AKBAYAN calls on GMA to pull-out troops immediately : QC IMC

Not one less for an illegal war
July 12, 2004

Akbayan Partylist today renewed its call on the Arroyo administration to immediately withdraw its troops from Iraq following the abduction of OFW Angelo dela Cruz, “ The obstinate and arrogant positioning of the Arroyo government to keep the troops until August 20 does not help at all,” said Akbayan Representative Loretta Ann P. Rosales who last year headed the Asian Peace Mission to Baghdad just before the US attacked Iraq.

On the other hand, Akbayan President Ronald Llamas explained that previous cases of abduction in Iraq like those of American Nick Berg and that of a South Korean have proven that extremist militants undertaking such kidnappings in Iraq have shown no compulsion in killing hostages unless their demands are met “We do not condone such terrorist activities” explained Llamas, “but Angelo dela Cruz would not be in danger today if our government had not supported the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq.”

“This erroneous policy of back stopping the continued presence of US troops courtesy of Filipino soldiers naturally made us targets for the extremist retaliation,” Rosales explained.

Rosales firmly believes the only way to immediately ensure the safety of OFWs in the Middle East is to keep the country away from the US agenda in Iraq.

Llamas for his part suggests that government should learn from Angelo’s case, “The government does not fully appreciate the politics involved between the US and the middle eastern countries” he lamented. “It should reconsider its own relations with those countries and be more sensitive to their sentiments and better understand why the Middle East generally resents the US he explained.

“Unless she can do that she has no business sending our people there under the constant threat to their well-being,” Llamas demanded

“Remittances from OFWs and military aid from the US are the real reasons why GMA is hesitant to pull out of Iraq” Llamas said “I hope she’s not willing to sacrifice one life for the dollars the government is getting in return”

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Government Support for Iraq Invasion Spell Doom for OFW’s AKBAYAN calls on GMA to pull-out troops immediately

July 9, 2004

AKBAYAN Party-List and the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) today condemned the kidnapping and hostaging of Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz in Iraq and said that the Arroyo administration should be made to answer for its refusal to withdraw Filipino troops from the US-led coalition in that country.

Ronald Llamas, AKBAYAN President believes de la Cruz was taken hostage precisely because of the Philippine government’s alliance with the United States which maintains a presence in the country despite the turn-over of authority to Iraqi officials last June 28.

“We have said time and again that the sooner we get our troops out of Iraq the safer our OFWs in the Middle East will be,” said Llamas. “For as long as our government continues to legitimize the continuing US occupation of that country under the guise of a compliant administration, we will be a target for terrorist forces,” he added.

What the government has done instead, according to AKBAYAN Party-List Representative Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, “is to fully support the US-led invasion of Iraq in eager anticipation of jobs that will be available for Filipinos in the reconstruction of Iraq,” she explained.

The two leaders of AKBAYAN reiterated their stance that Filipino troops be pulled out immediately, “not because this is what the terrorists demand, but because it is the right thing to do,” expressed Hontiveros-Baraquel.

“We have said from the very start that the US invasion of Iraq violated international law and the basic tenets of human rights,” Hontiveros-Baraquel warned. “We have foreseen the risks supporting that war entailed and the benefits were not worth it at all. Now the Arroyo administration is faced with a major international relations crisis and we have the government’s unpopular and illogical position on the Iraq war to blame for this,” Hontiveros-Baraquel added.

Llamas, for his part, lamented that “The government should not have waited for such an incident to occur before taking immediate steps to assure the safety and well-being of our countrymen in the region,” he said “considering that de la Cruz is not even directly working in Iraq but in Saudi Arabia, he was just doing a sidejob in Iraq because it paid higher,” he explained.

Josua Mata of the APL stressed that President Arroyo should now heed the example of the Spanish government which retracted its troops from Iraq after the Madrid bombing this year, as well as other Latin American countries. “Ensure the safe release of de la Cruz and get our troops out of Iraq quickly,” Rosales advised. “Eventually the government will also have to rethink its policy on the Middle Eastern region and how it relates to the interests of our OFWs,” he said.

Mata also suggested that the Philippine government take a strong position towards a greater role for the United Nations in charting the future of a rebuilding Iraq. “We cannot change the fact that it’s been illegally invaded, but this time, the government can still backtrack from a misguided policy and take the high ground in pushing for a cooperative, truly multilateral and rights-based framework together with the international community in charting what happens to Iraq in the future.”
END U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ! BRING HOME PHILIPPINE TROOPS NOW!
Statement of Iraq Solidarity Campaign (Philippines)

We, representatives of various organizations in the Philippines, have formed ourselves into a solidarity alliance called “Iraq Solidarity” in support of the Iraqi people’s intensifying struggle against the illegal occupation of their land and to demand the withdrawal of US, British and other allied troops from Iraq. From our own government, we demand the immediate pullout of Philippine troops in Iraq.

We raise these demands as the body count to this illegal war and occupation continue to pile up. In the first three weeks of April alone, more than 1,000 Iraqis, most of them civilians, and at least 110 U.S. soldiers have been killed.

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Support the Iraqi Peoples’ Resistance

Over the past few weeks, we have seen the conflict in Iraq intensify as the resistance to the illegal US-led occupation continues to gather strength and unity.

March 20 marked one-year after the invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein has been captured and is now a prisoner of the United States government. And yet, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Today, the illegal occupation of Iraq has led to an uprising of the Iraqi people mobilized, organized and armed, united around a single unmistakable demand: an end to US-led occupation.

