PRESS STATEMENT

OUT NOW! questions US troops involvement
in Philippine Army operations in Baliki, Midsayap

By US TROOPS OUT NOW! MINDANAO COALITION

2008 AUGUST 21

The US Troops Out Now! Mindanao Coalition questions the presence of US troops involved in actual combat operations in pursuit of Moro rebels in Mindanao.

Philippine military operations have involved American soldiers that were reportedly commissioned to detonate unexploded bombs in Baliki, Midsayap, North Cotabato last week.

The American soldiers were sighted by a Mindanews news team who chanced upon parked vehicles bearing VFA (Visiting Forces Agreement) plates in Midsayap. The team reported seeing four American soldiers in a hilly portion of Barangay Baliki, near a detachment of the 38th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army on August 17. Government air strikes against MILF positions, the report said, had started on August 10.

Next to the February 4 massacre in Maimbung, Sulu where residents claimed to have seen US soldiers accompanying local troops in military operations, the Baliki incident is another proof that the United States has been engaged in actual military intervention in Mindanao wars.

While Philippine Army officials try to justify the US troops’ participation as mere assistance in ordinance disposal, this shows that the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) is blurring the distinction between ‘exercise’ and ‘actual combat’ to legally justify permanent American presence and engagement in Mindanao.

Government’s failure to disclose to the public the Terms of Reference (TOR) governing the presence of US troops in Mindanao, including the docking of US warships like the USS Vandegrift in March this year, is highly suspect.

Out Now!-Mindanao is apprehensive that US military presence is part of the US government’s double-edged policy of engagement with the MILF. While it facilitates peace negotiations and provides post-settlement aid package on one hand, it is engaged in counter-insurgency pursuit operations in the guise of counter-terrorism on the other.

We call for appropriate Senate and Congressional investigations into increasing US military involvement in Mindanao and US meddling in the GRP-MILF peace negotiations. The VFA clearly surrenders our national sovereignty and is being used to legalize the wanton exercise of US hegemony in the Philippines through terror-mongering.

Bishop Felixberto Calang

Convenor

Mobile 09189294244

kalinawgmail.com