YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/5-7/2011
Almost every presidential appointee hides behind the skirts or pants of his or her boss.
When under pressure to resign, they pass the buck to the President and put him or her on the spot. Their byword is: “I serve at the pleasure of the President.”
A couple of months ago, P-Noy shared his feelings towards some of his officials with the media and the public. He was not getting pleasure from three of his secretaries. He did not name them publicly. However, he did confide the objects of his displeasures in private and they leaked out to the media.
One version of who constituted his pet peeves had three names: Secretary of Tourism Alberto “Bertie” Lim, Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs, the “PAPA,” Ronald Llamas, and Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Ging Quintos Deles.
Another version leaked out by Ramon Casiple, an ally of Akbayan and a frequent resource person in media fora and interviews, substituted “Massaging” Secretary Ricky Carandang for PAPA Ronald Llamas.
Bertie and Enteng
Since then, Bertie Lim resigned effective August 31.
Bertie is not the brother of former Secretary of Tourism Narzalina Lim. He is the brother of Cheche Lim Lazaro, nephew of Fr. Pat Lim, son of Secretary Fanny Aldaba Lim, and grandson of Gen. Vicente Lim.
His last job before joining the Aquino Administration was Executive Director of the Makati Business Club. He was identified then and now as an advocate of the “Open Skies Policy”.
Bertie and his Department of Tourism suffered the earliest casualty when Undersecretary Enteng Romano was the first sub-cabinet level Aquino appointee to resign.
He was forced to immediately resign after the exposure of what appeared to be the inordinate expenditure for a planned replacement of the old but successful “Wow Philippines” Tourism program with the newly designed “Filipinas Kay Ganda.”
Enteng was a convenor of the Black and White Movement way back in 2005. His immediate and irrevocable resignation was in sharp contrast to another official who earlier refused to resign.
Rico, Ronald, etc.
Department of Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Rico Puno belonged to the “Kabarilans” of P-Noy.
Other “Kabarilans” are PAPA Ronald Llamas and DOTC Assistant Secretary for Land Transport Virginia “I Shall Return” Torres.
Puno had been accused and exposed by retired CBCP President and Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz as the Aquino Administration’s link to the jueteng lords.
Puno even merited a visit and an appeal by P-Noy’s second cousin, Tonyboy Ongsiako Cojuangco to Archbishop Cruz.
The appeal was for the Archbishop to go slow on his exposés.
Kapalpakan sa Daang Matuwid
Then, Puno turned out to be the highest ranking national official (after the initially sleeping [up to a bit past 11 am] President) responsible for the shameful PNP performance in the Luneta Hostage Massacre.
In the wake of that “kapalpakan,” it was discovered that he was an illegal participant in and beneficiary of the dismemberment of the Department of Interior and Local Government.
P-Noy, in his ignorance of the law and in pursuit of jueteng money, had carved out the peace and order sector of the Department including the PNP to be under the exclusive reign of Kabarilan Rico Puno.
Secretary Jesse Robredo was perceived to be uncompromising about jueteng.
Jueteng lords had crept into the “Daang Matuwid”.
There were IOU’s to pay.
After the Incident Investigation and Review Committee turned out a negative recommendation regarding Undersecretary Puno, he refused to resign and trotted out his self-importance.
According to him he was one of the few who could tame P-Noy. What did he mean by that? What was it that P-Noy had to be tamed of?
Another time, he said that P-Noy would have to think twice before…. Before what… ?
And again, he forced P-Noy to accept whatever pleasure he could give.
Fired by Two Lady Presidents
In sharp contrast to all of them, I proudly proclaim that I served at the great displeasure of at least two Presidents, Cory and GMA. Both of them fired me.
Cory had appointed me to three positions: Acting Assistant Director of the Bureau of Telecommunications (March 1986), Deputy Commissioner (March 1986-March 1987), and, later, Commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission (March 1987-November 1989).
GMA appointed me as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (March 2001).
