Presentation at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
19 July 2013

PANEL 2. US geopolitical and military strategies in the Asia-Pacific and the Aquino government’s Oplan Bayanihan

By KAO, WEI-KAI
Member, Standing Committee of the Labor Party
Councilor of Hsinchu County, Taiwan, China

The Taiwan Strait standoff is a continuation of a Chinese civil war. Since the cold war, Taiwan has become part of a US West Pacific strategy, so it was “natural” for it to side with the US and confront with mainland China. The United States and its military have been playing a certain role in the Chinese civil war, starting from the end of World War II up until now.

The period between 1945 and 1949

In the anti-Japanese warfare, the KMT and the Chinese communists formed a united front to fight against the Japanese, but they also confronted each other and even fought vehemently with each other. They fought for the occupancy of territory, as well as the takeover of arms or land surrendered by Japanese military. They held peace talks; peace talks failed; and war erupted. The civil war at that time was characterized by a conflict between the power of peasants and workers against the power of landlords and tycoons. It was also in that time that the Chinese communists achieved an initial result in land reform, which eliminated the landlord-tenant system, and the KMT, waning gradually, deepened its dependence on imperialist support. The United Stated played the role of a mediator; militarily supported the KMT; and gave up the KMT at last as the KMT was too corrupt to be saved. (What is also worth noticing is that the Japanese military, based on its rich experiences of fighting with the Chinese communist army, also began to shift its support to the KMT at that time). The KMT began to retreat from mainland China to Taiwan (the Hainan Island and several small islets off the southeast coast of mainland China still belonged to mainland China.) Since the conclusion of the World War II, the US strategy of “enhancing Taiwan independence, fostering a weak and pro-US regime” has thus begun.

In the period between 1950 and 1953

The Chinese communist troops occupied the Hainan Island and the Zhoushan Islets – the second largest islands of China, only next to Taiwan. The Korean War ensued, and the US military began to help defend Taiwan. The United States and China plunged themselves into the Korean War. The Chinese civil war consequently “froze.” While the mainland China began to handle issues such as KMT captives, KMT’s remaining troops, and the Korean War, the KMT began to put into force a martial law and unfolded white terror, including the cleansing of the people connecting with, or suspected of connecting with, Chinese communists-related organizations in the Japanese occupancy period. Taiwan began to receive ammunitions, warships, and warplanes from the United States since 1951, in addition to the reception of strategic or living necessities, worth $100 million per year, until the year 1965.

In the period from 1954 to 1971

In the period, the battles between the KMT and the Chinese communists, instead of being a comprehensive warfare, were regional armed conflicts. A maritime warfare happened between 1954 and 1955, which made the KMT retreat from the Dachen Island as well as two Kinmen artillery wars, in 1954 and 1957 respectively, were examples to explain the situation. The KMT began to implement a land reform in 1949, and successfully tackled the landlord-tenant issue. The landlord-tenant issue had been the greatest contradiction in a 2000-year-old Chinese history, as well as in the civil war between the KMT and Chinese communists. It was the major reason for almost all of the rising of peasant rebellions in the Chinese history.

In the year 1955, the KMT regime and the United States signed a common defense pact, but the pact did not include Mazu and Kinmen, islets southeast of China, though the two islets are under the KMT rule. Besides the purpose of containing the Soviet Union and China, the Unites also wielded its military intervention in the Taiwan Strait in an effort to maintain a “peaceful but divided” status heading toward the direction of “two countries.” Reportedly, in order to maintain the “one China” principle, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek maintained the form of a civil war through launching the 1957 artillery warfare.

Under a US planning, Taiwan began to develop towards an export-oriented economy. It received industrial technology, capital, and market support from the United States, and developed into one of the four Asian Little Dragons at the cost of high energy consumption, high pollution, and low wage level. The KMT regime suppressed dissidents, but the soaring industrialization and service trade, whose pays were relatively high if compared with traditional agricultural income, lowered people’s dissatisfaction. Taiwan has thus become an anti-communist and pro-US area in the absence of a left wing. Moreover, in the Vietnam War, Taiwan served as a US military base as well as a rest and recreational place for US troops. The Chinese communists, supported by many of the third world countries, gained an upper hand over Taiwan diplomatically and replaced the KMT regime’s seat in the UN.

In the period from 1972 to 2000

The United Stated began talks with mainland China, and during 1972 to 1982, expressed the stances of “recognizing, not to challenge, and acknowledging” the “one China” principle. In 1979, the United States shifted diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to mainland China, and ceased the common defense pact. However, in the meantime, the United States also announced a Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). Three years following the announcement of the TRA, the United States promised it would gradually decrease armament supply to Taiwan. The promise was not realized.

Before achieving reunification, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait still have to tackle differences in terms of the economy, culture, or transportation, and world countries have to treat the Taiwan authorities as a valid government. However, the TRA as well as the real US intention mean far beyond that. The TRA is a US law (it is not a pact signed by the US and another country). It allows the United States to recognize one China, and admits Beijing the only regime that represents China. However, in the meantime, the United States sells arms to Taiwan – a civil war-bounded area. The act is certainly not novel for the United States though.

In the last 15 years of the previous century, the families in the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, who had been separated because of a civil war for 30 years, began to be allowed to contact each other, and accompanied by mainland China’s bid of reform and opening up, the economic and tourism exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait also thrived. Being advantaged with a low-wage condition, mainland China, like many Southeast Asian and Latin American countries, became the best destination for Taiwan and many other multinational companies’ capital immigration. The situation created a certain impact on Taiwan’s economy and Taiwan people’s feelings.

With a widened gap between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in terms of military and composite national strength, as well as the development of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” the KMT’s stance in a civil war has shifted from “reclaiming the mainland” to “unifying China with the Three Principles of the People (a political philosophy developed by Sun Yat-sent to make China a free, prosperous, and powerful nation),” and then to “refusing to be unified through military force.” In this century, it has formally being rephrased into “refusing unification.” The KMT-Chinese communist civil war, which had been characterized by a class confrontation, has thus being superficially turned to a contradiction between unification and refusing unification or opposing splittism and maintaining split.

After 2000, and NOW

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had run presidential office for 8 years from 2000 to 2008, and the KMT has taken office since then. The DPP administration, by means of trying PROC’s patience, stirs up people’s emotion for the purpose of winning elections, while The KMT administration tends to take a peaceful and open-to-communication way in cross-strait affairs. The two administrations also take different policies on national defense budget. In order to abate cross-Strait confrontation, the Ma Ying-jeou regime slashed the national defense budget. In the year 2008, the national defense budget accounted for 19.8 percent of the central government’s overall yearly budgeting. After Ma Ying-jeou took office, the defense budget was cut in a planned manner, and in the year 2013, the national defense budget has been slashed to 15.8 percent, a 20-percent cut as compared with the budgeting in the year 2008. In contrast, when the DPP was in power, the defense budget was adjusted upward from 14.9 percent in the year 2001 to 19.8 percent in the year 2008, a 32-percent hike.

Despite their differences, when it comes to politics, both parties agree that Taiwan has no relation to mainland China. Taiwanese administration’s anti-communism propaganda has changed from “against class struggle,” “communist is loss of humanity,” ”Democracy and freedom triumph” to “people from mainland are tasteless,” “Taiwanese capitals are moved to mainland,” “laborers from mainland will steal away our jobs,” and, of course, the so-called Tienanmen Massacre. From the aspect of culture, education and ideology, desinicization and showing approval of Japanese colonization become official and social mainstream.

