STRATEGIC, EMOTIONAL U.S. TIES ARE AT STAKE IN THE PHILIPPINES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450023-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: August 28, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450023-6
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WASHINGTON POST
28 August 1983
Strategic, Emotional U.S. lies Are
at Stake in the Philippines
By John M. Goshko
Washington Post Staff Writ.er
The murder last week of Philip-
pines opposition leader Benigno I
Aquino Jr. has caused deep concern
in the Reagan administration about
its hopes for future stability and a
return to democracy in a country
bound to the United States by
. strong emotional ties and vital stra-
tegic interests.
It was this concern, U.S. officials
acknowledged privately, that
prompted the administration to start
.staking out a position where it can
disassociate itself from the govern-
ment of President Ferdinand?Marcos
if the evidence links him of his as-
sociates to Aquino's assassination.
Throughout the week, administra-
tion officials ;ought to draw a dis-
tinction between U.S. ties to Marcos
and the long-term relations between
the American and Filipino peoples.
. The United States, the officials
.made clear, has a major stake in en-
suring that its rights to naval and air
bases in the Philippines are safe-
guarded and in helping the strate-
gically situated Southeast Asia na-
tion avoid internal strife that might
bring it under anti-American, leftist
control.
And they left no doubt that if
achieving those goals requires it,
Washington is prepared to jettison
the favored status it has extended to
? Marcos for 18 years.
That would be a quantum shift
: for the Reagan administration,
which has given the Marcos relation-
: ship a new warmth and special at-
tention. The serious consideration
being given such a step underscores
: the U.S. belief that Aquino's murder
could jolt the status quo imposed by
Marcos on Philippines politics over
the past two decades and turn the
country in uncertain new directions.
- So far, the officials stressed, there
_
: is no evidence linking Marcos or -
? anyone else to the shooting last Sun-
-.day at the Manila airport, where
Aquino arrived after a - three-year
absence in the United States. But, as
:one administration official noted:
"The circumstances were such
:that it looks awful for Marcos and
:his government. There is a strong
automatic assumption that it
.couldn't have happened without
' some kind of official connivance. So
the burden is on the Philippines gov-
ernmentto prove its itiiiicence, and
anything thaf smacks of a whitewash
will only make the situation worse."
The a,drainistration has adopted a
wait-andiesattitude on whether the
Marcos government can mount a
credible probe that will exonerate it
from the suspicions of complicity.
But many U.S. officials, while con-
-ceding that they don't know what
happened or why, privately are pes-
simistic.
- They point out that the killing
violated all the unspoken under-
standings and "rules of the game"
that were commonly assumed to gov-
ern the relations between Marcos
and the best known and most char-
_ismatic of his opponents. Marcos,
they note, could get away with using
his dictatorial powers to imprison or
exile Aquino, but the fear of internal,
.- repercussions and- the anger of the
United States were regarded as ef-
fective barriers to assassinating
someone of Aquino's stature.
"Whatever else can be said about
Marcos, he's not stupid," one official
said. "He knew what the conse-
quences would be, and it seems in-
conceivable that he would have or-
dered or sanctioned the murder. And
even though Aquino talked a lot
about the possibility of martyrdom,
it's hard to believe that he ,really
expected to be killed."
Still, officials with knowledge of
Philippines affairs give no ,credence
to suggestions that the murder was
the work of communists or of rivals
for the opposition leadership. In-
stead, they believe that the killing
couldn't have happened without
some involvement by the authorities.
No one will say so openly, but
widespread suspicion is *known to
exist within the administration that -
the assassination was the work of
forces within the Filipino military
and security apparatus that acted
without Marcos' knowledge. --
Fueling that suspicion have been
reports that Marcos' wife, Imelda,
met with Aquino in New' York in
May to urge him not to return and
warn that he- had been marked for
death by alliesof her husband who
were out of control.
All this has reinforced an impres-
sion, widespread among Philippines
experts for some time, that Marcos,
65 and plagued by poor health, has
started to lose his tight grip and
that, as his power has deteriorated,
.the military and political factions
allied with him are beginning a
struggle for supremacy.
Such a struggle will have impor-
tant implications for U.S. interests.
Most directly at issue are continued
U.S. rights at CIA* Air Force Base
and the Subic Bay-military complex,
the largest American military instal-
lations outside the United States. In
June, the two countries renewed an
agreement on the bases that will pay
the Philippines $900 million over the
next five years.