In the beginning of our professional relationship, I must have been pleasing to the two of them.
In Cory’s case, I had been an ally of the Liberal Party since 1970.
Ninoy was then the Secretary General of the party. I had first been to their Times Street home in August 1972.
Our family members were sympathizers and supporters of the incarcerated Ninoy throughout the martial law years.
In the April 7, 1978 elections for assemblymen (on a regionwide basis) for the Interim Batasang Pambansa, we supported Laban as well as the April 6 Noise Barrage.
Covering for Cory
In 1980, 1981 (with my wife Baby) and 1982, I visited Ninoy and Cory in Boston.
The organizations I worked for, Kasapi, A6LM, PDP-Laban, JAJA, Atom, Bandila and Kompil, supported Ninoy and later on Cory.
In November 1983, I was instrumental in how Congressman Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, Jr. became active in PDP-Laban and its Secretary General.
After that, we often held PDP-Laban meetings at the executive lounge (sixth floor) of the Jose Cojuangco and Sons building on De la Rosa Street in Legaspi Village, Makati.
At EDSA, I and for three and a half years of my government service in the Aquino Administration, we never thought twice about laying down our lives for democracy and for the Cory Administration.
While I was Cory’s highly visible NTC Commissioner during numerous Coup threats and attempts, my wife was a Presidential Assistant Protocol Officer.
As such she would play the role of the President during practice parades.
One practice she failed to attend was the one for the March 1987 PMA graduation.
The bomb intended for Cory during the actual graduation exploded prematurely during the earlier practice.
The WAC who acted the role of Cory was killed.
GMA’s Run
GMA, too, must have been pleased with me initially.
In 1997, I rejoined Peping Cojuangco, this time in Kampi.
Kampi was the political party GMA organized as a vehicle for her intended campaign and run for the Presidency in May 1998.
GMA’s campaign manager was Peping.
There, I was designated Desk Officer for Region XI (Davao) in Peping’s side of two parallel organizations. My counterpart in GMA’s side was Mara Santos as Regional Political Officer.
Mara is the daughter-in-law of the late Luis Santos of Nueva Ecija and Davao.
Lui was a WW II Hukbalahap who resettled in Davao. He became the Chief of Police of Davao City, then ran for Mayor and won.
In May 1987, he was elected one of the three Congressmen of Davao City. He was one of the close allies of Speaker Ramon V. Mitra.
When Local Governments Secretary Jaime Ferrer, who replaced Nene Pimentel after the God Save the Queen Coup Plot of November 1986, was assassinated, he was appointed as DLG Secretary and served as such almost until the end of the Cory Administration.
He, however, resigned when Cory endorsed Fidel V. Ramos as her Presidential candidate for 1992. Lui remained loyal to Mitra and the LDP to the end.
However, GMA did not run for President. She slid down to Vice President.
She illegally tried to merge the Kampi with Lakas-NUCD-UMDP (The COMELEC would later rule that the merger was null and void).
Erap won and GMA won.
I supported both of them and had a calling card made with the words – “Kakampi ni Erap.”
History will Tell
All of the Presidential candidates that I supported and voted for from 1986 to 2010 won.
However, Cory, Miriam and FPJ were cheated in 1986, 1992 and 2004, respectively.
EDSA I righted things for Cory and the Philippines.
We are still waiting for history to put the record straight in regards to Miriam and FPJ.
We are seeing some light in the case of FPJ.
An active PNP officer, Col. Rafael Santiago exposed the Batasan break-in and switching of 2004 Election Returns.
Poor Miriam is at a disadvantage.
Too many not-so-bright people think that she is crazy and deserved to be cheated.