Despite the fact that the deficit is getting bigger and bigger, it never hinders Taiwanese officials’ will to make large purchase of arms from America. In 2004, the DPP even proposed historic arms budgets, planning to spend 200 hundred million US dollars to buy arms from America (including diesel-powered submarines, maritime patrol aircraft and Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile batteries.) Nevertheless, the Ma Ying-jeou regime, being unable to resist US pressuring, has also said yes to two batches of US arms acquisition plans in its five-year administration, which involved 183 million US dollars. The arms acquisition plans included offensive weapons such as the Apache helicopters and the Patriot III missiles. The DPP’s 200-hundred-million arms procurement budget was strongly opposed by Taiwanese people. Even though the KMT is not against arms procurement, it seized the chance to go against the DPP and block the arms budgets. Due to the budgets was kept being blocked, AIT director Stephen M. Young even warned that “The US is watching closely and judging who takes responsible positions as well as those who play politics on this critical issue.”

By the end of last century, the US initiated two military conflicts against China – the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and the mid-air collision between US spy plane and Chinese fighter jet in 2001. Besides, under the US-Japan Security Treaty, the US is able to cooperate with Japan to respond “situations in areas surrounding Japan.” In the recent 2 years, The Diayou island dispute between China (Taiwan) and Japan makes the East China Sea area become a flashpoint, which even temporarily distracts world’s attention from Korea peninsula. Without a doubt, the US will also have influence on the sovereignty disputes between China (Taiwan) and the Philippines through PR-US Visiting Forces Agreement.

Because the US broke the Mutual Defense Treaty between the US and ROC in 1979, there has been no US-ROC joint war games since then. However, in 2006, the US, for the first time, acknowledged that US generals will inspect and instruct Taiwan war games as the after-sales service of its arms sales to Taiwan. The Joint Theater Level Simulation (JTLS) is one of the products that the US sold to Taiwan. Just before our conference, Taiwan held a JLTS simulated war games, “Han Kuang 29,” with the assistance of US, targeting the mainland’s aircraft carrier Liaoning as a potential enemy. The JTLS will enable Taiwan’s military to link with the US Pacific Command and Japanese and South Korean forces, and, together with the militaries of Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, the Philippines, and even Oceania, Taiwan will be a part of the US forces. Without a doubt, the most crucial imagery enemies of the joint forces are China and the North Korea ruled by the Communist Party.

Even though the anti-communist propagandas are different from what they were, what makes it sad is that the anti-communist position has remained the same. Therefore, it appears that people in Taiwan “willingly” join the US forces, and “willingly” want to be protected by the Big Brother. In order to legitimate its ambition to strengthen its military powers and joint forces in Asia-Pacific area, the US needs demonized imagery enemies. Consequently, China and the North Korea are regarded as the potential destroyers of the safety in this area. And, the civil war and separation happened in both countries are the consequences of America’s military strategies. On the contrary, if the two separated parties in both countries can promote peaceful communication and mutual development with each other, lower the antagonism to the minimum, and, in the end, achieve reunification, it will be a huge setback for America’s Asia-Pacific strategies.

Presentation at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
19 July 2013

PANEL 2. US geo-political and military strategies in the Asia-Pacific and the Aquino government’s Oplan Bayanihan

By LEN COOPER
Vice chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS)
Chairperson, ILPS-Australia Chapter
Divisional President, Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU)

Fraternal greetings and thank you for the opportunity to attend such an important conference and to learn from you during my stay.

I come from Australia, which is a country that was invaded by Europeans, beginning about 120 years ago and prior to that it was settled by the aboriginal native people for tens of thousands of years.

Since the European invasion of Australia, the ruling classes have been committed to and dominated by the priorities, policies, requirements and military actions and activities of one or other of the so called great powers. Initially the Australian ruling class was a puppet of British colonialism and neo colonialism and then, as it is now, it became more and more of a puppet of US Imperialism, particularly following the second world war and the decline of Britain as the main imperialist power.

Australia is a very large Island state, rich in minerals, agricultural production, manufacturing and services. It has a relatively small population of about 28 million people, with a workforce of over 10 million.

Australia is a relatively wealthy capitalist country which is suffering from most of the symptoms of the global capitalist crisis. Growing unemployment, over 2 million people living in poverty, a starving of the funding for many peoples needs, super exploitation of and oppression of the aboriginal first nation people, privatisation of the government assets and businesses, inhumane and un- democratic treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, attacks on workers wages, conditions and rights and so on.

To a degree and for a period Australia has been protected from the worst aspects of the capitalist crises by business activity and growth in China. This has enabled Australia to grow and prosper from trade with, and massive exports of minerals to China. But that period is coming to a close as China’s demand drops and the severe conditions of the capitalist global crisis start to bite even further into the Chinese economy.

Australia currently has a so called Labor government in power although a Federal election is imminent. During the term of the so called Labor government the large capitalist enterprises have prospered and Australia has moved even more firmly into the web of US Imperialism.

The Australian authorities, under pressure from US big business are working to deliver the Trans Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPPA) which at present involves several countries bordering on the Pacific. The TPPA is an extension of the US / Australia free trade agreement of 2004.

The TPPA is also an extension of the Neo Liberal economic programme put in place by imperialism from the 1970’s. In essence the economic programme wants unrestricted access to the markets in all countries outside the imperialists home countries, an unrestricted flow of goods, services, and capital by imperialism and complete freedom for US big business and others to exploit natural resources, source the cheapest Labour in the world, and remove all restrictions for the big and powerful to exploit the weaker and particularly the working people, the farmers the peasants and small business.

If imperialism achieves its objectives in the TPPA talks there will be far reaching detrimental, effects on jobs, working conditions ,health and safety, the cost of health services, education services, the cost of medicines, the environment, agriculture, manufacturing, protective regulations, and the independence and sovereignty of people and governments in the targeted countries.

Even former World Bank President Joseph Stiglitz has said that “most of these free trade agreements are managed to the advantage of the US which has the bulk of the negotiating power.”

Various governments are resisting various aspects of the US agenda in the TPPA talks however what is needed is more unity and mobilisation of the people across Asia and the Pacific to fight this free trade deal in particular and the neo liberal agenda in general.

Much good work is being done by people in many countries on this score with mobilisation and united action growing. There is a potential to unite unions, small farmers and small business, health workers, education workers, environmentalists and more.

The people in the Philippines and Oceania have this struggle and many more in common.

There is the vexed question of US military domination of the Asia Pacific.

Australia has a formal alliance agreement with the United States. It is known as the Australian New Zealand United States Alliance (ANZUS). This has existed for over 50 years.

As a result there are over 35 to 40 US military and intelligence sites and bases across Australia, covering all states. Some of the US facilities in Australia are a very important part of the US strategy to dominate and militarise space.

The Australian authorities have supported and been involved in, most of the military aggression and slaughter by US imperialism at least since the Second World War. Aggression against Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and others.

Now of course due to President Obamas ‘ so called pivot towards the Asia Pacific the US is now stationing military assets more permanently on Australian soil and has drawn Australia more firmly into joint military exercises with the US and others and more central to the US military intelligence apparatus.

Just recently former Conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, writing in the Age newspaper on Feb.6th 2013 said this:

“It is time Australia started to have a mind of its own. We should not follow a superpower into war, merely because it wants us to, or because of ANZUS.” We agree.