U.S. military officials regard these
bases as essential for projecting
American military power into both
the northern Pacific and the Indian
Ocean. The latter has become espe-
cially important because the U.S.
rapid-deployment strategy envisions
the Indian Ocean as a prime route
"talV2X=
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450023-A
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450023-6
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for ships, planes and men to deal I
with potential military emergencies
in the Persian Gulf with its vital oil
supplies.
The U.S.-Philippines relationship
also bears a strong emotional com-
ponent from the period between
1898 and World War II, when the
Philippines were the laboratory for
America's principal experiment with
colonialism. In both countries, the
years of. American tutelage and the
shared bloodshed of the wartime
struggle to free the Philippines from
Japanese occupation are widely re-
garded as having forged a special
and unbreakable bond.
In fact, during the decade when
Marcos used dictatorial emergency I
powers to stifle dissent, the million-
member Filipino community in the
United States, supported by Amer-
ican human-rights activists, became
the principal center of opposition to
his government.
Coincidental with the murder of
Aquino, the administration was em-
barrassed last week by the leaking of
secret government documents indi-
eating that U.S. intelligence agencies
may have turned a blind eye on ef-
forts by Marcos agents to spy on and
harass Filipinos in this country.
In the main, however, dissident
expatriates like Aquino found the
United States a safe haven from
which to attack the government at
home and criticize U.S. officials for
their coziness with Marcos. When
Marcos visited here last fall, he ex-
pressed dismay that the U.S. govern-
ment permitted Aquino and others
to carry on their activities so visibly.
Indeed, Washington has tried
throughout the Marcos era to bal-
ance its Manila dealings with its
sense of a special tie to the Filipino
people.
In the Carter administration, with
its emphasis on an activist human-
rights policy, there was some effort
to loosen the identification with
Marcos by reducing the normally
high American profile in the Phil-
ippines.
But that approach was more sty-
listic than substantive. When Car-
ter's secretary of state, Cyrus R.
Vance, was asked by a congressional
committee how he could justify
large-scale military aid to a govern-
ment with such a poor human-rights
record, he candidly replied that the
American bases were so important
that they had to take precedence.
Under Reagan, who severely crit-
icized Carter's rights policies as med-
dling in-the affairs of friendly coun-
tries, the approach has been marked-
ly different. The present administra-
tion has embraced Marcos warmly as
a dependable ally and foe of commu-
nism. It sent Vice Preident Bush to
Manila, where he praised Marcos in
enthusiastic terms, and last fall it
was host to the state visit by the
Filipino leader.
However, administration officials
insist that they also had been apply-
ing Reagan's advocacy of 'quiet di-
plomacy" in human rights. The of-
ficials say that the administration,
aware that the Marcos era was-draw-
ing toward an end, had been urging
him quietly to prepare his country
for a return to democratic govern-
ment. ,
For that reason, Aquino's murder
was especially dismaying to the ad-
ministration. He was regarded as a
moderate who balked at violent re-
sistance to Marcos and who advo-
cated continued close ties with the
United States.
That caused the administration to
view him as a potentially important
transitional figure who might have
played a major role in reconciling
the feuding political factions and
inducing them to cooperate with the
government. He also was seen as the
opposition figure with the best
chance of becoming president either
in the immediate Marcos aftermath
or, more likely, at some future stage
when genuinely free elections be-
come possible.
From the U.S. point of view, his
death was a double-edged blow. It
could make him a symbol of martyr-
dom that will fan domestic discon-
tent and accelerate the deterioration
of Marcos' power; and it could leave
a leadership void within the oppo-
sition that will be filled by someone
of more extreme views.
For the moment, the administra-
tion is sitting tight and watching
whether Marcos will be able to dis-
perse the fallout from the assassina-
tion in a way that will restore his
credibility and ward off violent in-
ternal reactions.
The administration is not plan-
ning any immediate drastic moves
like cutting off aid unless, as one
official put it, the smoking gun is
found on Marcos' desk." On Friday
the White House said that, despite
calls for Reagan to drop the Philip-
pines from his five-nation Asian tour
this fall, the president has no plans
to skip his scheduled stop in Manila.
Still, that position could change,
as was made clear last 'week when
administration officials went out of
their way to stress that U.S. rela-
tions with the Philippines' s have a
special enduring quality that tran-
scends the Marcos government
If it becomes apparent that Mar-
cos is unable to extriate himseif
from blame in Aquino's murder, the
administration se to be position-
ing itself to join a chorus.of ,condem-
nation -and take whatever -steps it
considers .necessary to?,' preserve
American interests in the Philip-
pines. ?
Stott writer Peter Maass contrib-
uted to this report.' - ?
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-009Aspnnnqn0A a