(To be continued)
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
The ICC (Imperialists’ Criminal Court)
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/5/2011
The African Union (AU), a body representing 54 nations of that vast continent, called on all its members last July 1 to disregard the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Libya’s Moammar Kadhafi. Jean Ping, Gabonese diplomat and current chairman of the AU’s administrative branch, referred to the ICC as “discriminatory” in that it only goes after alleged crimes committed in Africa while ignoring the many serious ones perpetrated by the West in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Before that, there was already increasing criticism in Africa against the ICC, a court repeatedly denounced as an instrument of neocolonialism. A few years earlier (in 2009), an arrest warrant issued by the ICC against President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was similarly rejected by the AU. Bashir had even challenged the order by traveling all over Africa, tempting Western powers to coax any of the AU member-states to arrest him — something that the union obviously did not capitulate to.
Elsewhere within the AU, the ICC also managed to perform a similar stunt. In Côte d’Ivoire, a year after its elections were marked with massive fraud by the camp of former IMF executive-turned-presidential candidate Alassane Ouatara, which was used by the West, led by France, as a pretext for storming the presidential palace of then incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo to effect his arrest, the ICC is now threatening to launch investigations into alleged post-election violence there.
Still, the earliest target and victim of the ICC was Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. The late journalist Olley Maruma wrote about this in the Southern Times of South Africa: “Following the defeat of Serbia, Milosevic was abducted by Nato commandos and taken to the Hague… That the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, was the principal organizer of Milosevic’s trial at the Hague, exposed the fraud of the entire enterprise.”
In his article, “ICC — ‘Western kangaroo court,’” Maruma tells us that “In Africa, the International Criminal Court at the Hague is considered by many to be a Western kangaroo court set up to hound, jail and silence African and Third World leaders who refuse to submit to the grip of Western hegemony and domination… One hundred and eight states are members of the court. Among those that have refused to join are China, Russia, India and the United States… The widely-held negative view of the ICC was neatly summed up by Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, the president of the United Nations General Assembly… (who) dismissed the ICC’s indictment on Al-Bashir as ‘absurd and politically motivated… (noting that) A few people with a very dubious past and with very little credibility pretend to know better than the whole African Union’… (which is why he argued) that for international justice to regain its credibility, ‘it would be important to begin by indicting people from powerful nations, not to pick on the smaller ones.’”
The powerful, and to be precise Western, nations have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and, now, in Libya (with 30,000 bombs dropped in 8,000 runs). The numbers of innocent lives these Western powers have killed cannot be matched by the military capacity of those tyrants even if they had the desire to.
All told, the ICC is a kangaroo court of the West; as a forum for justice, it is a fraud. The West’s crimes abound with impunity, yet there are a number of Filipino personalities still praising the ICC, such as writer Ceres Doyo or legal “luminaries” Raul Pangalangan and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago. Could this be motivated by what many believe is a naked ambition (of some) to join the ICC bench to jump in cadence to the march of Western imperialism?
An honest look at the record of the ICC is all that is required to see the truth behind it, as our 18-year-old scholar and regular radio text-discussant Angeline Lim messaged to us: “The ICC is running after Kadhafi, but the likes of Kissinger, Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney, and particularly Cheney who was responsible for the Abu Ghraib prison tortures (one of the most disturbing pictures leaked out was that of a detainee tied to a wooden crate with electric wires attached to his private parts, hands and feet), have clearly violated the Geneva Conventions and human rights, yet they are untouchable; this clearly shows the ICC is only after select enemies.”
And in another text she said: “Gen. Wesley Clark, commander of the Nato air war against Serbia, is liable under the Geneva Convention of ’49 for the illegal bombing of water treatment plants, hospitals, and schools which killed 2,000 while Bosnian Gen. Obrenovic who led the assault on Srebrenica was turned over to the war crimes court in the Hague. This is the same situation for the ICC against Milosevic.” Quite simply, Angeline is able to easily discern the truth from historical facts as she is untainted by a fraudulent mind.
Back here at home, the Philippines also has its own miniscule secessionist minority — the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), along with its rogues such as commander Umbra Kato — that has continued to sow violence and terror to attract international attention and invite foreign intervention.
