PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
CPP condemns US military claims of right to use firepower in “self-defense”
February 20, 2007
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today lambasted a statement made by a visiting top US military official allowing American soldiers involved in joint military exercises “if necessary and proper to defend yourself (with) firearms and firepower.”
“This is nothing but US military interventionism’ s standard doublespeak, ” said CPP spokesperson Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal. “As they have done in the past, the US is using the ‘joint military exercises’ to justify its military presence and induce conditions for higher levels of intervention and eventual outright military aggression. They intentionally let its troops become targets of hostile fire and once hit, they unleash all their forces and superior weaponry on the pretext of self-defense and launch all-out a ggression from then on.”
Rosal was reacting to statements made by Maj. Gen. Stephen Douglas Tom, head of the US contingent in the opening ceremonies of the 2007 RP-US Balikatan Exercises held yesterday at Camp Aguinaldo.
“In the first place, the US military has no business being in a theater of domestic conflict like the Philippines. The bandit operations of the Abu Sayyaf are a localized domestic concern in a corner of Mindanao. Even the ongoing nationwide revolutionary people’s war in the Philippines- -that the US is principally obsessed to get increasingly involved in–is an internal matter to the Filipino people. The US has no business intervening in these internal affairs of a supposedly sovereign nation.”
Rosal likewise scored plans to make way for US military interventionist activities under the cover of so-called “civic actions” such as erecting school buildings and carrying out “medical missions.”
“These so-called civil actions are just meant to play dow n the role of the US forces and camouflage the interventionist intent behind the Balikatan Exercises. They enhance the war interoperability of the AFP and US military and project American military might in the Philippines and in the Southeast Asian region.”
The CPP spokesperson warned against “heightening US military intervention in the Philippines with the full support of the puppet Arroyo regime.” He urged patriotic organizations, parties and forces to unite and demand an end to US military intervention and to scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement, the Military Defense Treaty of 1956 and other arrangements which allow US military intervention in the country.”
Reference:
Marco Valbuena
Media Officer
Cellphone Numbers: 09179776392 :: 09282242061
E-mail:cppmedia@gmail. com