EWS RELEASE
February 28, 2007

Bayan Muna rejects Kenney's "crocodile tears"; Washington asked to
stop military aid to Manila

House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Representative Satur C.
Ocampo today branded US Ambassador Kristie Kenney's expression of
American willingness to help stop extrajudicial killings in the
Philippines as "nothing but crocodile tears".

"If the US sincerely wanted to help the Philippines to stop the
killings, Washington must stop all types of military assistance to and
intervention in Philippine internal affairs," said Ocampo.

"Kenney's crocodile tears cannot hide US complicity in the bloody
crimes of the AFP top brass, and in the brutal means taken by the AFP
against alleged terrorists, communists and communist symphatizers who
have involuntarily disappeared or were extrajudicially executed,"
Ocampo explained.

The House opposition leader said "the AFP learned its evil tricks from
the masters -- the US military."

Ocampo said that the AFP obtains strategic military advice, war
materiel and other assistance from the US. "Following the US baton,
the AFP tags its enemies as terrorists or enemies of the state. The
GRP-NDFP peace process has thus been compromised, and  people's
organizations are lumped together as alleged fronts of the Communist
Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army."

Following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York,
the US government classified as terrorist groups the CPP and NPA.

"Acting like little brown brothers, the AFP top brass followed suit,
and upped the ante by attacking non-combatants and civilians merely
suspected of sympathizing with the CPP and NPA. The end result is the
unending spate of political killings of activists, journalists,
lawyers and churchpeople that the UN prober have said are the
handiwork of the military," said Ocampo.

"In practical terms, the notorious Oplan Bantay Laya is a
US-supported, US-directed and US-inspired counter-insurgency program.
Even the use of military death squads composed usually of
motorcycle-riding gunmen wearing bonnets was first devised by US
military advisers in Latin America and have been imported to the
Philippines of late," said Ocampo.

Ocampo said that "the scuttling of the peace talks with the National
Democratic Front and the adoption of an all-out war policy along the
lines of Oplan Bantay Laya are first and foremost a result of US
military misdirection and intervention. The AFP, which owes to the US
its strategies and tactics, merely tows the US line and rampages on
human rights and international humanitarian law."

Up to now, a Joint US Military Advisory Group maintains an office in
Manila and helps direct internal security operations. Bayan Muna also
notes permanent US military presence in the Philippines under the
cover of unending joint US-RP war games.

The Central Intelligence Agency is known to maintain its regional
center in Manila.

Ocampo said the public should remember that the US waited until the
1986 People Power uprising before withdrawing support for the Marcos
dictatorship and thereby allowed the dictator to massacre, kill,harass
and involuntarily disappear tens of thousands of Filipinos. ###