“With the aim to dissipate people’s anger around the world, the master war-monger US President Barack Obama and his puppet Philippine President Benigno Aquino desperately attempts to place out of sight its war agenda by using the all-too-familiar shroud of“anti-corruption, pro-peace and human rights” slogans. The catch phrases, the two expect, would lend a veneer of acceptability to their treachery to the Filipino people,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay.
“With the aim to dissipate people’s anger around the world, the master war-monger US President Barack Obama and his puppet Philippine President Benigno Aquino desperately attempts to place out of sight its war agenda by using the all-too-familiar shroud of“anti-corruption, pro-peace and human rights” slogans. The catch phrases, the two expect, would lend a veneer of acceptability to their treachery to the Filipino people,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay.
“The US government cannot veer away from its record of intervention and invasion of countries, which is actually what its Asian pivot is all about,” said Palabay. “Obama and Aquino cannot camouflage the treachery involved in the signing of the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which does not only violate the Philippine Constitution but is also a sell-out of the nation’s sovereignty," Palabay added.
Karapatan said the US’s so-called concern on human rights abuses in the Philippines is “duplicitous” as the “US is equally responsible as the BS Aquino government for the said abuses through its military aid, deployment of troops and a US-directed counterinsurgency program Oplan Bayanihan. The US is the main funder of the AFP’s war chest.”
This year, the US Congress lifted restrictions in granting military aid to the Philippines andapproved U$50 million, on top of the $40 million pledge made by US State Secretary John Kerry’s in December 2013.In 2011, US military aid was reduced to U$11 million from U$507 million in 2001-2010. The cut was due to international pressure to stop the rampant killings in the Philippines. In 2012, the US military aid rose to $30 million and has since then increased steadily.
Human rights and peace
The increase in aid has emboldened the BS Aquino government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to go on a killing spree which resulted in 21 victims of extrajudicial killings and 23 victims of frustrated killings for the first quarter of 2014 alone.
“This is actually the kind of peace the US-Aquino regime wants, nothing more. The US-Aquino regime uses the surrender-or-get-arrested/killed approach to peace negotiation with the National Democratic Front.The inclusion of the CPP-NPA in the US list of terrorists is among the major obstacles in the peace negotiation between the GPH and the NDFP. You cannot talk peace with the NDFP if its peace consultants are killed, abducted and missing or detained. You cannot talk about peace whenthe US and PH governments use the militarist approach to derail the negotiations on the substantive agenda on socio-economic and political reforms,” said Palabay.
“Both Obama and Aquino are so adept at dangling human rights and peace issues to prop up its image as it prepares for an increased and permanent presence in the Philippines for its vaunted Asian pivot,” she said. ###