratic Front (NDF)-Mindanao has received more information regarding the actual participation of U.S. soldiers in combat operations in Mindanao. This time, the operations are not just in Basilan and Sulu, but in other areas of the island as well. According to confirmed reports, U.S. military personnel have been playing an active role in combat operations against the NPA in the hinterlands of Bukidnon.
Four separate incidents were initially cited. Around mid-February and in early July, U.S. soldiers were seen participating in combat operations in Quezon, Bukidnon. These troops, together with a unit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), engaged an NPA unit in a firefight and committed fascist acts against the residents in the area. In April and again in September, U.S. troops were also sighted with AFP soldiers in Valencia and Malaybalay asking local residents for possible NPA locations and even intimidating civilians in the area.
Aside from these reports, the NDF-Mindanao has also received similar information from reliable sources in South Cotabato, Central Mindanao and the Davao provinces.
The increasing participation of U.S. troops in combat operations in Moro areas has become even more common. Last September, at least two U.S. soldiers were killed in an armed attack against a convoy of U.S. troops in Indangan, Sulu. Earlier that month, U.S. troops, in a knee-jerk reaction to a nearby grenade explosion, fired their guns indiscriminately at the port of Jolo, Sulu, damaging dock facilities and a nearby mosque. Back in 2002, a U.S. Army serviceman, Sargent Reggie Lane, embedded among troops of the 18th IB, shot Buyong-buyong Isnijal, a farmer in Basilan when a combined team of U.S. and Filipino soldiers raided his house.
These reports increasingly expose the lies behind the template pronouncements of U.S. officials denying the actual involvement of its troops in combat operations in Mindanao. They provide further evidence that U.S. troops belonging to the Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF)-Philippines have been joining AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines, the government army] units engaged in counter-revolutionary operations in the island.
Even as U.S. and Philippine officials are quick to deny that U.S. soldiers are engaged in combat operations, they do not deny that the U.S military has been actively involved in providing the AFP with combat and aerial intelligence as well as logistical support to AFP ground operations.
These incidents point clearly to increasing U.S. military intervention and fascist atrocities in league with local puppet troops.
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