We must continue to say we will not be part of US Imperialisms’ plans to dominate our region, we will not be part of US Imperialisms war plans against China and other countries. We must continue to demand that the US and any other Imperialist power get out of our region now.

There have been reports in the Australian media just this week that the” United States is negotiating an agreement to allow it to position military equipment and rotating personnel in the Philippines while avoiding the controversial issue of re-establishing US bases in the country officials from both countries say.” Says the Sunday AGE newspaper in Australia. (July 14th 2013)

Clearly both the Philippines and Australia are being treated like vassal states by US Imperialism. The Filipino people have already pushed US bases out of the country previously and it looks like they will have to do so again.

In Australia, we witnessed the biggest street demonstrations in our history when hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the Iraq war. There is today a beginning of a re awakening in Australia of that protest action against foreign military bases and for an independent Australian foreign policy.

The Filipino people have been struggling for independence and Liberation beginning in the 1800’s.They continue that struggle today, more determined, even more effectively and with the absolute certainty that will succeed. They are our inspiration.

The democratic, human, and social rights of people across the globe are under challenge in a way unseen since at least the growth and spread of Fascism before and during the Second World War of last century.

The capitalist crisis and Imperialism pose a grave threat to the globe and the people of the world.

Only the people themselves can solve this crisis and prevent this grave threat. The peoples of Egypt, Greece, Mexico, Philippines, India, Turkey, and many others are showing the way today. They are working towards a solution and we salute them. A solution that involves genuine democracy not a sham. A solution that represents freedom not oppression. A solution that represents social liberation for the people. They are the inspiration. That is our task.

Thank you.

Presentation at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
19 July 2013

PANEL 2. US geopolitical and military strategies in the Asia-Pacific and the Aquino government’s Oplan Bayanihan

By SATUR C. OCAMPO
President, Makabayan People’s Coalition
President, Bayan Muna

It was quaint how Benigno S. Aquino III — 18 days before he was elected President of the Philippines on May 10, 2010 – defined the “four key elements” of what he envisioned as his administration’s national security policy. The four elements he cited now constitute the “national strategic guideline” of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ counterinsurgency plan, “Oplan Bayanihan”.

He put forward the four key elements in his speech at a Peace and Security Forum held at the Mandarin Oriental Manila on April 22. Aquino, then a senator aspiring for the presidency, laid the ground for his proposition by chastising the outgoing administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for its failures, in these words:

“For nine long years the Arroyo administration has failed to put in place a coherent National Security Policy that addresses the root causes of strife and conflict… The absence of a clear national policy and a coherent strategy for peace negotiations led to confusion and false expectations across the table.” (The second sentence pertains to the bungled peace negotiations between the Arroyo government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front: an agreement on ancestral domain set to be signed by the two sides in August 2008 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.)

The next administration, Aquino segued, “will have to pick up the pieces and resume the quest forpeacewith vigor and clarity of purpose.” Sounding like a man of action he had not been known for, Aquino set these following steps for the next government:

1. Complete the drafting, “within the first three months of the next administration,” of a comprehensive National Security Policy that “will guide our national defense and internal security policies that, in turn, will shape our respective national military and law enforcement strategies”;
2. The document should be a product of consultations among “various stakeholders, including representatives from the different components of the security sector and other agencies”; and
3. The work should be completed by the end of 2010.

Then he identified the four key elements on which the national security policy must focus:

1. Governance (the government must be present and accountable to its citizens);
2. Delivery of basic services (health and education especially to depressed and vulnerable villages in conflict areas with the help of international partners, the private sector and non-profit organizations);
3. Economic reconstruction andsustainable development (economic reconstruction of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao should be fully integrated in all Mindanao-wide and national development plans); and
4. Security sectorreform (begin with restoring the pride and honor of the uniformed services) .

The full text of Aquino’s speech was posted in the Internet. It contained a footnote to the afore-cited four elements, which states: “These elements are derived from a universally accepted template for post-conflict stability, reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts used in such war-torn places as Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan.”

Why, one may ask: Rather than deeply analyze the “root causes of the armed conflicts” in the context of prevailing conditions in his country (in order to identify the appropriate solutions that he must pursue), Mr. Aquino opted to apply the template used by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan? These are the three countries where the US had launched wars of intervention in the past decade, wherein it has been mired in trying to resolve a multiplicity of problems, and from which the Obama administration now desperately seeks to disengage.

Or did Aquino believe that because the template was denoted by the US as “universally accepted” it could very well apply to the Philippines?

The answer to both questions is this: In crafting their internal security policies and counterinsurgency operational plans — specifically against the Left revolutionary armed movement, led by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army for 44 years now — all the six governments starting from the Marcos martial-law dictatorship (1972-86), without exception, have relied heavily on US military advice or guidance. They all adopted the US template as it evolved through the numerous American wars of intervention (that began with the Philippine-American war at the turn of the 20^th century).

A review of the Aquino government’s performance in the past three years reveals that it has not – or it has evaded – seriously analyzing and addressing the root causes of the armed conflict. It has relied on superficial “peace and development” programs undertaken in conflict-affected areas. Yet it continues to use as mantra the clause “address the root causes” for resolving the armed conflict with the CPP-NPA.

Oplan Bayanihan vis-a-vis US COIN Guide

On January 1, 2011 – when Aquino had been President for six months — the AFP made public (in booklet form) its Internal Peace and Security Plan (IPSP), the counterinsurgency plan called “Oplan Bayanihan”. In his message Aquino says the plan “opens up space for the involvement of the Filipino people in defining, shaping, and ensuring our peace and security as a nation.” He called on the entire citizenry to “join the AFP in translating this national aspiration to reality.”

And there, listed down as the IPSP “National Strategic Guidance”, are the four key elements Aquino had lined up in his April 22 speech.

By adopting the four elements as strategic guidance, the IPSP establishes a direct correlation or kinship with the 2009 U.S. Counterinsurgency Guide. This document was issued two years earlier (January 11, 2009) jointly by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore.

The preface to the COIN Guide adverts to America’s “prolonged counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq” from which experiences the document “distills the best of contemporary thought, historical knowledge, and hard-won practice.” We can safely assume that the four key elements adopted by the IPSP are deemed as part of those “distillations”.

US counterinsurgency practice, the preface elaborates, rests on a number of assumptions: 1) “that the decisive effort is rarely military, although security is the essential prerequisite of success; 2) “that our efforts must be directed to the creation of local and national government structures that will serve their populations, and over time, replace the efforts of foreign partners (read: American forces)”; 3) “that superior knowledge, and in particular, understanding of the ‘human terrain’ is essential”; and 4) “that we must have the patience to persevere in what will necessarily prove long struggles.”

These assumptions, or COIN Guide premises, surface in several sections of the IPSP document (albeit in slightly modified terms), as we shall see in the following examples:

1. On counterinsurgency – COIN Guide: Counterinsurgency “is the blend of comprehensive civilian and military efforts designed to simultaneously contain insurgency and address its root causes… non-military means are often the most effective elements, with military forces playing an enabling role.”= The IPSP “gives equal emphasis (to) combat and non-combat dimensions of military operations… it departs from the old parameters and explores non-combat parameters of success in addressing the country’s peace and security problem.” (Executive Summary)IPSP applies the “whole of nation approach”. This “presupposes that ordinary citizens and the entire Filipino people are active contributors to internal peace and security. In this context, the role of the AFP is to catalyze the involvement of the stakeholders and facilitate the synergy of all these efforts.” (Strategy for Internal Peace and Security)
   1. “COIN approaches must be adaptable and agile. Strategies will usually be focusedprimarilyon the population rather than the enemy and will seek to reinforce the legitimacy of the affectedgovernment while reducing insurgent influence. This can often only be achieved in concert with political reforms to improve the quality of governance and address underlying grievances, many of which may be legitimate.”

