Alliance Philippines Update

October 19, 2009

Implications of the War in Afghanistan to the Philippine Movement

Los Angeles—For the Alliance-Philippines, the escalating US-War in Afghanistan has a very special implication to the revolutionary movement in the Philippines.

It is not only because there are 5 million Muslims in the Philippines, but also because there is an existing civil war in the Philippines centered in the 2nd largest island of Mindanao. It also indirectly affects the Filipino community abroad as in North America specially here in the United States.

The existing civil war between the MILF with the Philippine government and the NPA has dragged on for more than 37 years. It just intensifies in varying degrees in between negotiations; ceasefires and changes in the US supported regimes.

The civil war that started when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972 has claimed more than 30,000 lives, and at present affected more than 2 million people and 650,000 refugees in Mindanao.

CIA Created Monster- the Abu Sayaff Bandit Group

It is known that Muslin Filipino mujahedin fighters have trained in Afghanistan during their war against the Russians from 1978-to 1988 as MLF and went back to form the fundamentalist Abu Sayaff Group.

This group was formed and trained by the CIA under their ally- Osama Bin laden who later became Al Queda and then turned against them in the early 2000. It first came to from as “ Military Command Council” to divide the MNLF in 1995 and conducted the infamous terrorist raids in the Christian populated areas of Zamboanga Del Norte.

But later, when the MLF surrendered in 1996 and was integrated with the AFP. The ASG was not needed anymore. The group gravitated towards Al Queda and conducted putchist actions and later became a kidnap for ransom gang.

Now the US using the Abu Sayaff group allied with Al Queda as an excuse to intervene militarily with its Special Forces based in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It has deployed its Special Forces in Mindanao and is active in combat operations against this group, the NPA and the MILF.

US Wooing MILF for US bases

The Alliance is wary of the about the situation that US policy makers are wooing the MILF to support the US bases in Mindanao in return for the recognition for a fundamentalist state. But we are hopeful that the positive forces within the MILF will not forsake the tactical alliance with the other revolutionary forces for this onerous arrangement.

The Alliance Philippines support the right for self-determination of the Muslim brothers and sisters. We are against the US occupation and intervention in Afghanistan. They are committing the same erroneous policy in Vietnam and Iraq and are bound to fail in Afghanistan.

They are just using the slogans of democracy and humanity like in the Philippines to intervene in the internal affairs of that country, Right now, the US is supporting the forces of feudalism and corruption in Afghanistan as its supports and prop up the corrupt, inept and puppet US-Arroyo regime in the Philippines.

Like Macedonian King Alexander the Great, the British colonialialist in the 1800’s, and the Russian revisionist in the 1970’s - the Americans will fail in Afghanistan!

Like when Nixon inherited the Johnson’s Vietnam War, the current president Obama has just inherited and cherished Bush War- the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US troops of Afghanistan! US troops Out of the Philippines.

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