Video probes U.S. military’s ‘unconventional’ presence in Sulu

WITH another round of Balikatan exercises formally opening tomorrow until March 4, American troops are again back in the country. Foreshadowed by the bitter row over the temporary custody of U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith convicted of raping a Filipina, the joint military exercises will however focus “mainly on humanitarian assistance” this time.

Not everyone though is buying this claim. Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, for one, believes the focus on “humanitarian work” is just a ploy to make the military exercises “acceptable” and “palatable.”

Last month, the PCIJ also featured a report by Herbert Docena, a senior researcher at the Focus on the Global South, a policy research institute, on the constant presence of U.S. forces in the country since January 2002, particularly in Mindanao whether or not there were scheduled Balikatan exercises. As Docena pointed out, the contingent of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOFs) maintained in the country are not exactly “ordinary” troops as they are considered as the elite unit of the U.S. military specializing in covert missions.

The Focus on the Global South report is also now in video-documentary format, which had its first public screening in Manila at the University of the Philippines last Friday. The video was first shown in Jolo, Sulu last February 10.

Probing allegations of U.S. military involvement in the war in Sulu, regarded as the stronghold of the Moro National Liberation Front and the Abu Sayyaf Group, the documentary contradicts American and Philippine officials’ oft-repeated claim that the U.S. troops are never involved in combat. It zooms in on one particular operation in which U.S. troops were said to have joined Filipino soldiers in their offensives against the MNLF.

The video also contextualizes the issue of U.S. military presence in the country within the long and bitter history of conflict in the south, examining the historical conditions that led to the emergence of the Moro separatist movement and the subsequent rise of the Abu Sayyaf.

To order free copies of the video, write to info@focusweb.org.