      = The IPSP approach is “a shift from a predominantly militaristic solution to a people-centered security strategy that is founded on broad-based consultations and engagements with key stakeholders…Military operations shall be conducted within the larger framework of the government’s peace strategy… This translates to the conduct of combat operations against armed internal threats that are intelligence-driven, deliberate, and calibrated to diminish the armed capability of said threat groups… The AFP shall likewise maximize the utilization of non-combat operations such as civil-military operations (CMO) and development-oriented activities.” (Strategy for Internal Peace and Security)

2. On COIN model’s political function – The key function is to provide a “framework of political reconciliation, and reform of governance around which all other COIN activities are organized.”

   = The IPSP cites President Aquino’s pronouncement “to offer opportunities for negotiations toward a just and lasting peace”; that “achieving a transparent and participative peace process requires a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of conflict, under clear policies and driven by a genuine desire to attain a just and lasting peace… The AFP remains committed to the peaceful and just settlement of conflicts”… “adhering to the primacy of the peace process and supporting peace building activities such as reconstruction and rehabilitation of conflict-affected areas.” (Executive Summary)

3. On measuring success – “Success in COIN can be difficult to define, but improved governance will usually bring about marginalization of the insurgents to the point at which they are destroyed, co-opted or reduced to irrelevance in numbers and capability…Ultimately, the desired end state is a government that is seen as legitimate, controlling social, political, economic and security institutions that meet the population’s needs, including adequate mechanisms to address the grievances that may have fueled support of the insurgency.”

   = IPSP: The AFP’s “strategic intent” or “end state” is: “The capabilities of internal armed threats are reduced to a level that they can no longer threaten the stability of the state and civil authorities can ensure the safety and well-being of the Filipino people… Against the NPA, the AFP’s internal peace and security initiatives shall focus on rendering the NPA irrelevant, with the communist insurgency abandoning its armed struggle and engaging in peace negotiations with the government.” (Strategy for Internal Peace and Security)

Legacy of human rights violations

As earlier mentioned, Oplan Bayanihan is the latest in a long line of counterinsurgency operational plans (oplans) that have been drawn up by the AFP, under the successive governments beginning with the Marcos martial-law dictatorship. Historically, such plans have been heavily influenced, if not essentially directed, by the US defense and military establishment – given the reliance by the AFP on its American counterpart for both doctrinal and practical training and equipage supply (consisting of World War II vintage equipment and discarded but “refurbished” weapons).

Each plan has relied primarily on military might and means in trying to suppress and strategically defeat the CPP-NPA-led “people’s war” (which started in Central Luzon in 1969, now has spread to over 70 provinces). Each plan has failed, and each left in its wake widespread human rights violations across the nation, reliably documented by human rights monitoring organizations, principally Karapatan.

The Arroyo government’s “Oplan Bantay-Laya” – relentlessly pursued in two phases over nine years – was most notorious for having sweepingly categorized as “CPP-NPA front-organizations” and thus as “enemies of the state” several open progressive people’s organizations, political parties, and even religious organizations. Killer squads, mostly riding tandem on motorcycles with backups, viciously targeted and attacked several hundreds of legal mass leaders and activists for extra-judicial killing. Hundreds also became victims of enforced disappearance.

In the first six months of his administration, Aquino extended the implementation of OplanBantay-Laya despite outcries of popular protests, thus enabling the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances to continue under his watch.

But even after Oplan Bayanihan officially replaced Oplan Bantay-Laya, the killings and other forms of human rights violations continued — notwithstanding the AFP’s vow that henceforth its operations “will always be within the bounds of universally accepted principles, such as international humanitarian law, human rights, and the rule of law.” Consequently, the human rights community — both national and international — has denounced Oplan Bayanihan for being “no different from OplanBantay-Laya” and has called for its immediate termination.

As of end-June 2013, extrajudicial killings under the Aquino government numbered 142, with another 164 cases reported as “frustrated extrajudicial killings.” Of the 142 victims, 80 were peasants and 27 were leaders of indigenous peoples. There were 16 incidences of enforced disappearances. (Karapatan Monitor)

This is not surprising when one looks closely into the IPSP section on “strategic concepts” pertaining to specific tasks. Pursuant to its “end state” against the NPA (to render it irrelevant), IPSP says: The AFP “shall continue using legitimate force and conducting combat operations with even greatervigor but only against armed insurgents… Intensified and relentless pursuit of the NPA is intended to exhaust their armed capabilities and diminish their will to fight.”

In the six-year timeframe of the IPSP (2011-2016), focus on the first three years is to “substantially” attain the “end state”. That would allow the AFP to devote the period 2014- 2016 to handing over the lead role in counterinsurgency to local government units so that it can “initiate its transition to a territorial defense-focused force.”

Thus 2013 is the crucial year to achieving the IPSP “end state”. But from the way it looks – with less than six months remaining – Oplan Bayanihan appears to be running out of time.

Last Thursday, AFP Chief Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, credited as the “key author” of Oplan Bayanihan, called a command conference to assess the military operations in the first semester of 2013. The assessment was a mixture of success and failure.

Here are some of the data presented:

• The AFP increased its “engagements” against the NPA in January to June to 350, from 312 in the same period in 2012, and “apprehended” 99 NPA members as against 50 in first-semester 2012. (Bautista claimed altogether 323 NPA members were “neutralized” without citing the period covered).
• The NPA, noted the AFP, also had also increased tactical-offensive attacks against the AFP to 173, from 162 in the first half of 2012.
• Bautista placed the number of NPA fighters at “more than 4,000”. Journalists pointed to AFP records showing that NPA membership remained at 4,000 in the last three years. So no palpable reduction, despite “sustained momentum focused on military operations against the NPA.”

About that the AFP chief explained: “We have significant numbers of surrenderees from the NPA ranks… (but) there has been continuous recruitment and it’s unfortunate the recruits they’re getting are from the youth, from farmers and indigenous peoples.” (Note that per Karapatan Monitor, of the 142 victims of extrajudicial killings 80 were peasants and 27 were leaders of indigenous peoples).

How were the NPA members attracted to surrender?

Since Gen. Bautista’s appointment as AFP chief in January there has been a flurry of Oplan Bayanihan activities designed to induce NPA leaders and members to yield their firearms.

Starting in May, AFP field commanders have been reporting “surrenderees” who availed of its “Gun for Peace” program, initiated in April. Under the program, each surrenderee is paid for every firearm he yields (P200,000 for light machinegun; P60,000 for M-14 rifle; P50,000 for M-l6 rifle or .45 caliber pistol).

In addition, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) – which oversees the government’s “peace and development program” under PAMANA (Payapa at MasaganangPamayanan or Peaceful and Prosperous Communities) — reportedly provides P50,000 to each NPA surrenderee as “customized package and means of livelihood” through its “Comprehensive Local Integration Program (CLIP)”, started in July 2012. Also provincial governments that have reportedly cooperated with the AFP (such as those of Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Leyte, and Davao del Norte), have supposedly offered P10,000 financial assistance and P25,000 livelihood support fund for each surrenderee.

