Fear Stalks U.S. Bases in Philippines After Killings

A heavy afternoon rain Wednesday washed the bloodstains and police chalk marks off a lonely stretch of road near this town about 60 miles north of Manila. Only some bullet holes remain, chipped in the concrete crypts of a graveyard that flanks the road on both sides.

But the impact of the slaying Tuesday of two Americans employed at a U.S. military base will not fade so easily for the more than 80,000 Americans living in this increasingly tense country.

“There’s somewhat of a panic,” said Tick Bostick, 41, a former Marine who runs a bar for U.S. service personnel 12 miles from Capas in Angeles, outside giant Clark Air Base. “A lot of people are afraid here.”

Angeles, long a mecca for Americans seeking an easy life style in Asia, is facing tough times now. The Air Force has quietly reduced its forces at Clark, America’s largest overseas air base, and thousands of retirees have left the area amid increasingly violent demands that the U.S. bases be kicked out.

“I didn’t come here to get killed,” said one former serviceman who worked with the two American technicians the day they were killed by suspected Communist rebels. He said he would not return to work until the military “can guarantee my safety.”

Five months after a U.S. Army counterinsurgency expert was gunned down by guerrillas in Manila, U.S. and Philippine officials conceded that the most recent attack, timed to coincide with a two-day visit by Vice President Dan Quayle, has increased the pressure on both governments to close or reduce the six U.S. military facilities in the country.

‘Ground Rules Have Changed’

“This has an impact on the whole spectrum of U.S.-Philippine relations,” a U.S. official said. “The ground rules have changed. There’s a willingness to hit us.”

Quayle, who arrives in Malaysia this morning for the last stop on a four-nation Pacific tour, tacitly acknowledged the anxiety when he spoke Wednesday afternoon at Clark and Subic Bay Naval Base, where nearly 40,000 American service personnel, dependents and civilian employees are stationed.

“We will not allow terrorists to drive us from the Philippines,” Quayle said.

As he spoke, hundreds of leftist students marched in the streets outside the base. Riot police swinging truncheons chased about 50 youths who broke through a police barricade and raced toward the main gate shouting, “Yankee Go Home!” At least 10 persons were injured.

A police spokesman in Manila said 155 students had been arrested in the anti-Quayle demonstration. Authorities also seized five jeeps, including one carrying a papier-mache effigy of Quayle surrounded by nuclear missiles. Police used tear gas to break up an evening demonstration outside a state dinner for Quayle at Malacanang Palace, the presidential residence.

The Quayle visit has reignited a fierce debate here over the future of the U.S. bases. The present agreement on the bases expires in 1991, and both governments are preparing for long and difficult negotiations next year.

On Wednesday, U.S. military officials ordered all personnel to avoid travel between the bases while embassy officials, citing evidence of guerrilla surveillance of U.S. diplomats, stepped up security for the 435 employees. In Angeles, a city of 300,000 dominated by the American air base, the police increased armed patrols after the shooting.

“We have not only doubled but more than tripled our patrols to prevent the same thing from happening here,” an Angeles detective said.

The Philippine military says it is gaining on the Communist New People’s Army, but officials estimate that the rebels now control roughly a fifth of the country. The government blames the insurgents for more than 3,600 deaths last year.

Although the NPA has never been a major threat in Angeles, which is situated two hours north of Manila, guerrillas ambushed and killed two U.S. Air Force enlisted men and a retired serviceman in October, 1987. They stepped up attacks again this spring, wounding the city’s mayor and killing the head of the Chamber of Commerce in separate ambushes. The present mayor has 30 armed bodyguards.

Earlier this week, Philippine soldiers captured a New People’s Army guerrilla and three rifles in Porac, an Angeles suburb. Two guerrillas escaped. Last spring, soldiers killed eight guerrilla leaders in nearby Dau. Among documents confiscated was a list that reportedly targeted nine Americans for assassination.

“There was an NPA camp in the barrio,” a police official said. “We heard they had a plan to attack.”

Two weeks ago, Clark officials warned people attending the annual Retirees Appreciation Day at the base to change their driving routes and daily routines because of new NPA threats against Americans. Military checkpoints were set up temporarily on roads leading to Angeles, base facilities and a nearby power plant.

Many Americans have already pulled out. An estimated 1,400 retired servicemen now live in Angeles, down from 4,000 several years ago. Several bar owners said business has fallen by half in the last year.

“Most of the people leaving are just scared,” said Bostick, owner of the DMZ Bar, a fixture on Fields Street, the tawdry strip of honky-tonks and brothels outside Clark. “People are afraid of being targets.”

The Air Force has cut back at Clark in recent months, relocating to bases in Japan a Medevac unit, a military band, a squadron of F-16 fighters and a unit of C-130 transport planes.

The two men killed Tuesday, William H. Thompson, 45, and Donald G. Buchner, 44, worked for Ford Aerospace Corp., prime contractor for the Pentagon at Camp O’Donnell, a communications center 22 miles from Clark.

Quayle Meets Victim’s Wife

While Quayle was at Clark, he met with Thompson’s wife, Violetta, and their two teen-age children, to offer his condolences. The Air Force said Thompson was a lead technician at the 44,000-acre Crow Valley complex north of Clark, where pilots wage computer-monitored mock battles and practice tactical bombing over a simulated Soviet base complete with batteries of bamboo missiles and wooden planes.

Buchner, a retired Air Force master sergeant, was assigned to the engineering section at Camp O’Donnell’s radio transmitting station as a program analyst. Officials said he also has a wife and children in the area.

“Both men were real good guys,” said the American who worked with them. “Family men. Real professional. It’s a damn shame.”

Nursing a beer outside the Puppy Lounge on Fields Street, he said he had not been warned about driving down the only road that leads to Camp O’Donnell.

“I sure didn’t get any warning, or I sure wouldn’t go out there,” he said. “And if I was out there and got a warning, I wouldn’t come back except in a chopper.”

Thompson and Buchner, both unarmed, were riddled with bullets as they drove from O’Donnell in a white Toyota at 4:40 p.m. Tuesday. A police spokesman said six men used a stolen red dump truck to block the road, then opened fire on the Americans with M-16 and M-14 rifles. Bullets shattered the windshield of the Americans’ car and peppered the engine, roof and doors. A pedicab driver was wounded in one leg as he drove by.

Capas is no newcomer to death. This is where the Bataan “death march” of World War II ended in a concentration camp at Camp O’Donnell in 1942. The New People’s Army was founded 20 years ago in a barrio five miles from the ambush site.

Although the NPA has not claimed responsibility for the attack, the police found anti-U.S. leaflets in a stolen jeepney used in the getaway. And Capas Mayor Hermes E. Frias said witnesses saw something else as the killers sped off.

“One of the guys was waving a white shirt in the air as they drove away,” he said. “Most probably, he was happy.”