PHILIPPINES: U.S. IMPERIAL TROOPS ARE BACK

By John Catalinotto

Following its invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military has opened a new
offensive to retake its former military bases in the Philippines.

That's the real meaning of the April 17 announcement that 450 additional
U.S. troops have arrived in the Philippines for "war games." The two-
week military exercise, misnamed "Balikatan" or "shoulder-to-shoulder,"
is no demonstration of equality. It is part of an effort to put the U.S.
boot back on the necks of the Filipino people.

The United States invaded and seized the Philippines to be a U.S. colony
in 1898, as part of the Spanish-American War. The U.S. military spent 10
years suppressing an indigenous resistance movement after that seizure,
killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos.

Except for a period during World War II when Japanese troops seized the
Philippines, the country was a direct U.S. colony until 1948, and has
been controlled by U.S. capital ever since. There have been frequent
attempts to liberate the country, including by armed guerrilla struggle.

The 450 U.S. troops landed at the Subic Bay naval base. This was a major
U.S. military base in the Pacific, used throughout most of the second
half of the 20th century to project U.S. military power throughout Asia.

Some 1,200 U.S. forces and 2,500 Philippine troops are supposed to take
part in training, to be conducted at three points on the island of
Luzon, including what used to be the Pentagon's Clark Air Force Base.

A Philippine uprising against the hated U.S. puppet Ferdinand Marcos,
which threw him out in 1986, also eventually drove out the U.S.
military. Now, using the cover of the U.S. endless "war on terror," the
Pentagon is attempting to insert U.S. military force back in this former
colony.

As another part of this offensive, U.S. troops are to be involved in a
so-called anti-terror training exercise for the Sulu islands. This is
allegedly aimed at the Abu Sayyaf group. Filipino liberation
organizations, including the New Peoples Army, consider this Abu Sayyaf
group to be "bandits" and say the U.S. uses this group's existence as a
cover to fight honest liberation fighters.

Earlier plans to have U.S. troops intervene in Sulu as "trainers" and
"advisers" to the Philippine military were postponed when they stirred
up mass opposition to U.S. military intervention in the Philippines.

The Philippine capitalist government has been quick to jump aboard the
U.S. "anti-terror" campaign and even support ed the illegal U.S.
aggression against Iraq.

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