This surrender-through-financial-inducement is a slide back to the old counterinsurgency mindset of “treating the symptom rather than the disease” – which failed.

A good question at this point is: Given that the US COIN Guide used in Iraq and Afghanistan has failed to defeat the insurgencies and to achieve stability for the US-backed governments there, can it succeed when applied in the Philippines? In corollary, it can be asked: By using the failed COIN Guide template in the Philippines can the IPSP/Oplan Bayanihan succeed?

Meantime, the Aquino government has been under pressure to “enhance” the AFP’s capability for external defense in light of China’s increasingly aggressive pronouncements and maritime actions, following a standoff in a small but resource-rich area of the South China Sea over which both the Philippines and China claim sovereignty.

The Aquino government has called on the US for support – and offered in exchange free accessby US (and Japanese!) forces to Philippine military bases, which has spurred strong objections among the Filipino people. China’s reaction has become more bellicose.

It’s not farfetched that the Aquino government may seek direct US military support to the counterinsurgency campaign against the CPP-NPA. Examine these three indicators:

1. Since August 2002 the US government has included the CPP-NPA in its listing of “terrorist organizations”, against which it continues to pursue the “war on terror” initiated by George W. Bush in 2001. Thus far, the US has focused on pursuing targets of attack — through Special Operations forces on the ground and, on an ever-expanding territorial scope and increased tempo, via missile-bombing by unmanned aerial vehicles called drones.
2. The preface of the US COIN Guide ends with this ominous statement: “Whether the (US) should engage in any particular counterinsurgency is a matter of political choice, but that it will engage in such conflicts during the decades to come is a near certainty.”
3. The Pentagon document, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for the 21st CenturyDefense, which discusses the US “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia-Pacific, lists as one of its 10 primary missions the conduct of “stability and counterinsurgency operations”. In part it says:

“U.S. forces will nevertheless be ready to conduct limited counterinsurgency and other stability operations if required, operating alongside coalition forces wherever possible. Accordingly, U.S. forces will retain and continue to refine the lessons learned, expertise, and specialized capabilities that have been developed over the past 10 years of counterinsurgency and stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.”

Certainly the anti-imperialist, patriotic and freedom-loving section of the Filipino people will vigorously oppose this type of direct US military intervention. Certainly nobody in this conference will stand for such interventionist war.

Talk at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

By ANTONIO TUJAN JR.
Director, IBON International

PANEL 1. Economic, political and social crisis globally and in the Philippines, and implications on peace and human rights in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
19 July 2013

Three years since the declaration by international economic institutions such as the IMF and the OECD that global recession in 2008 has ended in 2010, the absence of recovery has befuddled imperialist apologists and economists alike. So-called “post-recession” recovery by industrialized countries like US, UK and Japan remains very weak, seemingly teetering on the brink of another recession despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out banking and other financial institutions and various efforts at pump priming to fund recovery.

The creeping effect of this “non-recession” has now spread further to the economic heartland of Europe, as countries like France and Germany now face the threat of recession. On the other hand, many Eurozone countries such as Greece and Spain continue to bear the brunt of depression, as their sovereign debts crises remain unsolved and now threaten to infect even major industrial powers like Italy.

The so-called rise of emerging economies is imperialist hype to cover up the sorry state of developed countries reeling from crisis with the illusion of a “rebalancing” world economy. It also feeds into the strategy of monopoly capital to intensify the extraction of superprofits from the developing countries through various means, including through financial speculation riding on the so-called emerging economies.

This crisis is akin to the Great Depression of the 1930’s in its intensity but unlike it altogether. First, the scale of trade and financial integration through the policy of neoliberal globalization both feeds on and intensifies the crisis. Second, the possibility accorded by financial liberalization for further multiplying super-profit taking through financial speculation has created a new phenomenon of intensifying the effects of the crisis on the real economy. Third, the overweening power of the financial oligarchy over capital, both public and private, allows it to engineer autonomous opportunities for financial and commodity market growth, with its own speculative busts.

This is another depression, a lingering protracted depression, is fed by financial speculation seeking its end but also exacerbating it.

Continuing factors for depression, threats of new bubble bursting

This creeping, protracted depression affecting world monopoly capital has not seen its end.

Ghost recovery, continuing features of depression

The so-called economic recovery since 2011 remains sluggish and unclear. A growing number of countries have fallen back into double-dip recession, while US recovery has been feeble. There has been no recovery in productive sectors such as manufacturing and other industries. The jobs that were lost from 2008 onwards have not been recovered, and unemployment remains severe—thus the term “jobless growth.” Financial crashes remain continual phenomena.

By end-2012, the UN World Economic Situation and Prospects 2013 report had already presented dire economic forecasts about the risk of what it called “synchronized economic downturn” across many developed and developing countries.

The UN WESP 2013 report said that based on a set of assumptions in the UN baseline forecast, growth of world gross product (WGP) is expected to reach 2.2% in 2012 and is forecast to remain well below potential at 2.4% in 2013 and 3.2% in 2014. (See chart below) “At this moderate pace, many economies will continue to operate below potential and will not recover the jobs lost during the Great Recession.” ¹

Six months later, this risk of “synchronized economic downturn” remains. In the latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) update dated 9 July 2013, the IMF acknowledged that global growth is “projected to remain subdued” at 3.1% in 2013, about the same as in 2012 and less than the 3.3% forecast in April 2013 WEO.² The chart below, taken from the IMF WEO for July 2013, shows global GDP growth (projected figures on gray background) up to Q3 2013.

At this point (end-June 2013), the Eurozone is now in its longest recession since the end of World War II, with economic activity across its 17 countries falling for the seventh quarter in a row from Q4 2011 to Q2 2013. The economies of France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands have generally shrunk. The growth in Germany, the region’s strongest economy, just eked out a 0.1% growth on a quarterly basis, but also shrunk by 0.2% year-on-year. Ten-year data on year-on-year GDP growth of Europe’s biggest economies—Germany, France, and Italy—are graphically shown below, superimposed on equivalent data for the whole Eurozone.³

While a slight improvement shown in Q2 2013 led Eurozone officials to expect some sort of uptick in the second half of 2013, other economists remain guarded since no real growth drivers have clearly emerged.⁴

The U.S. economy appeared to fare better compared to Europe (see graph below)⁵, but in fact its own recovery remains ephemeral. The reason is that the U.S. economy is being turbo-propped by an unsustainable printing of dollars, with the Federal Reserve issuing $85 billion every month. The irony is that, instead of stimulating the real economy, more than 80% of the Fed’s excess reserves remain idle in private banks. These idle reserves have turned into yet another form of financial speculation, likened by some economists to a ticking time bomb. Outside of the US, other Central Banks have adopted similar “quantitative easing” remedies to open investment markets.⁶

The IMF has also recently acknowledged that the so-called emerging economies are growing more slowly than previously projected. The factors for this includes reduced US and European demand for exports from Brazil and Russia; China readjusting its priorities towards domestic consumer spending; and other emerging markets weakened by the pullout of foreign direct investments. A recent ILO report also showed that the new recession conditions in Europe have been spilling over globally.⁷

New bubbles threatening to burst amid threats of default, bailouts

As many economists have noted, indicators of economic recovery merely show the same old up-and-down economic and financial cycles in transitory periods of uptick. They are now warning of new bubbles threatening to burst. [See note]

[Start of note]

Global strategist Kit Juckes of Société Générale is actually calling the post-2008 signs of recovery as “the bubble with no name (yet)”. See his explanation below, describing the pattern behind “three significant financial bubbles of the last 30 years” with an accompanying graph showing a correlation between nominal GDP and Fed policy in generating bubbles.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-important-charts-in-the-world-2013-6#kit-juckes-socit-gnrale-we-dont-know-what-this-bubble-will-be-called-yet-24

[End of note]

Europe seemed to stabilize after ECB vowed “to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro,” but there is a big worry that the recent indicators of recovering growth is mostly a bubble that will burst sooner or later.⁸

As of April 2013, 41 different countries have active debt arrangements with the IMF; some are outright bailouts.⁹ Most of these loans come with very stringent conditions, which in the past the IMF imposed only on poor countries. But now more and more rich nations, such as Greece, Portugal, and Ireland are getting bailed out with IMF help, and agreeing to harsh austerity measures in exchange.

