Resolution of the International Executive Committee of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International

Philippines

Resolution on "All Out War" by the US-Estrada regime and in support of the RWPP

1. When President Estrada declared an "all out war" policy against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao, he intended to finish the war in a few weeks. He has mobilised almost three quarters of his armed forces (air force, army and navy) led by the elite force trained by the US through the US-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement.

2. The objective of this war is to militarily weaken the MILF and to draw it to the negotiating table where the Estrada government can impose its concept of peace on it. Using the modern military hardware provided by the US like the Global Positioning System (GPS), satellite photos and heavy weaponry, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) attacked the 47 camps of the MILF including those camps where the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Bongcayao Brigade (RPA-ABB), the armed unit of the Rebolusyonaryng Partido ng Maggaqawa ng Pilipinos (RPMP) or the Revolutionary Workers' Party of the Philippines share with the MILF.

3. The Moro people has been fighting for their right to self-determination for more than 50 years. In fact, it has constistently resisted all Philippine colonisers and invaders for more than 300 years. Currently the struggle of the Moro people for self-determination is led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Banga Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF). The Revolutionary Workers' Party of the Philippines has been supporting this struggle of the Moro people.

4. The Estrada military solution to a non-military problem has been a failure. But it has displaced almost a million people in Mindanao. Many of these people are children and old people are forced to live in the "plastic tents" in the evacuation centres. Several hundred children have died because of lack of food and medicine in these places.

5. The RWPP has been working together with other progressive groups among the three peoples in Mindanao, the Moro, Lumads (indigenous peoples) and the majority Christians to achieve a comprehensive solution to the problems of Mindanao. There have been gains achieved in this already but the Estrada regime and US imperialism would not want to pursue this.

6. It was not circumstantial that at the peak of Estrada's military offensives against the MILF, the Abu Sayyaf (Muslim fundamentalist group) came back to life. They carried out several kidnappings of Christians and foreign tourists in a nearby Malaysian island resort. These acts made the headlines locally as well as internationally. In fact at an early stage they had announced political demands as conditions for the release of the hostages. The propaganda machinery of the Estrada government had successfully packaged the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF as one. The terroristic acts of the Abu Sayyaf justified the arming of the Christians in Mindanao to fight not only the Abu Sayyaf but the MILF or the Muslims as well. The Muslims and Christians who have been neighbours for a long time have begun to mistrust each other.

7. After thousands of lives lost and heavy destruction of homes and farms, Estrada announced military victory over the MILF, especially after the capture of the main camp of the MILF (Camp Abubakir). The leadership of the MILF announced jihad, not so much to recapture their camps but to defend their cause and their homeland. In the last part of July 2000, Estrada sent his representatives to the Foreign Ministerial meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in Kuala Lumpur to block the application of the MILF as observer in the OIC. A week after this he went to the United States to ask for military assistance from President Clinton.

8. The "all out war" policy of the Estrada government is not only directed against the MILF. The strategic role of Mindanao for the success of the neoliberal project of capitalist globalization in the Philippines is the main reason for this war. It is a war directed at all those who will oppose capitalist globalization. The Revolutionary Workers' Party in the Philippines has been one of the main forces leading the campaign to stop this war, not only in Mindanao but in the whole country. It has been launching grassroots based peace conferences (local and international) and conducting humanitarian projects for those who have been dislocated by war.

9. At present the MILF has been conducting guerilla counteroffensives agianst the AFP. The war has totally drained the resources of the government, so that it has overshot by more than 30% of the allowable deficit by the IMF. At the peak of the military offensives the government was spending more than a million dollars a day. This is one of the major causes of the economic crisis in the country.

10. The crisis has worsened in the last three weeks because of the scandal faced by President Estrada. One of the members of his inner circle has exposed Estrada's involvement in illegal gambling in the country. And now he is undergoing an impeachment procedure in the Congress. The bourgeois political parties have taken advantage of this scandal to further weaken Estrada.

11. In this difficult situation there is an urgent need for forging solidarity among the progressive parties and groups in the world to stop the continuation of the "all out war" policy of the Estrada government directly or indirectly supported by the US imperialists. There is an urgent need for us to support the struggle of the Moro people to self-determination and the progressive organisations embodying this struggle.

12. The Revolutionary Workers' Party of the Philippines has been struggling with the Moro people to attain their political objective of self government through helping them in the revolutionary work of building and strengthening organizations among the working and peasant class to ensure the proletarian content of the right to self-determination. The FI expresses its full internationalist solidarity with the RWPP comrades and pledges to continue its political and material support to them.