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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: The Philippine military has
denied reports by a Filipino fact-finding group that US troops have
put up secret bases in Mindanao.
The Citizens Peace Watch (CPW), an umbrella
organization of political and human rights groups, said it has
confirmed the presence of a fortified US military base inside the
headquarters of the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City. It
said the base is the headquarters of the US Joint Special Operations
Task Force-Philippines, a unit of the US Special Forces that has
been deploying troops to various parts of Mindanao since 2002.
Lawyer Corazon Fabros, of the human rights
group, said Filipino soldiers sent her group away after they failed
to get permission to inspect the US facility. She said the base has
communication facilities and is heavily guarded that even Filipino
soldiers are not allowed without a pass.
“The ‘visitors’ have not only stayed on,
they have set up camp in our house and told us—their hosts—to go
away,” Fabros said in a statement sent to The Manila Times.
She said the US military base stands out and is
sealed from the rest of Western Mindanao Command by walls,
concertina wire, and sandbags. The actual size of the area it
occupies could not immediately be established from the outside. But
communication facilities such as satellite dishes, antenna, and
other instruments are visible.
US Marines provide protection for the facility;
some workers were seen wearing identification cards issued by
DynCorp, a controversial US military contractor.
The group said other facilities inside the base
were unknown. “What exactly are they hiding here? Why all this
secrecy?” asked Amabella Carumba, of the Mindanao People’s Peace
Movement, a member of the fact-finding mission.
The US military maintains similar facilities in
Mindanao where it is assisting and advising Filipino troops in
fighting terrorism. US troops were also spotted inside the
headquarters of the Philippine Army’s Sixth Infantry Division and
in Philippine Marine bases in Sulu province and in Mactan Island in
Central Philippines. There are American forces in Tawi-Tawi and
Lanao provinces.
A Bangkok-based international research
organization called Focus on the Global South said US troops
deployed in Mindanao have established a new kind of US base.
Major Eugene Batara, a spokesman for the Western
Mindanao Command, strongly denied the reports and said there are no
secret US bases in the region.
“There are no US bases in Mindanao. In
Zamboanga City, the US maintains a temporary facility inside the
Western Mindanao Command. It is not a US base nor is it secret
because everybody knows about it,” he said in a separate
interview.
Batara said Filipino soldiers also use the said
facility of the US Special Forces. “We also use their facility,
such as their communications as part of the joint Balikatan
program,” he said.
But Focus on the Global South said contrary to
previous efforts by the US and Philippine governments to portray the
troops as participating only in temporary training exercises such as
Balikatan, it has since been revealed that this unit has stayed on
and maintained its presence in the country for the last six years.
Contradicting claims that they are not involved
in the fighting, Focus has gathered pronouncements by US troops
themselves who have gone on record to say that their mission in the
south is “unconventional warfare”—a US military term that
encompasses combat operations.
With the Philippine government not giving a
definite exit date, and with US officials stating that this
unit—composed of between 100 to 500 troops depending on the
season—will stay on as long as the government allows them, it is
presumed that it will continue to be based in the Philippines for an
indefinite period.
Since 2001, the US—which has more than 700
bases and installations in over 100 countries around the world—has
embarked on the most radical realignment of its overseas basing
network since World War II.
Part of the changes is the move away from large
permanent bases— such as the ones in Subic and Clark—in favor of
smaller, more austere, more low-profile bases such as the Joint
Special Operations Task Force-Philippines presence in Zamboanga and
in other places in Mindanao.
In terms of profile and mission, Focus pointed
out that the task force is very similar to the Combined Joint Task
Force–Horn, which was established in Djibouti in western Africa in
2003 and which has been described as a sample of the US austere
basing template and the “model for future US military
operations.”
Focus said the Philippines is one of the
“nodes for special operations forces” that former Defense
Secretary Donald Rusted himself revealed the Pentagon would
establish as part of its changes in Asia.
According to Focus’ research, the JSOTF-P has
not only been involved in the Philippine military’s operations in
the south, it also represents the new kind of more austere, more
low-profile kind of overseas presence that the US has been striving
to introduce as part of its comprehensive restructuring of its
forward deployment.
Last year, US Embassy deputy spokesman and
deputy press attaché Karen Schinnerer admitted the American
government commissioned the construction of facilities across
Mindanao for US soldiers, but insisted the projects are not
permanent military bases.
She said the US construction projects are for
“medical, logistical and administrative services” to be used by
the American soldiers. She said the structures are not permanent US
bases. US troops use the facilities only on a temporary basis for
them to “eat, sleep and work,” she told The Manila Times.
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