Military denies 'secret US military base'
Submitted by sarah.dase on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 18:35.
in
Military News
Source: Al Jacinto, Correspondent
http://www.navyseals.com/military-denies-secret-us-military-base
Rights group were not allowed to enter US facility inside the western Mindanao command headquarters
ZAMBOANGA CITY: The Philippine military has denied reports by a Filipino fact-finding group that US troops have put up secret bases in Mindanao.
The Citizens Peace Watch (CPW), an umbrella organization of political and human rights groups, said it has confirmed the presence of a fortified US military base inside the headquarters of the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City. It said the base is the headquarters of the US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, a unit of the US Special Forces that has been deploying troops to various parts of Mindanao since 2002.
Lawyer Corazon Fabros, of the human rights group, said Filipino soldiers sent her group away after they failed to get permission to inspect the US facility. She said the base has communication facilities and is heavily guarded that even Filipino soldiers are not allowed without a pass.
"The 'visitors' have not only stayed on, they have set up camp in our house and told us—their hosts—to go away," Fabros said in a statement sent to The Manila Times.
She said the US military base stands out and is sealed from the rest of Western Mindanao Command by walls, concertina wire, and sandbags. The actual size of the area it occupies could not immediately be established from the outside. But communication facilities such as satellite dishes, antenna, and other instruments are visible.
US Marines provide protection for the facility; some workers were seen wearing identification cards issued by DynCorp, a controversial US military contractor.
The group said other facilities inside the base were unknown. "What exactly are they hiding here? Why all this secrecy?" asked Amabella Carumba, of the Mindanao People's Peace Movement, a member of the fact-finding mission.
The US military maintains similar facilities in Mindanao where it is assisting and advising Filipino troops in fighting terrorism. US troops were also spotted inside the headquarters of the Philippine Army's Sixth Infantry Division and in Philippine Marine bases in Sulu province and in Mactan Island in Central Philippines. There are American forces in Tawi-Tawi and Lanao provinces.
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---Since 2001, the US—which has more than 700 bases and installations in over 100 countries around the world—has embarked on the most radical realignment of its overseas basing network since World War II.
Part of the changes is the move away from large permanent bases— such as the ones in Subic and Clark—in favor of smaller, more austere, more low-profile bases such as the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines presence in Zamboanga and in other places in Mindanao.
In terms of profile and mission, Focus pointed out that the task force is very similar to the Combined Joint Task Force–Horn, which was established in Djibouti in western Africa in 2003 and which has been described as a sample of the US austere basing template and the "model for future US military operations."
Focus said the Philippines is one of the "nodes for special operations forces" that former Defense Secretary Donald Rusted himself revealed the Pentagon would establish as part of its changes in Asia.
According to Focus' research, the JSOTF-P has not only been involved in the Philippine military's operations in the south, it also represents the new kind of more austere, more low-profile kind of overseas presence that the US has been striving to introduce as part of its comprehensive restructuring of its forward deployment.
Last year, US Embassy deputy spokesman and deputy press attaché Karen Schinnerer admitted the American government commissioned the construction of facilities across Mindanao for US soldiers, but insisted the projects are not permanent military bases.
She said the US construction projects are for "medical, logistical and administrative services" to be used by the American soldiers. She said the structures are not permanent US bases. US troops use the facilities only on a temporary basis for them to "eat, sleep and work," she told The Manila Times.
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/feb/25/yehey/prov/20080225pro1....
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