The US government has called the uprising a handiwork of a small group of “thugs, goons” and mainly “foreign fighters” and has even tried to link it to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida network. But news reports, even from journalists who were “embedded” with the occupation army and supported the invasion, describe an armed uprising backed by millions of Iraqis: workers, students, shopkeepers, women, children and especially, the youth. Journalists describe children as young as ten and thirteen, as well as women, who have taken up arms against the occupation.

Several cities in Iraq are now no-go zones for occupation troops and are under the control of a people armed. News reports are streaming through of the occupation forces losing control of Fallujah, Najaf, Kufa, Kerbala: names of cities previously unknown to many of us, but are now known around the world as battlegrounds of the continuing resistance

The US-led coalition is determined to crush the uprising at any cost. This is crucial to the US imperialist agenda: a) because they have huge economic interests at stake as they attempt to control one of the largest source of oil in the world, Iraq, in a region, the Middle East, strategically crucial to US and other imperialist interests; b) to deepen and expand US political and military control over the Middle East; and c) to gain market access and control over Iraq’s economy as part of its neoliberal globalization project..

The US army, the most powerful military force on earth, is responding with brutal force against the Iraqi people resisting occupation with whatever means they possess. In a chilling declaration of their intent to crush the people’s uprising, the Bush administration has named its military operation in Iraq “Operation Resolute Sword”.

Fallujah is a symbol of the people’s resistance. In one week the US-led occupation forces killed over 600 Iraqis, including hundreds of women and children, as they tried to retake control of the city. Some 60,000 refugees, one-third of the cities population, have fled the city to Baghdad. There are eyewitness reports of US B52 bombers being used to attack people as they fled.

The US government announced a much publicized eight-hour “cease fire” to negotiate with the resistance. But even during this declared break in the fighting, US snipers were taking shots at people’s heads, killing several, including many women.

News reports also state that the resistance has united the two main Muslim communities in Iraq. The erstwhile divided Shia and the Sunnis, have united and are now fighting together as one.. In Fallujah, a Sunni city, thousands of Shia across the country are donating blood in a dramatic show of solidarity, for their Sunni brothers and sisters fighting in Fallujah.

RP troops, out of Iraq now!

Amidst all this, there are Filipino forces, sent by the government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, serving on the side of the US occupiers against a people fighting to liberate their country, from those former colonial powers that Filipinos fought against in their quest for genuine national liberation

Our government claims that the Filipino forces are non-combat troops and that they are in Iraq for “humanitarian” reasons. There is no middle ground in occupation and uprising. In Iraq you are either with the occupation or against it. It is also clear to everyone that the GMA government sent the Filipino forces in Iraq in line with its all-out support to George Bush’s “War on terror”. In Iraq, our troops are viewed as mercenaries, fighting a war for money and profit.

The action of the GMA government is not only shamefully illegal, it is also dangerous! It is because of this regime’s support for the US “war on terror” (which has also been described as the Bush administration’s “War of Terror”), which is a code for colonial-style occupation to advance imperialist interests, that the Philippines is under threat of retaliatory Madrid-style terrorist bombings. The Madrid bombings have, in fact, led to the electoral collapse of the Spanish ruling party and the newly elected Zapatero government’s decision to pullout Spanish troops from Iraq.

The Bush administration has threatened economic sanctions against the Philippines if Philippine troops are pulled out of Iraq. This is tantamount to blackmail and a gross violation of national sovereignty. A genuinely sovereign nation must have the right to decide its own foreign policy without being dictated to by any foreign power.

We call on the Arroyo administration to immediately withdraw support to the US-led "war on terror" and to pull out the Philippine troops from Iraq now. We also demand from the GMA government that it ensures the safety of Filipino workers whose lives are in danger in Iraq and secure safe passage for those who want to leave the country.
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We call on everyone to join us in solidarity actions to show our support for the Iraqi people and their resistance against the occupation so that they can achieve genuine national sovereignty and freedom.

Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (JPICC-AMRSP) * Focus on the Global South (Philippines) * Young Moro Professionals Network * Gathering for Peace * Peace Camp * Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD) * Bukluran ng Maggagawang Pilipino (BMP) * AKBAYAN * ALTERNATIBA * Anti-Globalization Movement (AGM) * GOMBURZA * Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya(KPD) * Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataaan (SDK) * Youth for Nationalism and Democracy (YND) * SANLAKAS Youth*Resource Center for People's Development(RCPD) * Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) * SANLAKAS * Gazton Z. Ortigas Peace Institute * Manggagawa para sa Kalayaan ng Bayan (MAKABAYAN) * Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) * Center for Agrarian Reform Empowerment and Transformation (CARET) * Pambansang Katipunan ng Makabayang Magbubukid (PKMM) * League of Urban Poor for Action (LUPA) * Pagkakaisa ng Kababaihan (KAISA KA) * Nuclear Free Philippines Coalition (NFPC) * Teatrong Bayan * Progresibong Alyansa ng Mangigngisda (PANGISDA) * Confederation for Freedom and Democracy (CONFREEDEM) * Women's Education, Development and Productivity, Research & Advocacy Organization * People’s Task Force for Bases Clean Up Phils .* PADAYON * SARILAYA * Liga Manggagawa * Pambansang Katipunan ng Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (PKMP)

Alternatiba - http://members.optusnet.com.au/~luis06/Alternatiba.htm
Iraq Solidarity Campaign - http://www.iraqsolidarity.blogspot.com
Akbayan - http://www.akbayan.org