Somewhere in Japan last Tuesday, a US sailor mauled a Japanese woman leaving her bloodied and bleeding. The injuries were so severe, she died following the gruesome attack. Almost immediately, the Japanese government requested custody of the attacker from US military authorities and commenced routine police investigation.
By Friday, the US sailor already admitted to the police to attacking and causing the death of the Japanese woman.
US military authorities immediately expressed apologies and regret over the incident. A Japanese court has issued a warrant of arrest on the mauler-murderer.
Many now expect another snowballing of Japanese people’s protests against pervading US military presence in their country, a considerable number of whom have been involved in various violations of Japanese laws, including the rape of a little girl at Okinawa.
The mauling and murder by the US sailor in Japan is only the latest in a long list of atrocities committed by US servicemen deployed by imperial America across the world by virtue of access arrangements, basing agreements and concoctions like Visiting Forces Agreements (VFA).
The Japan incident follows late last year’s rape of a Filipino woman by four US Marines right inside the former Subic Naval Base.
But while Japanese authorities were determined to assert their sovereignty ad jurisprudence in the mauling and murder case, the treacherous Philippine officials in the justice and foreign affairs departments have acted more like abogados de campanilla for the rapists.
Up to now, Secretary Raul Gonzales and Undersecretary Zosimo Paredes continue to arrogantly and falsely defend US custody and jurisdiction over the four rapists inspite of: 1) provisions in the VFA that allow the Philippines to request jurisdiction and custody over erring US soldiers in cases of primary importance to the country; 2) rape being a heinous crime and a capital offense in the Philippines as per laws and the Constitution; and 3) the requirement in our courts regarding custody and jurisdiction as an essential ingredient in any criminal proceeding such as rape.
Gonzales and Paredes should resign now, give up their Filipino citizenship and move over to the States where they ideologically belong. Officials like them give the Philippines bad reps, including the home of willing rape victims and US puppets and pooches.
There are two imperatives now. One is to ensure the prosecution of the erring US soldiers in Japan and the Philippines. Two is a review of the policy of allowing these abusive US GIs in non-American territories.
In the case of the Philippines, we should revisit the promises of peace and security made in the name of the VFA, as well as the repercussions of each anti-Filipino provision in this agreement. Have these “visits” of US troops in the country been beneficial to our national interests or have these armed forces of US imperialist terror getting more than they bargained for?
The only sure way now to stop the rampaging abuses is to cut the formal onerous arrangements that allow these troops to enter and reenter our territory. The same is true with other countries that now host these beastly forces, either by invitation of US puppet government or by force (as in Japan, Afghanistan, and Iraq).
Now more than ever, US GIs go home!
(Photo from IRIB website: A US soldier holds a leash tied to one of the mnu abused and humiliated Iraqi detainees inside Abu Ghraib prison. The prison now stands as a lasting reminder of how George W. Bush’s “forces of peace and democracy” mocked and abused Iraqi soldiers.)
# posted by Tonyo @ Saturday, January 07, 2006
