[asia-apec 1044] DEMAND FOR U.S. APOLOGY FOR WAR CRIMES AGAINST THE FILIPINO PEOPLE

[BAYAN]

Signature Campaign demanding an apology from the United States government 
for the war crimes it committed on the Filipino people
during the Filipino-American War of 1899-1916


4 February 1999


WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington D.C.


Dear Sir:

	We have not forgotten.  

	Exactly 100 years ago, the United States began the forcible annexation of
the Philippines. On the night of February 4, 1899, American soldiers opened
fire on Filipino revolutionary forces in San Juan and Caloocan, signalling
the start of the Filipino-American War. This event was preceded by the
infamous Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, under which your government,
turning its back on its commitment to support the Philippine Revolution,
bought the Philippines from Spain for $20 million. These and other acts of
treachery snatched the Filipino people's victory over Spanish colonial rule. 

	Thus began America's 17-year (1899-1916) military and political aggression
against the newly-formed Philippine democratic republic. Under the guise of
your President William McKinley's "Benevolent Assimilation," which
purported to civilize the "savage race" of Filipinos, your government and
powerful corporate elite proceeded to turn the Philippines into a dumping
ground for excess goods and capital, and an outpost for its expansionist
designs on China and the rest of Asia.

	Even then, among the American people there was an extensive campaign
against the violent colonization of the Philippines. This was led by the
Anti-Imperialist League, which had among its members such personages as
Mark Twain and William Jennings Bryan of your own Democratic Party. The
League opposed the American conquest of the Philippines as it violated all
the democratic tenets of your constitution.

	The Filipino-American War - which pitted the invading military forces of a
powerful industrialized nation against poorly armed Filipinos - resulted in
more than a million casualties among our people, mostly civilians.  As
early as May 1901, going into the third year of the war, Gen. Franklin
Bell, who led the American campaign against Filipino revolutionaries in
Batangas province, told the New York Times that there were already 600,000
Filipino casualties.  To wage this imperialist war of subjugation, the
United States had to spend $400,000,000 (as reported by Cablenews America,
October 9, 1907).

	Who can forget the relentless shelling by American battleships of towns
and villages along Manila Bay from February 4-10, 1899, causing the deaths
of thousands of Filipino men, women and children? Who can forget the
concentration camps, the wanton slaughter of farm animals and the torching
of crops by the troops of Gen. Bell to isolate the guerrilla forces of Gen.
Miguel Malvar in Batangas?  In that province alone in 1902, more than 1/3
of the 298,000 population was exterminated during the all-out American
offensive. Through the "kill and burn" policy of Gen. Jacob Smith, which
turned Samar province into a "howling wilderness" in 1901, 7,000 Filipinos,
mostly civilians, died. Their cries for justice echo till this day. 

	Your government preaches the need to bring to the International Court of
Justice the Serb leaders in Bosnia and in the government of Yugoslavia for
the alleged crimes of genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the leaders of the
Khmer Rouge for their alleged crimes against the people of Cambodia. And
your government glosses over its wars of aggression against the Vietnamese,
Cambodian and Laotian people, which snuffed out the lives of more than
seven million people in the 60s and 70s and its instigation of the massacre
of more than one million people in Indonesia in 1965-66.    

	We remind you that your government started in the Philippines atrocities
that it would unleash against the peoples in Southeast Asia. Your invading
forces during the Filipino- Amerrican War, which at its peak reached
150,000, were themselves guilty of grievous crimes against humanity -
massacre of civilians, torture and starvation of prisoners, rape of women
and pillage of villages. Mark Twain himself bewailed the massacre of 600
Muslims, young and old, in Bud-dajo in the province of Jolo (Comments on
the Killings of 600 Moros, 1906).

	After  your  bloody  conquest of  the Philippines, your  government
proceeded to  plunder  the riches of our homeland,   most  notably   the
extraction of   billions of dollars  worth  of  gold  from  the  mountains
of Northern Luzon. 

	And to suppress all resistance to your colonial rule, you enacted such
oppressive laws as the Flag Law, which made it illegal to display the flags
of the Katipunan or the Malolos Republic, and the Brigandage Act of 1902,
which declared Filipino revolutionaries henceforth as bandits deserving
execution. With the last law, your hanged, among others, Gen. Macario Sakay
and Col. Lucio de Vega, both outstanding officers of our Philippine
Revolutionary Army.

	Mr. President, the United States of America has always claimed to be the
bastion of democracy and human rights; but your government now stands
accused of crimes against humanity. The US government violated these very
same principles when it waged its war of aggression against the Filipino
people 100 years ago. The United States appointed itself the savior of a
nation and then committed genocide against its people.

	We therefore demand that the United States government issue an immediate
and unconditional apology to the Filipino people for the death, misery and
havoc it wrought on our nation. We demand that it admit to the world the
great wrongs it inflicted against our people during the Filipino-American
War. Only with your government's acceptance of its guilt can truth and
justice begin to be served. 



	PRINTED NAME						SIGNATURE