Catering to the foreign powers seeking entry into our areas of natural wealth, particularly oil and gas in Mindanao and the Sulu Sea, the MILF, as did the Kosovo Liberation Army and the al-Qaeda in Libya (both Nato instruments), is sure to carry out civilian massacres to compel the Philippine military to react and bring about collateral damage, which will serve as basis for an ICC indictment. Philippine police and military forces are then going to be stymied or criminalized, both resulting in the debilitation of the authority and sovereignty of the RP government.
As Western powers through the ICC have done this before, they will surely do it again to regain as many lost ground since World War II, all in the advancement of their neocolonial resurgence this century.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “Sci-Tech Innovations: Key to Filipinos’ Economic Emancipation” with DoST NCR Director Tess Fortuna and DoST innovators; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/5/2011
The African Union (AU), a body representing 54 nations of that vast continent, called on all its members last July 1 to disregard the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Libya’s Moammar Kadhafi. Jean Ping, Gabonese diplomat and current chairman of the AU’s administrative branch, referred to the ICC as “discriminatory” in that it only goes after alleged crimes committed in Africa while ignoring the many serious ones perpetrated by the West in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Before that, there was already increasing criticism in Africa against the ICC, a court repeatedly denounced as an instrument of neocolonialism. A few years earlier (in 2009), an arrest warrant issued by the ICC against President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was similarly rejected by the AU. Bashir had even challenged the order by traveling all over Africa, tempting Western powers to coax any of the AU member-states to arrest him — something that the union obviously did not capitulate to.
Elsewhere within the AU, the ICC also managed to perform a similar stunt. In Côte d’Ivoire, a year after its elections were marked with massive fraud by the camp of former IMF executive-turned-presidential candidate Alassane Ouatara, which was used by the West, led by France, as a pretext for storming the presidential palace of then incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo to effect his arrest, the ICC is now threatening to launch investigations into alleged post-election violence there.
Still, the earliest target and victim of the ICC was Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. The late journalist Olley Maruma wrote about this in the Southern Times of South Africa: “Following the defeat of Serbia, Milosevic was abducted by Nato commandos and taken to the Hague… That the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, was the principal organizer of Milosevic’s trial at the Hague, exposed the fraud of the entire enterprise.”
In his article, “ICC — ‘Western kangaroo court,’” Maruma tells us that “In Africa, the International Criminal Court at the Hague is considered by many to be a Western kangaroo court set up to hound, jail and silence African and Third World leaders who refuse to submit to the grip of Western hegemony and domination… One hundred and eight states are members of the court. Among those that have refused to join are China, Russia, India and the United States… The widely-held negative view of the ICC was neatly summed up by Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, the president of the United Nations General Assembly… (who) dismissed the ICC’s indictment on Al-Bashir as ‘absurd and politically motivated… (noting that) A few people with a very dubious past and with very little credibility pretend to know better than the whole African Union’… (which is why he argued) that for international justice to regain its credibility, ‘it would be important to begin by indicting people from powerful nations, not to pick on the smaller ones.’”
The powerful, and to be precise Western, nations have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and, now, in Libya (with 30,000 bombs dropped in 8,000 runs). The numbers of innocent lives these Western powers have killed cannot be matched by the military capacity of those tyrants even if they had the desire to.
All told, the ICC is a kangaroo court of the West; as a forum for justice, it is a fraud. The West’s crimes abound with impunity, yet there are a number of Filipino personalities still praising the ICC, such as writer Ceres Doyo or legal “luminaries” Raul Pangalangan and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago. Could this be motivated by what many believe is a naked ambition (of some) to join the ICC bench to jump in cadence to the march of Western imperialism?
An honest look at the record of the ICC is all that is required to see the truth behind it, as our 18-year-old scholar and regular radio text-discussant Angeline Lim messaged to us: “The ICC is running after Kadhafi, but the likes of Kissinger, Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney, and particularly Cheney who was responsible for the Abu Ghraib prison tortures (one of the most disturbing pictures leaked out was that of a detainee tied to a wooden crate with electric wires attached to his private parts, hands and feet), have clearly violated the Geneva Conventions and human rights, yet they are untouchable; this clearly shows the ICC is only after select enemies.”
