Forces have crucial role

Press, 24 February 1986, Page 6

Forces have crucial role

By

GREGORY NOKES,

, Of

the Associated Press

(through NZPA) Washington

From the outset of the crisis in the Philippines, the Reagan Administration has viewed the role of the Philippine Armed Forces as central to an orderly outcome. Administration policymakers have for months given encouragement to reform-minded officers who have sought to break the hold by Mr Marcos on the top leadership, which is regarded in Washington as corrupt and inept. Mr Marcos, in the American view, had already lost the support of the Catholic Church, much of the business community, and a majority of the population. It was chiefly the military that could keep him in power, and most particularly the leadership — including General Fabian Ver, the Armed Forces Chief of Staff — who owed their positions to Mr Marcos.

The Pentagon had appealed publicly and privately to the military to

keep out of the election, which, to a large extent, it did. But when the election was over and Mr Marcos was declared the winner over Corazon Aquino despite widespread election fraud, the military’s position became even more crucial.

Mr Marcos apparently knew it, too, because although he technically bowed to American demands and replaced General Ver as Chief of Staff with Lieutenant-General Fidel Ramos, General Ver moved quickly to make certain Marcos loyalists were entrenched in key positions throughout the military.

Against this background General Ramos and Mr Enrile broke with Mr Marcos on Saturday, alleging he had stolen the election from Mrs Aquino and calling on him to quit. In a statement yesterday the Administration called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, but reaffirmed its support for the position of Mr Enrile and General Ramos that the election was marred by fraud, which, it said,

undermined the “legitimacy and credibility” of the election. The Administration questioned “the capacity of the Government of the Philippines to cope with a growing insurgency and a troubled economy.” Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday that Mr Enrile apparently had acted because he feared arrest, and persuaded General Ramos to join him. “It’s clear that the military in the Philippines, with whom we have had very close ties, with these young reform officers, with our attempt to bring about training in this country, ‘are in very real danger of a confrontation, of a civil war of sorts in the military. the reform, we want General Ver out of there, we want the ‘overstaying generals’ out of there. We still want reform of people who know how to fight the New People’s Army, and bring some new morale and spirit to the people,”

he said. Of serious concern to Washington has been the Armed Forces’ failure to blunt a growing Communist insurgency. The allegedly corrupt and inept leadership was blamed for the failure.

Senior Reagan Administration policy-makers had pressured Mr Marcos publicly and privately to replace the top leadership, which, in Washington’s lexicon, became known as “overstaying generals.” Changes had been few, but the American pressure for military reform sent a clear signal to the military that Washington was no longer behind the leadership controlled by Mr Marcos. It was also intended to increase the standing of the reformminded officers among their own men, since the military generally is viewed in Washington as highly pro-American.

American relations with reform-minded officers were “very close,” said Mr Lugar, who headed Ronald Reagan’s team of observers to the Philippines elections and who

has played a main role in formulating United States policy towards the Philippines.

“All of our aid has been directed towards these re-form-minded officers, literally to bring about efficiency of the army,” he said. “Our hope was always with General Ramos and the younger officers to bring about a spirit of reform and we have pointedly advised that General Ver must go for a long time.”

Administration officials found particularly repugnant Mr Marcos’s reinstating General Ver after he and a group of other soldiers were acquitted of charges over the Benigno Aquino killing.

Mr Marcos several times promised Washington that he would replace General Ver before the elections, but he did not, and that more than anything else signalled to Washington that Mr Marcos would not undertake the reforms the Pentagon felt were necessary to defeat the Communists.