But the IMF’s funding depends on five largest creditors: the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, and the U.K.—countries that are in deep debt themselves. Thus these bailouts are increasingly unsustainable.

Thus, while the bailouts may have gained some breathing space for selected businesses and banks that are deemed “too big to fail,” the economies reel from one bailout crisis to the next as they fail to generate enough jobs and consumer demand. On top of this, the accompanying austerity measures have hit the poorest sectors of the population in developed and developing countries alike.

Unemployment, loss of income

Although the epicenter of the continuing global crisis in recent years has been in the most developed economies, its social impact has been truly global. As an ILO 2013 special report said, the advanced economies may have accounted for half of the total increase in unemployment of 28 million since 2008, but the crisis has had “significant spillovers into the labour markets of developing economies as well.”

An accumulated total of 197 million people were without a job in 2012. Significantly, 3 out of 4 newly unemployed in 2012 came from outside the advanced economies, with marked increases in East Asia, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, some 39 million dropped out of the labor market, while the global jobs gap since 2007 has risen to 67 million.

Despite the prospects of growth in 2013-14, the number of unemployed worldwide is expected to rise by 5.1 million in 2013 (bringing the total to 202 million), and by another 3 million in 2014.

The report explicitly acknowledged the direct role of fiscal austerity programs in employment and wage cutbacks, and that macro imbalances have been passed on to the labour market and weakened it to significant degrees.¹⁰

The other key messages of the ILO 2013 report include the following:

• Policy incoherence has led to heightened uncertainty, preventing stronger investment and faster job creation

• The continuing nature of the crisis has worsened extended unemployment spells and labour market mismatches, intensifying downside labour market risks.

• Job creation rates are particularly low, as typically happens after a financial crisis

• The jobs crisis pushes more and more women and men out of the labour market

• Youth remain particularly affected by the crisis

Among the advanced economies, joblessness has particularly worsened in Europe, with some countries hitting record highs in recent months. (Italy’s unemployment rose to 12% in end-May 2013—the worst since 1977.) In the US, the latest Job Report is optimistic only because “new jobs” are being created but the unemployment rate remains, because full-time jobs are giving way to part-time jobs.¹¹

Growing unemployment, wage and benefit cutbacks, and loss of livelihood opportunities are all contributing to a generalized loss of income for big sections of the population in most countries. Despite claims by the IMF and World Bank that MDG 1 on reducing poverty (in terms of halving the number of people living on $1.25 daily) had been achieved globally, the truth is that multidimensional poverty remains a severe global problem.

For example, in the most recent Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released just this March 2013, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) reported that a total of 1.6 billion people continue to live in multidimensional poverty. This is more than 30% of the combined population of the 104 countries covered by the study. The report also said that at the present rate, the best-performing countries may be able to halve their MPI “in less than 10 years and eradicate it within 20”—certainly a very slow rate.¹²

Food crisis, losses from natural calamities

In recent years, high food prices have become the “new normal.” Despite lower demand and a slight decline in cereal prices due to stagnant economies, food prices remained high or volatile. This is mostly the result of financial speculation in agricultural commodities, which has become an increasing arena of neoliberal globalization—as a series of UNCTAD papers as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food have officially asserted. The speculation has spilled over to not just commodities but to farmland and irrigation water sources.¹³

In addition, losses from the more unpredictable natural calamities due to climate change are contributing to the price and supply volatility. For example, the US drought in 2012 (the worst in 50 years, and which has persisted in nearly 20% of the country up to 2013) drove up maize prices to record levels, while heavy rains in Argentina and Russia affected wheat supply and prices. In October 2012, the UN warned that failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and elsewhere “have eroded [world grain] reserves to their lowest level since 1974,” and that extreme weather events this year could trigger another major food crisis.¹⁴

Strategic economic approaches to address crisis in the context of neoliberal globalization

Monopoly capitalist states in the US and elsewhere in the West, in their aim to stave off recessionary crisis and later ensure quick recovery, have responded in a two-stage way: First, through bail-outs of ailing banks, other financial institutions, and selected giant corporations considered “too big to fail”. And second, when the immense public deficits turned into huge sovereign debts, by imposing austerity measures and related efforts in their attempt to defuse the debt crisis.

Meanwhile, these powerful states assiduously defend the same basic economic and financial policies of neoliberalism that caused or aggravated the recessionary crisis in the first place. They pursued only those paltry reforms in secondary fiscal and financial issues, which in effect constituted a mere slap on the hand and only affecting a few criminal speculators—intended to keep financial speculation within manageable bounds but not to impose real regulation. Such reforms included cursory responses to issues dear to the hearts of most investors themselves, such as tax havens and capital flight.

A growing popular clamor led by social movements against neoliberal globalization, periodically exploding into massive protests, have been met with deceptive and defensive propaganda if not outright fascist attacks by police and intelligence agencies. Even proposals from mainstream economists for return to a modicum of economic regulation and protection remain unheeded.

Instead, the US and its imperialist allies have been adopting new strategic approaches to cope with the multiple crises while continuing to seek and pursue all avenues of gradual recovery.

Buying into the new green

Some of these strategic approaches have been filtered into UN processes such as the UNFCCC and post-2015 (along with the parallel process of SDGs), carefully packaged to project a broad international consensus and to rebuild the framework of multilateralism. But lurking behind these processes are efforts by the imperialist powers to ensure the continuing dominance of monopoly capital and neoliberal globalization.

Green economy is not a simple PR ploy by big business and OECD governments; neither is it a simple response to the challenge for sustainability because of climate change. Monopoly capital sees the green initiative as a combination of two related strategies: on one hand, harness the role of innovation and high-tech to spur recovery of industry; and on the other hand, develop a new process or movement of neo-colonial exploitation funded through public-private investment in the guise of climate change funding.

Strategic role of Greater East Asia

As the protracted depression continues to linger, the big Asian economies are taking on a more strategic role of spurring the global economy. This role is being played by China, South Korea, and first-tier South East Asian countries (and to a certain degree India and Australia), which are relatively better off economically. Even Japan, stagnant for decades now, still has substantial economic clout. These countries are able to stimulate sluggish consumer spending and international trade, and to support the large appetites of foreign investments and even of speculative financial markets. A modicum of prosperity and consumer capacity also supports a degree of middle class growth, which in turn tends to dampen class conflicts and strengthens perceptions of democracy and political stability.