And in another text she said: “Gen. Wesley Clark, commander of the Nato air war against Serbia, is liable under the Geneva Convention of ’49 for the illegal bombing of water treatment plants, hospitals, and schools which killed 2,000 while Bosnian Gen. Obrenovic who led the assault on Srebrenica was turned over to the war crimes court in the Hague. This is the same situation for the ICC against Milosevic.” Quite simply, Angeline is able to easily discern the truth from historical facts as she is untainted by a fraudulent mind.
Back here at home, the Philippines also has its own miniscule secessionist minority — the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), along with its rogues such as commander Umbra Kato — that has continued to sow violence and terror to attract international attention and invite foreign intervention.
Catering to the foreign powers seeking entry into our areas of natural wealth, particularly oil and gas in Mindanao and the Sulu Sea, the MILF, as did the Kosovo Liberation Army and the al-Qaeda in Libya (both Nato instruments), is sure to carry out civilian massacres to compel the Philippine military to react and bring about collateral damage, which will serve as basis for an ICC indictment. Philippine police and military forces are then going to be stymied or criminalized, both resulting in the debilitation of the authority and sovereignty of the RP government.
As Western powers through the ICC have done this before, they will surely do it again to regain as many lost ground since World War II, all in the advancement of their neocolonial resurgence this century.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “Sci-Tech Innovations: Key to Filipinos’ Economic Emancipation” with DoST NCR Director Tess Fortuna and DoST innovators; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Reminiscing the Cold War
BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
9/3-4/2011
The latest foray of international gangsterism by the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has caused people from countries that suffered the ruthlessness of modern-day imperialism to reminisce on the positive aspects of the Cold War. Although it was costly because of the unbridled arms race between the US and the then Soviet Union, it significantly produced its own built-in mechanism that prevented the spiraling of the conflict to one of cataclysmic global war.
To the “pacifists,” the arms race was something of a negative legacy. But to the realists, the race for nuclear superiority was seen as a natural deterrent that prevented reckless attempts to engage in incalculable adventurism. From there, the concept of a balance of power evolved to a balance of terror, and out of that looming shadow of nuclear war, a highly demarcated geo-political landscape was carved.
In a world then polarized by two ideologies, the important thing a country could do was to keep itself out of the military alliance. The socialist bloc had their war machine known as the Warsaw Pact, and the capitalist bloc had its NATO while hypocritically pirouetting as the “Free World.” Nonetheless, it was during that period that the so-called “Non-Aligned” bloc came to birth and gained relevance.
In fact, many international relations analysts attribute the peak of the Cold War as the Golden Age of the non-aligned movement because it was during that period when they succeeded in enhancing their international prestige, in bargaining for more economic assistance in exchange for keeping themselves out of the alliance, and most importantly, in keeping their territory free from proxy war that traditionally was understood as civil war, except for the added dimension of ideology.
The Bandung Conference in 1954 laid down the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the socialist bloc, it was promptly substituted by the warmongering policy of “unilateralism.” The Five Principles include: 1) Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; 2) Non-aggression; 3) Non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; 4) Equality and mutual benefit; and, 5) Peaceful coexistence. It was the attending leaders of the non-aligned nations, principally of China’s foremost statesman Zhou Enlai who came out with that novel idea.
Peaceful coexistence was most relevant despite the frosty relationship between the two contending superpowers. As one pretends to wage war in the name of “democracy” and “freedom,” the other supported the “people’s war” for national liberation. Nonetheless, the Soviets and the Americans inhibited themselves from any direct confrontation that could easily escalate into an all-out war, although limited or proxy wars continued to rage in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In that context, the proxy wars remained an internal conflict that need to be settled by the people in that war-torn state pursuant to the principle of peaceful coexistence.
