MINDANAO AS THE NEXT GRAVEYARD OF U.S. WAR OF AGGRESSION

 

This is a statement of the ANTI-WAR COALITION MINDANAO, April 7, 2003. Secretariat Office: 812 Peacock St. , Phase IV, Ecoland Subd., Davao City. Email address: awc_mindanao@mailasia.com

 

 

Mindanao is the second largest island of the country and the 19th biggest island in the world.  Its land area of about 101,998 sq. kilometers has been reduced again by the government into a war zone.

 

 

Our strong sense of history tells us not to forget the extent of genocide campaign including women and children during the American occupation.  The late Marcos dictatorship had systematically fanned hatred using religion between the Moro and the Christians.  Such hatred resulted to massacres, burning of villages and gruesome mutilations of dead bodies.  The recent military offensives in Mindanao has caused displacement of more than 250,000  people living near the Liguasan marsh and the horrifying butchery of MILF forces in Lambayong by the elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and paramilitary groups last February.

 

 

Mindanao doesn't need anymore carpet bombing using the silk worm missiles or patriot missiles.  The recent cadavers floating in the island's river systems, women and children dying everyday in the evacuation centers, looted properties and mutilated survivors and civilian victims in the bombings calibratedly done in urban centers are enough proof of so-called "collateral damage" to understand that we are already in a state of war.  And all these more vicious atrocities have inflicted fresh wounds on old scars in the minds of the people.

 

 

The island is the next theater of war for the continuing domination of US interests in the country as well as in the Asian region.  This profit-driven war is pursued in the guise of neutralizing the global terrorist threats.

 

 

This war is also being orchestrated to gain control of the natural resources in the island of Mindanao.  US oil conglomerates have long been drooling over the 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas at the heart of Liguasan marsh and the quescent oil rich deposits in the Sulu Sea. To please their foreign masters, the Philippine government is hell-bent to flush out the armed insurgents and local populace in Liguasan marsh and decimate the brewing people's resistance through intensified militarization.

 

 

We cannot allow Mindanao to become a graveyard.  We are determined to thwart the war to defend our lives and save our natural resources for future generations.