US Interests in Mindanao

By Antonio C. Abaya

Written on Aug. 18, 2008

For the Standard Today,

August 19 issue

The Americans have two interests in the Mindanao-Sulu-Basilan theater of operations that are tied up with the controversy over the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) initialed with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) last July 27.

That MOA would have been signed last August 5 if the Supreme Court had not stopped it with a temporary restraining order (TRO), upon the petition of local government officials that they had not been consulted adequately and had not been told that part of their territory was being handed over to the MILF.

One. The Americans are worried by the expressed intention of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Islamic extremist organization, to create a pan-Islamic state that would encompass the entire territories of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, plus the southern (predominantly Muslim) provinces of Thailand, and some of the (heavily Muslim) provinces of Mindanao-Sulu-Basilan in the southern Philippines.

Such an Islamic state, if successfully formed, would create a choke point through which pass most of the oil imports of China , Hong Kong , Taiwan , South Korea and Japan , which collectively buy about 55 percent of US exports. On their prosperity depends the prosperity of the Americans. If these countries’ economies were to wither as a result of an oil embargo imposed by the JI, the US economy would also wither.

It is not just the free passage of oil that concerns the Americans. The area encompassed by the JI’s pan-Islamic state contains some of the richest petroleum and mineral deposits in the world, plus irreplaceable pools of indigenous technical and managerial manpower, as well as an established industrial infrastructure. Mindanao-Sulu are thought to hold vast deposits of oil and gas.

To keep this area away from the grasp of the JI, the Americans have established forward bases and listening posts in or off Sulu and Basilan, to monitor the activities of JI in Indonesia and Malaysia (where an American military presence would be resented by the locals), and from which they could launch pre-emptive strikes against JI in the future, if need be. (See my article Why the Americans are in Basilan and Sulu of June 6, 2002)

Two. The Americans see China as their next strategic enemy, after Islamic extremists, and are concerned about Chinese activities in the Spratly Islands , under which are believed vast deposits of petroleum and mineral ores.

Their forward bases and listening posts in Sulu and Basilan, though meant primarily to monitor JI activities in Indonesia and Malaysia , also serve their other purpose of monitoring Chinese activities in the Spratlys through intelligence-gathering ships and aircraft, as well as drones or pilot-less Predators.

These double-barreled operations in Mindanao-Sulu-Basilan in turn are dictated by a policy declaration by the neo-conservatives as early as September 2000 – one year before 9/11 and four months before George W. Bush assumed the presidency in January 2001.This declaration, titled Rebuilding America’s Defenses, was signed by the neo-cons gathered together as the Project for the New American Century or PNAC.

The neo-cons were/are headed by Dick Cheney (who became vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (who became defense secretary, since resigned), Paul Wolfowitz (who became Rumsfeld’s deputy, since resigned), Richard Perle (who became chairman of the Defense Board, since forced to resign), Jeb Bush (brother of George W.), Scooter Libby (c-o-s of Cheney, now serving a jail sentence for perjury) and various other certified hawks, every one of whom, BTW, - starting with George W - sought and received deferment, via various means, from military service in Vietnam….the chicken hawks.

(The 2003 invasion of Iraq is said to have been planned by Wolfowitz – famously known since as Wolfowitz of Arabia – as early as 1997.)

In this policy declaration, the neo-cons called for, among other things, a permanent US military presence in the Middle East (hence the wars in Iraq , Afghanistan , and, possibly soon, Iran ), regime change in Beijing (hence the constant putdowns against the Chinese), and increased US forces in Southeast Asia (hence the US presence in Mindanao-Sulu).

The chicken hawks also sought to “discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role,” hence their efforts to defang Russia, by offering NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, and putting up “missile defense shields” in Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, thus understandably infuriating the Russians.

In the Philippine context, the neo-cons may have debated among themselves how their dual-purpose presence in Mindanao-Sulu can be maintained, given the unreliability of President Arroyo.

In July 2004, President Arroyo withdrew the 51-man Philippine contingent from the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq to save the life of the kidnapped Angelo de la Cruz. In October the same year, she signed an agreement with Beijing for the joint exploration for oil in the Spratlys, which caused the Heritage Foundation, one of the three think tanks that draft policies for the Republican Party, to call her “the weakest leader in Asia .”

It was at this point, I believe, that the neo-cons, led by VP Dick Cheney, schemed to remove President Arroyo from power, using the Hello Garci tapes in July 2005 (which were probably electronic intercepts of the US National Security Agency) to embarrass and weaken her. I have several articles on this plot in 2005-2006, all archived in www.tapatt.org.

But President Arroyo proved too tough a nut to crack. She not only survived but even bounced back to approve 29 contracts with the Chinese in 2006-2007 for various projects, including one (the exceptionally corrupt ZTE broadband contract) that would have given the Chinese a ringside view of American moves and decisions in and about the Philippines. She was either tempting the fates or was blissfully ignorant of the geopolitical implications of her decisions. Last week, she was witness to two new contracts with the Chinese, this time for the mining of nickel in Zambales.

The controversial MOA-AD between the GRP and the MILF may be a sign that the Americans have decided that the MILF is a more reliable partner in the war on terror than the vastly unpopular and Chinese-dominated Arroyo. They may have deliberately suckered the GRP panel into the MOA-AD, knowing that the seriously flawed document would make Mrs. Arroyo more unpopular than she already is. And may lead to her downfall, which they had schemed to bring about in 2005.

Whether or not the MOA-AD leads to Bangsamoro independence is of no existential concern to the Americans, who have now established their bona fides with the MILF and can look forward to pursuing their twin goals in the region without too much hassle from the resident Muslims .

The “nationalist” politicians in Manila , who threw them out of their bases in 1991, can all go to hell in China . Certainly no asylum for them in San Francisco .

That is how the Chinese fortune cookie crumbles. *****

Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in acabaya.blogspot.com. Tony on YouTube in www.tapatt.org. .

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