Advantage 1:
US presence exacerbates conflict internally, O’Mahony et al 2018 – [The assistant dean
for academic affairs at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and a senior political scientist
at the RAND Corporation, “U.S. Presence and the Incidence of Conflict: How U.S.
Presence May Influence Intrastate Conflict Behavior”,
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1906.html]
Historically, U.S. troop presence decisions were driven primarily by concerns about deterring interstate war. However, since the end of the Cold
War, and especially in the post-9/11 era, U.S. forward presence has also increasingly focused on supporting partner states against internal
challengers. U.S. basing decisions and forward troop deployments are particularly focused on addressing state fragility and instability in areas
central to the Global War on Terror.1 Even during the period when U.S. policy was driven mostly by concerns about interstate conflict, U.S.
presence may have had unintentional or secondary effects on the risk of intrastate conflict. Just as U.S. presence can affect states’ interstate
conflict behavior, U.S. presence can alter the strategic calculations of key domestic political actors, including incumbent regimes and opposition
groups. Their behavior and interactions, in turn, can affect the likelihood of intrastate conflict. Just as in Chapter Three, where we developed
hypotheses regarding the effects of U.S. troop presence and interstate conflict, in this chapter we develop hypotheses on the linkage between
U.S. troop presence and intrastate conflict. Moreover, since the literature has highlighted the possibility that military assistance may have
important effects on intrastate conflict, we also consider the possible effects of U.S. military assistance on actors in the recipient country. U.S.
Presence and Incentives for Intrastate Conflict Behavior Intrastate conflict is a complicated process that results from the interaction of multiple
groups within the state, including the incumbent regime, opposition movements, ethnic groups, and student or labor groups.2 Depending on
these various interactions, intrastate conflict can manifest in several ways. Scholars and analysts are often concerned with the occurrence of
civil wars and insurgencies, in which incumbent governments are pitted against armed rebel or militant groups for control of the state.3 Civil
wars and insurgencies often entail prolonged violence within the state and a greater risk that conflict will spread to neighboring states and
destabilize entire regions.4 In the extreme, prolonged and expansive civil conflicts can lead to complete state collapse, increasing the risk that
the state becomes subject to rebel rule and an open host for terrorist groups.5 Years of civil war in Somalia, for instance, eventually led to
governmental collapse, which led to a military intervention by neighboring Ethiopia to contain the hostilities. But in much the same way that
full-scale interstate wars are often the result of escalations from lower-intensity conflicts, civil wars and insurgencies are themselves often the
product of lower-intensity intrastate conflicts. For instance, rebel groups may begin their dissidence as political opposition movements and only
turn to violence when forcibly excluded from the domestic political process or in response to government abuses. On the other side of this
interaction, incumbent governments may rely on repression and human rights abuses to put down domestic opposition movements,
dampening or enflaming the risk of full-scale civil war. These mechanisms are highlighted in Syria’s spiral toward civil war in 2011–2012. As one
chapter in the broader Arab Spring of 2011, the conflict began as a series of largely nonviolent protests, with demonstrators demanding
democratic and economic reforms. The Syrian regime responded with police crackdowns and an increasingly militarized response to mass
demonstrations. Protestors’ demands, in turn, became more extensive, and their tactics became increasingly violent. This spiral of government
opposition violence eventually escalated to the point of armed insurrection, setting the stage for full-scale civil war.6 As the Syrian example
illustrates, processes of intrastate conflict are often interconnected and cyclical. Scholarly works have only recently begun examining how U.S.
forward presence can affect these strategic interactions between domestic political forces, so there is scant systematic evidence, and the
literature is largely unsettled as to how U.S. forward presence generally affects the risk of intrastate conflict in partner nations. However, the
literature does suggest several ways that U.S. presence may affect each of the two key actors, incumbent regimes and opposition groups. U.S.
presence may increase U.S. leverage on partner regimes to improve human rights conditions within their boundaries. Alternatively, potential
opposition groups may be deterred from challenging incumbent regimes if the government’s security apparatus is bolstered by U.S. assistance.
U.S. presence may also enflame existing grievances against the regime, and governments, feeling secure through outside support, may increase
human rights abuses to punish dissent. Table 5.1 summarizes these hypotheses, which are outlined in more detail below. Increased state
repression and opposition grievances can, in turn, make civil war more likely. Cycles of dissent and government violence can escalate to fullscale civil war, just as low-level interstate disputes can escalate to war between states. (Figure 5.1 depicts these relationships visually.)
