| Security was beefed up after
intelligence reports saying some groups might try to disrupt the controversial
war games.
Asked about heavy security
around the military headquarters, Colonel Roland Dedatabali, assistance
chief for operations, said: “There are some groups planning to disrupt
the exercises but we will preempt that.”
Senior officers from the
two Pacific allies presided over the formal opening at the heavily guarded
headquarters of the southern Philippine military command in Zamboanga city,
near Basilan island, where Abu Sayyaf guerrillas have been holding a U.S.
missionary couple and a Filipina nurse hostage for more than eight months.
The United States has listed
the Abu Sayyaf as among groups allied with Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden’s
al-Qaida network, accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks on New
York and Washington.
About 600 U.S. soldiers,
from the American mainland and from U.S. bases in the Pacific, are to take
part in the planned six-month exercises.
SOOTHING WORDS
As the exercises began,
an American diplomat sought to ease fears that U.S. troops will play a
more aggressive role.
Robert Fitts, the U.S. charge
d’affaires in the Philippines, told 36 American and 100 Filipino troops
on the parade square that the exercises will “help eliminate the terrorist
parasites who threaten Filipinos as well as the United States.”
Filipino officers said the
U.S. soldiers will mainly train the local troops on helicopter night flying
and in other tactics involving sophisticated equipment.
But some special forces may
accompany Filipino soldiers into combat zones and are authorized to shoot
in self-defense. Opposition politicians say the mission violates a constitutional
clause which restricts foreign combat troops on sovereign soil.
Fitts countered the impression
by some politicians and opposition groups that President Bush’s State of
the Union Address issued a veiled threat to intervene aggressively in the
Philippines’ war on Muslim extremists.
In his address, Bush said
that if countries do not deal with terrorist activities on their soil,
“America will.”
But Fitts said Thursday that
Bush was not referring to the Philippines.
“Nobody can doubt that the
Philippine government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines is extremely
serious in combating terrorism,” Fitts said.
Fitts also said the exercise
was only one of 16 or so planned for this year between U.S. and Philippine
soldiers, and one of dozens more in recent years.
About 2,000 U.S. Marines
are expected in the Philippines in April for the next joint exercise.
SCUFFLES IN MANILA
In Manila, a scuffle broke
out between police and about 50 leftists in front of the U.S. Embassy in
the latest of small, almost daily demonstrations against the exercise.
Police made no arrests and the protesters later dispersed without further
incident.
Another group of 30 people
burned a U.S. flag and a placard with a picture of Bush.
Officials said they overcame
last-minute snags on the terms of the current training mission, particularly
assurances sought by the Philippines that the Americans would not engage
in combat.
The Abu Sayyaf, thought to
number as many as 800 fighters mainly on two southern islands, kidnapped
Wichita, Kan., missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham last May 27 along
with Corona, Calif., resident Guillermo Sobero and 17 Filipinos from a
beach resort.
They beheaded Sobero and
several other hostages. The rest escaped or were released, some reportedly
for ransom.
Mrs. Burnham’s sister, Mary
Jones, left the Philippines on Thursday after making a radio appeal earlier
in the week for the Abu Sayyaf to release the hostages.
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