Why is a U.S. base construction unit spending P650 million in Mindanao?

THE issue of U.S. involvement in the war on terror being waged in the Philippines has again surfaced with sightings of “heavily-armed U.S. Special Forces” in Mindanao as government troops began military offensives against the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu and Basilan.

While not denying the presence of American soldiers, the government has claimed that they are not engaged in combat operations and are only helping Philippine armed forces in intelligence-gathering.

Early this year, the PCIJ reported on the U.S. troops’ “unconventional presence” in Mindanao. Again noting the questionable presence of a U.S. base construction unit pouring $14.4 million into the region, PCIJ contributor Herbert Docena has filed this latest report:

AS the controversy regarding the actions of U.S. military troops in southern Mindanao snowballs, Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based international research institute that has been monitoring U.S. military actions in the country, raises another question: What is a U.S. base construction unit spending $14.4 million (or about P650 million) for in Mindanao?

In a little-reported development that has come to the attention of the institute, the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) had on June 6, 2007, awarded a six-month $14.4 million contract to a certain “Global Contingency Services LLC” of Irving, Texas for “operations support” for the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P).

According to its own website, the NAVFAC is the unit within the U.S.military that is in charge of providing the U.S. Navy with “operating, support, and training bases.” It “manages the planning, design, and construction and provides public works support for U.S. Naval shore installations around the world.” Among its business lines are “bases development” and “contingency engineering.”

The JSOTF-P is the unit established by the U.S. Special Operations Command that has been stationed in the southern Philippines since 2002 and which Focus on the Global South believes has established a new kind of U.S. basing in the country.

According to the announcement by the Pentagon, the contract awarded to Global Contingency Services LLC includes “all labor, supervision, management, tools, materials, equipment, facilities, transportation, incidental engineering, and other items necessary to provide facilities support services.”

Global Contingency Services LLC is a partnership between DynCorp International, Parsons Global Service, and PWC Logistics. The $14.4-million contract is actually part of a bigger $450-million five-year contract for Global Contingency Services to “provide a full range of world-wide contingency and disaster-response services, including humanitarian assistance and interim or transitional base-positioning support services.”

According to DynCorp’s website, this will include “facility operations and maintenance; air operations; port operations; health care; supply and warehouse in; galley; housing support; emergency services; security, fire,and rescue; vehicle equipment; and incidental construction.”

Contingency Responses Services LLC describes its work as encompassing “operating forces support,” “community support,”and “basing support.”

According to the Defense Industry Daily publication, the contract also includes “morale, welfare, and recreation support.”

The specific contract for the JSOTF-P work is expected to be completed in January 2008 but other contracts may follow as part of the $450-million package.

Research by Focus on the Global South reveals that the JSOTF-P has not only been involved in the Philippine military’s operations in the south. It also represents what it calls the “new kind of more austere, more low-profile kind of overseas presence that the U.S. has been striving to introduce as part of its comprehensive restructuring of its forward deployment.”

U.S. troops themselves refer to their facility in Sulu as “Advance Operating Base 920,” and describe their mission as “unconventional warfare” and “counterinsurgency.”