Even as countries in the Third World were subjected to the rigors of subversion and destabilization, on the whole, they were able to resolve their internal conflict. The two superpowers by the compulsive realism of the balance of terror had to respect that peace agreement, thus effectively putting forward limitations to interference. More so, if it would partake of an act of aggression against a member-state of the military alliance set up by the US and the Soviet Union.
Today, weak states cherish the invaluable positive legacies of the Cold War. There is no doubt it elicited obedience to international law; and for all the acrimonious debate at the UN General Assembly, respect for the international body was maintained. It is for this why they could not comprehend why Russia and China had to unilaterally forego the Cold War after they shifted their economic system to capitalism. They could not in fact see the logical connection. It was considered tragic for it constricted their strategic influence even endangered their territorial integrity and survival.
Some say that had it not for their old arsenal of nuclear weapons left over by the arms race, criminal states like the US and its confederates in NATO could have easily completed in erasing them from the map by the simple expedient of fanning the flames of separatist rebellion. In fact, no sooner after it metamorphosed to Russia, it found itself surrounded by a string of US military bases stationed in the erstwhile Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Georgia.
It even has to fight a bloody internal rebellion in Chechnya. As if to consummate the move to isolate it, the US enticed the former members of the Warsaw Pact to join the expanded umbrella of NATO, and humiliating it by threatening to install an anti-ballistic missile system, virtually at its doorstep, in Poland, Hungary and Romania.
China, too, experienced its own bloody upheavals beginning with the infamous agitation for “democracy” by disoriented students at Tiananmen Square in 1989 who clamored for the selling of their country to imperialism. Later, agitations spread deep into Lhasa in Tibet and Urumqi in Xingjian province. All these happened after the end of the Cold War.
The absence of any power to check the onslaught of US and NATO aggression eroded much the stature of the United Nations to a point that it has almost been reduced it as the mouthpiece of the US State Department. In that sense, international law reverted as a mere idealism of Hugo Grotius. Jingoism which was once restrained by the balance of terror regained prominence. All these were amplified by the US and NATO forays in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya shamelessly carrying the banner of the UN and even requesting lackey states to contribute to the peacekeeping force to internationalize their war of aggression.
In the unfortunate case of Libya, even if the US and NATO had the permission of the UN Security Council because of the favorable vote cast by China and Russia to impose a “no-fly-zone”, the scope of that UN resolution was limited to preventing Qaddafi’s forces from using their aircraft to strafe and bomb rebel positions or to use them to transport troops. In military parlance, the “no-fly-zone” was strictly confined to grounding the Libyan air force. But as events unfurled, the resolution became their license to savagely carry out gangsterism against Libya. In that the UN became a fait accompli to commit aggression against an independent state. It is for this why many are saying it could not have happened had Russia and China not capitulated to ending the Cold War.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Rod Kapunan
9/3-4/2011
The latest foray of international gangsterism by the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has caused people from countries that suffered the ruthlessness of modern-day imperialism to reminisce on the positive aspects of the Cold War. Although it was costly because of the unbridled arms race between the US and the then Soviet Union, it significantly produced its own built-in mechanism that prevented the spiraling of the conflict to one of cataclysmic global war.
To the “pacifists,” the arms race was something of a negative legacy. But to the realists, the race for nuclear superiority was seen as a natural deterrent that prevented reckless attempts to engage in incalculable adventurism. From there, the concept of a balance of power evolved to a balance of terror, and out of that looming shadow of nuclear war, a highly demarcated geo-political landscape was carved.
In a world then polarized by two ideologies, the important thing a country could do was to keep itself out of the military alliance. The socialist bloc had their war machine known as the Warsaw Pact, and the capitalist bloc had its NATO while hypocritically pirouetting as the “Free World.” Nonetheless, it was during that period that the so-called “Non-Aligned” bloc came to birth and gained relevance.
