Ghouls of Pacification

A brief historical background may be helpful. When the U.S. granted nominal independence to the Philippines in 1946, one of the conditions for this grant was the retention of 23 military installations all over the pacified colonial territory. It was legitimized by the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty which, under the aegis of Cold War anticommunism, provided for US intervention in case of foreign military invasion by a communist power (Daniel B, Schirmer and Stephen Shalom, The Philippines Reader 1987).

In reviewing the historical record of US colonial subjugation of the islands, William Blum reminds us how the US helped suppress the Huk peasant rebellion in 1940-50. At least one US infantry division collaborated with the Filipino military in killing Huk sympathizers (about 500 peasants, with thousands jailed and tortured) during the months before and after the elections of 1946. In the 1950s, through the Joint US Military Advisory Group and Col. Edward Lansdale (who became notorious for the Phoenix assassination program in Vietnam), then President Ramon Magsaysay used US military advisers, weapons and logistics in unconventional types of counterinsurgency schemes against peasant rebels. Among the CIA agents in government, Arroyo’s father Diosdado Macapagal “provided the Agency with political information for several years and eventually asked for, and received, what he felt he deserved: heavy financial support for his campaign…” Blum concludes that by the early fifties, “Fortress America” in the Philippines was securely in place: “From the Philippines would be launched American air and sea actions against Korea and China, Vietnam and Indonesia….On the islands’ bases, the technology and art of counter-insurgency warfare would be imparted to the troops of America’s other allies in the Pacific” (Killing Hope, NY 2004, p. 42).”

The methodology of US domination changed after the end of the Cold War. Covert intervention adopted the guise of “persuasion” through the rituals of electoral democracy. This was clearly demonstrated after the February Revolution in 1986 when Marcos was overthrown by a popular-cum-military uprising and the elite oligarchy headed by Corazon Aquino was restored to power. The scenario that Philip Agee described in 1992 may still be valid: “As for the Philippines, absent agrarian and other significant reforms, US military intervention could be a last resort should the New People’s Army achieve enough momentum to create significant destabilization or even victory. For the time being, continue the CIA-Pentagon ‘low-intensity’ methods already under way. If unsuccessful and stalemate continues, consider a negotiated settlement as in El Salvador and rely on CIA-NED electoral intervention to exclude the National Democratic Front from power” (Ellen Ray and William Schaap, Covert Action: The Roots of Terrorism, 2003). It appears that it is with the separatist MILF, not the NPA (debilitated by vigilante incursions and internal squabbles), that the US is interested in striking a deal with the help of the US Institute of Peace and partisan Malaysian mediators. It is also an implementation of a flexible divide-and-rule strategy.

 Save as PDF