This strategic role of East Asia is increasingly reflected in the competing efforts of the US and EU to craft various bilateral and plurilateral pacts in East Asia, such as the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) being negotiated by EU with India and the ASEAN. Russia is also aggressively elbowing into the region to strike its own deals and expand its own economic sphere of influence.

This strategic role of East Asia, now clearly appreciated by the US and its allies, is at the core of what is being hyped as the “Asian Century”—a catchword that is partly economic truth, partly investment hype, but in any case represents a geopolitical shift of focus. It is also reflected in heightened US-EU interest in regional structures of governance such as the APEC and East Asia Summit. On the other hand, the strategic refocusing is hindered, in the case of the US, by its deep involvements in the Middle East, and by economic troubles in the case of EU.

The TPPA as the new US “can opener”

Closely related to the strategic shift to East Asia is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), a comprehensive trade deal being cooked up by the US. The countries involved in the TPP negotiations are Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and even Japan. The deal is so shrouded in secrecy that even the US Congress remains in the dark, while representatives of US multinationals are “being consulted and made privy to the details of the agreement.”¹⁵

If signed into law, the TPPA would empower MNCs to bypass national laws and courts and urge its own supra-national courts (supervised by the World Bank and UN) to impose neoliberal policies and standards—even US laws—in a wide range of trade questions, including medicine, agriculture, intellectual copyright, and so on. The US hopes for the TPPA to gain momentum until it becomes a fait accompli and pries open all remaining trade restrictions by Asia-Pacific states.

Reconfiguring imperialist “multilateralism” through the G20

With the 2008 economic collapse, the G7 imperialist powers lost much credibility to dictate economic policy on the whole world, while giving no quarters to developing countries led by the G77 and China bloc. Increasing conflicts between the imperialist bloc and the G77-China bloc have resulted in repeated deadlocks on critical global issues, including those being tackled in the climate change (UNFCCC) talks and in the WTO Doha Round. This intensifying dissent by developing countries within the UN and other multilateral bodies is often branded as the so-called “failure of multilateralism.”

In this light, the formation of the G20 is yet another strategy to forge a new imperialist consensus. The idea behind the G20 is to bring the “emerging economies” (such as the BRICS and other large developing countries) into its fold, as a bit of window dressing to rebuild the façade of international consensus around its overall policy of neoliberal globalization. This way, liberal and progressive initiatives that find their way into the system, such as proposals to reform the system of development finance, are sidelined, while G7 (with G20) policies are defended.

New WTO approach in Bali

The Doha Development Round under the WTO was a deal breaker, considering both the impact of implementing WTO and the implications of further liberalization under the new proposed provisions. The failure to conclude the Doha Round is symptomatic of the crisis—the intensity of protests and public opinion against it, the tenacity of developing-country positions, and the hardline US-EU demands and positions. Despite the efforts of the G7 and the G20—and the UN itself—to sell it, the Doha Round’s demise has been finally accepted by the WTO.

In its stead, a new Ministerial is scheduled in December 2013, which will attempt to pick up the pieces of the different failed efforts to expand the WTO since the first Ministerial in Singapore in 1996. Many issues arising from Singapore through Cancun and Doha are being considered again for debate and possible negotiation. While people’s movements persistently call for an end to the WTO as one of the emblematic symbols of neoliberal globalization, here come the imperialists redoubling their efforts to revive and re-gear the WTO for further expansion.

Section III. Rising factors for people’s resistance, armed conflicts

Mass protests

By end-June 2013, as The Economist itself noted, a wave of anger rose up and began “sweeping the cities of the world.” The otherwise staid publication even compared 2013 to the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe and to the 1968 and 1989 rebellions. Comparing the 2013 mass upsurge with the 2011 Occupy protests, which were high profile but did not mobilize millions, the magazine noted that this time “the protests are fed by deep discontent.”¹⁶

A distinctive trend in the first six months of 2013 is that the most dramatic mass upsurges have broken out in what are considered emerging economies, in addition to the Eurozone countries that have been battered by austerity programs and debt crises.

In Brazil, the massive demonstrations (which reached more than 1 million people on June 20) started as a mass protest against bus fares. It soon broadened into a much wider range of issues that reflected the Brazilian government’s anti-people policies, including corruption, poor public services, high cost of living, and profligate spending such as on the World Cup sports event.¹⁷

In India, big protest actions have risen to the forefront earlier in 2011, fuelled by working-class strikes and middle-class frustrations with corruption, on top of a growing Maoist armed revolution in the countryside. At the end of 2012, big protests verging on riots in reaction to the gang rape of a young woman were actually addressing the lack of state protection vs women and their rights.

Massive protests have also broken out in Egypt in response to the failure of the Morsi regime to respond to public demand for reforms in the face of the economic crisis. The protests have led to a military take-over of government. Elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, mass protests continue to simmer. Similar mass protests are hounding governments in Turkey and Bulgaria, with specific issues sparking mass actions that rapidly grew into much wider protest movements.

In Europe, sustained mass resistance including workers’ strikes continues to build up over gradually tightening austerity measures and worsening unemployment amid recurrent sovereign debt crises. The protests are particularly intense in Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Spain, and Italy. Violent riots also occurred in Sweden in May 2013 and earlier in the U.K. in 2011, as the youth and other unemployed spontaneously sought varied channels of mass discontent. ¹⁸

Armed conflicts

Amid multiple crises and mass discontent, global peace remained as elusive as ever. According to the 2013 Global Peace Index of the Institute for Economics and Peace, the peace situation has deteriorated in 110 out of 162 countries since 2008 due to political instability, internal armed conflicts, and boundary disputes.¹⁹

In the most severe cases, the US and its imperialist allies are deeply involved—either through direct foreign military intervention (as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and recently in Mali), or through client states (as in the Israeli-Palestine conflict), or through proxy “rebel groups”, as is the case of the Free Syrian Army in Syria and an assortment of NATO-backed armed groups that overthrew the Qaddafi regime in Libya.

Section IV. Increasing fascism and militarism

Rising trend of fascism

The trend of fascism continues to rise worldwide, and its worst features are becoming more evident than ever even in the supposed bulwarks of Western democracy, namely the US and UK. With the recent NSA espionage exposés divulged by Edward Snowden, it is now evident more than ever that the US has become a national security state, closely followed by the U.K.

Alarmingly, various US legislation—the PATRIOT Act, the Protect America Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA Amendments Act—have expanded the legally allowable state actions (on top of secret and illegal operations) that restrict basic civil liberties and human rights in the guise of counter-terrorism.

The NSA spying scandal (and previous similar exposés) reveal not merely massive violations of US citizens’ privacy rights, but other countries’ national security as well as their citizens’ rights. Surveillance is increasingly serving as prelude to actual attacks on people and their rights—especially now that drone technology is applied both for surveillance and actual kill operations.

Even worse, the scale of secret US operations divulged by a whole series of whistle-blowers shows an immensely huge potential for its monopoly capitalist class to extremely centralize the key machineries of state power in the hands of a neo-conservative, militarist, and fascist clique.

Human rights violations by the “national security” state

The US, which in the past prided itself as the global champion of human rights, has been showing more of its fangs not just overseas but within its homeland. It has a fast-growing record of domestic human rights violations, on top of its bloody international record of launching interventionist wars, supporting fascist dictatorships, and serving as principal arms supplier in other countries.

