Philippine Rebels Target U.S. ‘Meddlers’ for Death

Leaders of the Communist guerrilla squads that have killed at least 70 policemen and soldiers in Manila this year said Thursday that they have targeted for death several Americans who are directly involved in the Philippine government’s counterinsurgency efforts.

They stressed, however, that American tourists, businessmen and journalists in Manila are safe from attack.

In a three-hour interview in an apartment building in downtown Manila--the first since last month’s killing of three Americans near Clark Air Base--the three top operational commanders for the rebel groups operating in metropolitan Manila confirmed that they have escalated their armed campaign against the government here in the capital. But they insisted that other armed groups also are killing people in their name.

“We do not want another Beirut situation happening here,” said one of the commanders, who asked to be identified only as Sonny.

“We are not killing indiscriminately,” he said. “We only apply military actions that will result in organizing or advancing our revolutionary movement. So we have only targeted those American CIA agents and others who we know are directly meddling in the Philippine situation by creating vigilante death squads or are directly training the Philippine armed forces.”

The rebel leaders would not identify any of their targets.

However, asked if those targets include U.S. Embassy personnel, the commander said: “There are American Embassy personnel who are completely innocent. The most dangerous thing about the American thrust in the Philippine situation now is the introduction of these Singlaub people who are organizing vigilante squads.”

He was referring to retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, a former CIA official who spent several months in the Philippines last year. Singlaub has been accused dozens of times in the Philippine media of covertly aiding the government armed forces in its war with the nation’s estimated 25,000 Communist rebels. He has denied the charges, insisting that he was merely hunting for treasure buried by Japanese generals at the end of World War II.

In the aftermath of the dozens of killings this year of policemen and soldiers in Manila, Philippine military commanders here have been intensively training civilian, anti-Communist vigilante groups during the past several weeks.

President Corazon Aquino has endorsed the groups as an effective, grass-roots method of defeating the Communist insurgents in slum areas and remote rural provinces where government soldiers cannot operate. Civil rights groups have charged that the vigilantes, most of whom are armed, could become the equivalent of Latin American-style death squads.

Some Americans Targeted

During Thursday’s interview, the rebel leaders said they have gathered evidence that American personnel affiliated either with Singlaub or the U.S. government have been directly involved in the training and organization of the vigilantes, and they justified targeting those Americans for death as “retaliation.” Their allegation has not been independently confirmed.

“They started it,” said another rebel commander, who asked to be identified as Albert. “So we must fight back.”

The Philippine military has charged that Communist liquidation squads were responsible for the Oct. 18 coordinated killings of three Americans near the U.S. Clark Air Base, 70 miles north of Manila, the first such murders of Americans in that area. However, the guerrilla commanders would not specifically confirm or deny the allegation.

“This is out of our geographical area,” Commander Sonny said, adding that each group in the guerrilla front has direct knowledge only of operations in its own region. But he added that armed patrols by U.S. security forces outside Clark in residential neighborhoods of the town of Angeles, which began in response to the killings, “is very dangerous.”

‘Blatant Display of Aggression’

“If they (U.S. base officials) continue these patrols, the revolutionary forces in the area will be forced to conduct a tactical operation against them,” the guerrilla leader went on. “This is a blatant display of (U.S.) aggression, and it will be met with force. It will lead to much more bloodshed, and the tragedy is that the Filipinos and the Americans in Angeles have been so close in the past. We would like this closeness to continue.”

In Angeles, police said Thursday that they have charged 19 people with involvement in the three murders but that only one, a man identified as Romeo Valencia, is in custody. It was not announced if Valencia was affiliated with any group. Also Thursday, U.S. military authorities ended a 24-hour security alert designed to test the defenses of Clark and the Subic Bay Naval Base against guerrilla attack.

The interview with the three guerrilla leaders took months to arrange. In an apparent attempt to demonstrate their confidence, they allowed the reporter to choose the site, a building on a busy street in the heart of the capital. No photographs were allowed.

The rebel known as Sonny, stressing that their movement is not fundamentally communist in ideology, said: “Actually we want to unite with the American people. What we want very much is for responsible elements of American society to look into the operations--especially the covert operations--of their government here in the Philippines, and expose the involvement of the Pentagon and the CIA in the formation of these death squads.”

Nicholas Platt, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, has denied many times since he arrived here last August that the U.S. government is meddling in this country’s internal affairs.

Dates from 1968

The charge by the urban guerrilla leaders is one that dates back to the foundation of their armed rebellion 19 years ago.

“What the American people must be made to understand, though, is that our revolutionary movement is not a Communist revolution,” the rebel commander added. “It is a nationalist movement on the part of our people to finally establish a truly free, democratic, sovereign society in the Philippines.”

The rebel leaders also said the Philippine military chief of staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, has overstated both the size of the guerrilla force and the number of its victims in Manila this year.

Ramos has alleged that the guerrillas’ Manila hit squads, which operate under the name Alex Boncayo Brigade in honor of a rebel leader slain in 1981, have murdered more than 100 policemen, soldiers and neighborhood gang leaders since a cease-fire with the rebels ended last February.

The rebel leaders on Thursday admitted to killing about 70 people in Manila this year, among them a popular police captain who, they said, was in the front line of riot police who killed more than a dozen peasants near Aquino’s presidential palace last January and, in August, a personal bodyguard of the president’s sister-in-law. The rebels described the bodyguard, Jessie Bululong, as “a gun for hire” who was killed because he was an enforcer for protection rackets and helped the ruling family cheat in the Manila district of Navotas during the May legislative elections.

‘Anti-People Activities’

The three commanders said their potential future targets include all military personnel, except those in administrative or medical positions or soldiers on leave or vacation, policemen who are “abusive, notorious, engaged in anti-people activities or owe blood debts to the people” and “Al Capone-type, incorrigible bad elements.”

The liquidation squads do not act until each individual target has been investigated extensively, the guerrilla chiefs said.

“In every case, the target is recommended by the people,” Commander Albert said. “Initially, the name is given to one of the legal leftist groups or an underground group, which conducts its own investigation. If they feel the target is appropriate, they recommend it to the People’s Army, and we conduct an investigation of our own.

“The process takes several months. We want to avoid mistakes.”

Random Killing Campaign

The rebel leaders conceded, however, that it is possible that right-wing extremist groups and renegade military rebels who fled after the Aug. 28 attempted coup against Aquino could launch a random campaign to kill Americans and other foreigners in the name of the guerrillas to further destabilize Aquino’s government.

“It’s possible,” said the third rebel leader, who called himself Commander Marty. “That’s why we always come out with an official press statement acknowledging our responsibility.”

And Commander Sonny added, “You can rest assured that in the future, we will let you know if it (the killing) is ours.”