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Valuing Life amid an Unjust War
by People's Forum on Peace for Life
Saturday, Jul. 17, 2004 at 8:21 AM
The challenge now is for the Philippine government to declare the Iraq war unjust and illegal. Unfortunately, the record of the Philippine ruling elite, especially under the present dispensation, provides scant hope that such a call will be heeded.
Candlelight prayer vigils and protest marches have become almost a daily affair in Metro Manila in the wake of the kidnapping of Angelo de la Cruz, a Filipino truck driver abducted by an Iraqi armed group near Fallujah last week. The scenes are reminiscent of candlelight vigils that filled the streets of Seoul barely a month ago surrounding the abduction and eventual beheading by Iraqi militants of South Korean translator Kim Sun-il. Italian security guard Fabrizio Quattrocchi and American businessman Nicholas Berg were similarly abducted and executed by their Iraqi captors in April and May respectively. Bulgarian truck driver Georgi Lazov, kidnapped and beheaded this week by Sun-il's captors, was the latest civilian casualty in the spate of hostage-takings that have marked Iraqi resistance against the unjust and illegal foreign occupation of their land.
Angelo's captors, Khaled Bin Al-Walid Squadrons of the Islamic Army of Iraq, threatened to behead this father of eight unless the Philippine government declares a clear intention to withdraw its troops from Iraq by the 20th of July, one month ahead of schedule. Filipinos, fearful that the fate of Fabrizio, Nick, Sun-il and Georgi would befall Angelo, and whose collective memory bears the pain of losing Flor Contemplacion, an overseas domestic helper hanged by Singaporean authorities on arguably false criminal charges eight years ago, registered a strong and united clamour to withdraw the troops in order to save the life of a fellow Filipino.
This Philippine government, embattled by a divided nation in the face of a contested victory in last May's national elections, gambled its historical alliance with the United States with the official announcement this week that it has begun the gradual withdrawal of its 51-person humanitarian contingent from Iraq.
The announcement of troop pullback was quickly rebuked by the United States (US) and the supporters of its occupation of Iraq as a concession to terrorists and an ill-planned move that would send wrong signals to Iraqi insurgents and render occupation troops and foreign civilians in Iraq vulnerable to more attacks. Comparisons have been drawn with the responses of South Korea and Bulgaria, praised by Secretary of State Colin Powell for "not blinking and not faltering even though they are being tested mightily." The former nation had junked the demand of Sun-il's captors for withdrawal and even promised to send in more troops to honour its commitment to support the US-led war on terrorism.
The announcement was also criticized by the foreign business community who have predicted that the troop withdrawal would result in a sharp reduction in already diminishing US aid to the Philippines as well as the loss of big contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq.
However, the Philippine government caved in not so much to the kidnappers' demand, but to popular clamour which has become harder to ignore in light of findings by top-level inquiries in the US and United Kingdom (UK) of serious flaws in the intelligence reports relied upon to justify the US-UK invasion of Iraq. The hostage crisis has projected to ordinary Filipinos, who are otherwise apathetic to world affairs except where they affect overseas Filipino workers, the perils that come with the Philippine government's subservience to US interests. Lawmakers in the country have called on government to seize the opportunity opened up by the hostage crisis to correct its mistake of supporting the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq and to shape an independent foreign policy.
Though widely perceived as ambiguous, token and a tactic to buy time and recover lost ground, the move by the Philippine government--regardless of the direction it takes after the hostage crisis--has sent shockwaves that is now challenging the once-solid foundations of the Coalition of the Willing, a dwindling alliance already reeling from the impacts of reports damning the integrity of US and UK intelligence and the controversy surrounding US treatment of Iraqi captives in the Abu Ghraib prison.
The Philippine government, notwithstanding the vagueness and populist intent behind its announcement of troop withdrawal, has, perhaps unwittingly, taken a faltering step towards adopting foreign policy options that may rile an old benefactor and only global superpower. The hostage crisis—which has seen the conflation of the national interest with the personal interest of saving the life of Angelo de la Cruz—offers an important opportunity for a nation that has been historically slavish to US dictates to begin to chart an independent course that would uphold, first and foremost, the life and well-being of its people.
The challenge now is for the Philippine government to declare the Iraq war unjust and illegal. Unfortunately, the record of the Philippine ruling elite, especially under the present dispensation, provides scant hope that such a call will be heeded.
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