Within the US homeland, abuse of ordinary citizens by police, FBI, and Homeland Security operatives, are on the rise, on top of increasing cases of violent dispersal of protest rallies. Racial discrimination, hate crimes, and abusive treatment of immigrants are as prevalent as ever. The notorious record of US federal prisons as well as increasingly privatized state prisons is already well known. The US is among the world’s most heavily armed populations, with more than 100,000 people gunned down yearly. Yet increasing crime is made a reason to expand the forces and functions of the national security state.

Incredible as it may seem, but up to now, the U.S. has not participated in or ratified a series of core UN conventions on human rights, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.²⁰

A similar trend of rising fascism can also be seen in other developed countries, in emerging economies, as well as in developing countries (especially those long ruled by fascist dictatorships and military regimes supported by the US and its allies).

Rising trend of militarism

There has always been a direct connection between economic downturns and the trend for increased militarism and military spending. Armed conflicts between countries, as well as large-scale domestic violence, have long tended to flare up in times of intense economic and social crises.

More to the point, a number of huge business conglomerates have direct interests in the growth of defense-related industries. Thus, while the rest of the global economy suffered from doldrums in recent years, military spending has continued to bloat up.

The whole world’s military expenditures in 2012 are estimated to have reached $1.756 trillion, corresponding to 2.5% of world GDP. A handful of military powers are spending the largest sums. In 2012, for example, the 15 countries with the highest military spending accounted for over 81% of the total. The US is responsible for 39% of the world total; China is a poor second at 9.5%; China, Russia, UK, and Japan combined (the next biggest spenders after US) spent only 21.6%.

Indeed, another SIPRI report in 2004 presented the irony of a yawning gap between the world’s total military expenditures and funding to alleviate poverty and promote development.²¹ In fact, the entire budget of the United Nations and all its agencies and funds pale in comparison to the world’s total military expenditures.²²

The US military pivot to East Asia

At present, the US remains as the foremost promoter of militarism. At the same time, the imperialist shift of focus to East Asia (in economic terms) is backed by a US strategic military pivot plus political and diplomatic policy.

According to a top Chinese expert on Middle East affairs (as cited by Russia Today), there is a consensus among US think-thanks that the Asia pivot intends to attain three objectives:

1. To protect present US dominance over the shipping lanes from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea;

2. To “defend the chokepoints” in case they are closed by hostile states (e.g. Iran for the Strait of Hormuz); and

3. To prevent other powers (presumably China, to some extent India or even Russia) from becoming a real threat to US dominance

Despite the U.S. military’s down-sized budget, it plans to implement a long-term strategic transfer of forces to Asia-Pacific destinations from 2011 to 2020. These include air power (tactical aircraft, bombers); US Army troops and US Marines; and high-tech weaponry. The US has implemented a rotating scheme, which will eventually involve some 2,500 US Marines. By 2020, the US Navy intends to increase the deployment of its naval assets in Asia Pacific to 60% (from the current 50%).

This pivot also includes strengthening the US military presence based in Japan (especially its strategic missile force) and supporting Japan vs China in their dispute over the strategic Diaoyu islands. The US already has strategic joint operations with Australia, and is eyeing wider U.S. ship access to Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay facilities.²³

On the diplomatic front, Washington is also fast-tracking its strengthening of military ties with ASEAN countries, including former enemy Vietnam and former villain Myanmar. It is planning to host its first meeting with ASEAN defense minister in Hawaii in 2014. It is also pushing for redefined VFAs or basing arrangements with countries such as the Philippines.

China’s response

China’s response so far has been to forcefully signal that it will oppose the US rebalancing act. It has continued its own diplomatic crusade to neutralize ASEAN hostility vs its South China Sea claims.

At the same time, China appears to be giving a bigger weight to the Middle East as a strategic theater for economic, political, diplomatic, and military competition with the US. It has further stepped up its diplomatic campaign in all global regions, giving special attention to Africa and Latin America, on top of its efforts to lead the G77 bloc in UN processes and debates.

Intensification of US-China cyber war

The recent years have seen a scaling up of capabilities as well as operations in cyber warfare among the world’s military powers, with the U.S. and China engaging in a high-profile battle of wits and accusations and counter-accusations of cyber espionage. The EU and other countries are trying to catch up with their own cyberwar capabilities, if only to strengthen their own defenses vs cyber-attacks. This concern has worsened recently, with the EU openly complaining that it was itself a target of NSA operations (as per Snowden revelations).

Some implications of these international trends on the Philippines

1. Mixed economic impacts amidst deep and unresolved social crisis

The seeming immunity of some East Asian economies to the worst effects of the global crises due to certain transient factors, including the role of China, makes these countries a temporary beneficiary of incoming FDI flows on top of overseas remittances. Thus, the Philippines can still boast of investment and credit rating upgrades from the likes of Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor. At the same time, the country’s economic fundamentals in the various sectors of production and trade remain unstable, while the OFW situation is gradually being affected by political instabilities in other parts of the world.

The Philippine state under the Aquino presidency remains as one of Asia’s holdout fanatic followers of the anti-poor neoliberal policy dictates, as can be seen in its dogged pursuit of privatization (in the form of PPPs and support for previously privatized utilities) and liberalization. These have resulted in relentless increases in the cost of living, opening up the country’s natural resources to further plunder, and generally increased attacks vs rights of labor, peasantry, indigenous peoples, homeless, and student-youth.

2. Increasing US presence and bullying

The US pivot to Asia, its rivalries with China, and its potential involvement in domestic armed conflicts and inter-country disputes (including the South China Sea boundary disputes), all point to the trend of a bigger US diplomatic and military presence in the Philippines.

According to a Chicago Tribune news item in November 2012: As of October 2012, “70 U.S. Navy ships had passed through Subic, more than the 55 in 2011 and the 51 in 2010. The Pentagon says more than 100 U.S. planes stop over each month at Clark…” In 2012, South Korea’s Hanjin Heavy Industries, a big investor in the Subic shipyards, agreed to set up a maintenance and logistics hub to serve U.S. warships jointly with Pentagon contractor Huntington Ingalls Industries,

The news item also cited an editor of IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly as saying: “It’s like leasing a car as opposed to buying it—all the advantages of ownership with a reduced risk.” Looking at Subic, the defense editor said, “the U.S. will be leveraging Philippine bases and assets, privately owned assets, and all at a fraction of the monetary and political price of taking back ownership of the base. It gives the U.S. the same strategic reach that basing would have done but without all the hassle.”

Furthermore, recent irritants that worsened the China-Philippine dispute over the Spratleys and a few other islands in the South China Sea are being used both by the US and Philippine governments to justify the expanded US military presence in the country. These are on top of previous other alibis, such as to assist in the modernization and training of the AFP, to help boost the local economy, and to support the campaign vs terrorism. The US is also seeking access to an even wider range of ports and airports in the country.

3. Implications on peace and human rights advocacy

With increased US support for the Aquino regime as a whole, and for its armed services (AFP and PNP) in particular, we can expect a more complex situation and bigger challenges, with international, regional, and domestic factors entangled, in the area of peace-building and human rights advocacy.

We are starting to see in the country the impact of the “national security state” doctrine and practice in the Aquino government’s pursuit of laws versus cybercrime and in support of NSA-type surveillance, as well as in the current civic-action, psy-war, intelligence, and combat components of the counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan. At the same time, we are seeing the various pressure factors that are undermining the GPH-MILF and GPH-NDFP peace processes.

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