In fact, many international relations analysts attribute the peak of the Cold War as the Golden Age of the non-aligned movement because it was during that period when they succeeded in enhancing their international prestige, in bargaining for more economic assistance in exchange for keeping themselves out of the alliance, and most importantly, in keeping their territory free from proxy war that traditionally was understood as civil war, except for the added dimension of ideology.
The Bandung Conference in 1954 laid down the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the socialist bloc, it was promptly substituted by the warmongering policy of “unilateralism.” The Five Principles include: 1) Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; 2) Non-aggression; 3) Non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; 4) Equality and mutual benefit; and, 5) Peaceful coexistence. It was the attending leaders of the non-aligned nations, principally of China’s foremost statesman Zhou Enlai who came out with that novel idea.
Peaceful coexistence was most relevant despite the frosty relationship between the two contending superpowers. As one pretends to wage war in the name of “democracy” and “freedom,” the other supported the “people’s war” for national liberation. Nonetheless, the Soviets and the Americans inhibited themselves from any direct confrontation that could easily escalate into an all-out war, although limited or proxy wars continued to rage in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In that context, the proxy wars remained an internal conflict that need to be settled by the people in that war-torn state pursuant to the principle of peaceful coexistence.
Even as countries in the Third World were subjected to the rigors of subversion and destabilization, on the whole, they were able to resolve their internal conflict. The two superpowers by the compulsive realism of the balance of terror had to respect that peace agreement, thus effectively putting forward limitations to interference. More so, if it would partake of an act of aggression against a member-state of the military alliance set up by the US and the Soviet Union.
Today, weak states cherish the invaluable positive legacies of the Cold War. There is no doubt it elicited obedience to international law; and for all the acrimonious debate at the UN General Assembly, respect for the international body was maintained. It is for this why they could not comprehend why Russia and China had to unilaterally forego the Cold War after they shifted their economic system to capitalism. They could not in fact see the logical connection. It was considered tragic for it constricted their strategic influence even endangered their territorial integrity and survival.
Some say that had it not for their old arsenal of nuclear weapons left over by the arms race, criminal states like the US and its confederates in NATO could have easily completed in erasing them from the map by the simple expedient of fanning the flames of separatist rebellion. In fact, no sooner after it metamorphosed to Russia, it found itself surrounded by a string of US military bases stationed in the erstwhile Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Georgia.
It even has to fight a bloody internal rebellion in Chechnya. As if to consummate the move to isolate it, the US enticed the former members of the Warsaw Pact to join the expanded umbrella of NATO, and humiliating it by threatening to install an anti-ballistic missile system, virtually at its doorstep, in Poland, Hungary and Romania.
China, too, experienced its own bloody upheavals beginning with the infamous agitation for “democracy” by disoriented students at Tiananmen Square in 1989 who clamored for the selling of their country to imperialism. Later, agitations spread deep into Lhasa in Tibet and Urumqi in Xingjian province. All these happened after the end of the Cold War.
The absence of any power to check the onslaught of US and NATO aggression eroded much the stature of the United Nations to a point that it has almost been reduced it as the mouthpiece of the US State Department. In that sense, international law reverted as a mere idealism of Hugo Grotius. Jingoism which was once restrained by the balance of terror regained prominence. All these were amplified by the US and NATO forays in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya shamelessly carrying the banner of the UN and even requesting lackey states to contribute to the peacekeeping force to internationalize their war of aggression.
In the unfortunate case of Libya, even if the US and NATO had the permission of the UN Security Council because of the favorable vote cast by China and Russia to impose a “no-fly-zone”, the scope of that UN resolution was limited to preventing Qaddafi’s forces from using their aircraft to strafe and bomb rebel positions or to use them to transport troops. In military parlance, the “no-fly-zone” was strictly confined to grounding the Libyan air force. But as events unfurled, the resolution became their license to savagely carry out gangsterism against Libya. In that the UN became a fait accompli to commit aggression against an independent state. It is for this why many are saying it could not have happened had Russia and China not capitulated to ending the Cold War.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