Therefore, to fully evaluate the effects of U.S. presence on civil war and intrastate conflict, it is critical that we consider lower-level responses to
U.S. forward presence by partner governments and opposition forces. Incumbent Regime When incumbent regimes lack popular legitimacy,
they often rely on repression and human rights abuses to consolidate and maintain their political security in the face of dissent or domestic
political challenges.7 Specifically, states may make use of restrictions on movement and organization, arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings, or
any number of fear tactics to alter dissidents’ decisions about opposing the regime.8 Such abuses can be targeted and affect only select groups,
as with Egyptian bans on the Muslim Brotherhood, or widespread, and they may be utilized either preemptively or in response to specific
periods of dissent.9 In all cases, the goal of such violence is to limit the influence of opposition groups on the domestic political process and/or
inhibit popular capacity to mobilize against the state.10 U.S. Presence Can Restrain Incumbent Regimes from Using Violence Increased U.S.
presence in partner nations could reduce the likelihood that incumbent regimes resort to violence against their citizens. Legally, the United
States is required to consider the human rights records of partner nations when evaluating continued security cooperation.11 And there is
evidence that, in practice, the United States does consider human rights practices in some of its military aid and presence decisions.12 Given
stated U.S. policy and some past precedent, U.S. partners may fear that the use of repression will result in the removal of U.S. presence and the
external security and other benefits it provides. In this sense, U.S. presence may make an incumbent government less likely to resort to
violence. There is research that supports this hypothesis, with evidence that some regimes have adjusted human rights practices to strategically
maintain levels of U.S. aid.13 U.S. presence may also be accompanied by security cooperation and security sector reform activities where U.S.
forces can encourage the adoption of norms and institutions that promote human rights. In this way, U.S. presence abroad can assist in the
development of long-term security institutions that favor greater respect for human rights.14 U.S. Presence Can Embolden Incumbent Regimes
to Use Violence 30 There is also evidence to suggest that, in some cases, increased U.S. presence either has no effect or actually increases
human rights abuses by partner states. U.S. military assistance to Colombia between 1988 and 2005, for instance, is associated with a
substantial increase in governmental attacks on civilians.15 The key factor linking how U.S. military presence affects partner states’ use of
repression and human rights abuses is often partner states’ strategic importance to U.S. interests.16 Previous works on the global distribution
of U.S. economic and military aid suggest that while the United States often considers the human rights records of partner states, such
considerations are often secondary to U.S. strategic and security interests.17 Similarly, in spite of continued human rights abuses in the wake of
the Arab Spring protests of 2011, the U.S. government resumed military support to Bahrain, the long-standing site of a U.S. naval base in the
Persian Gulf, in 2015.18 If U.S. security interests are the key factors driving forward presence, then partners may see little risk of U.S.
punishment for governments’ human rights practices. As a result, U.S. presence may not influence substantially the human rights practices of
partner governments.19 In fact, increased U.S.
presence may increase the human rights abuses of some partner
governments. U.S. troop presence or military aid may improve the incumbent regime’s security against
external threats, freeing up resources for domestic repression. Additionally, arms transfers to partner states meant
to buffer states’ security against external threats may unintentionally give an incumbent regime tools that they can turn toward repression.20
Increased U.S. presence also provides
regimes with an external source of nontax revenue, and previous works show that
increases in nontax revenue increase the risk of government human rights abuses.21 As governments’ nontax revenue increases, there is
less economic incentive for the regime to promote political and economic productivity by its populace
for sustained revenue. Combined with external security guarantees offered by U.S. presence, economic
security further insulates incumbent regimes from their populace and lowers the costs to the regime
associated with human rights abuses. Potential Rebels and Opposition Groups U.S. forward presence might affect the likelihood
that opposition groups challenge the incumbent regime. Existing scholarship suggests that U.S. forward presence may deter or exacerbate
grievances, giving potential rebels greater motivation to take up arms. These pathways are met with mixed empirical support, which may
reflect the diversity of opposition motivations globally. U.S. Presence Can Deter Opposition Groups As discussed above, by directly supporting
incumbent governments militarily, U.S. presence in partner states improves the capacity of the government to put down rebellion and dissent.
Potential rebels and opposition groups, for their part, are strategic actors and regularly consider the feasibility of campaigns against the
government. Said another way, potential opposition movements, in deciding whether to challenge the regime, calculate their odds of success
or survival. As U.S. military presence or aid increases the capacity of partner states to combat rebellion, opposition groups may be deterred
from taking up arms or even launching a nonviolent anti-regime campaign.22 As an example, continuing U.S. presence in Afghanistan is largely
centered on supporting and extending the capabilities of Afghan military units against a persistent insurgency. Similarly, U.S. security assistance
to vulnerable states, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Egypt, has largely focused on improving partner states’ capacities to deter radical antiregime elements, ranging from political to militant groups,that may ultimately threaten U.S. regional interests. U.S. Presence Can Reduce
Opposition Groups’ Grievances U.S. military presence abroad may indirectly decrease the risk of anti-regime campaigns through economic
development. Challenges to government rule, either violent or nonviolent, are often driven by economic and political grievances resulting from
economic inequality.23 Some research has found that U.S. troop presence is associated with accelerated economic and social development, in
part because of greater access to U.S. trade and investment.24 In addition, increased U.S. presence often removes some of the security burden
for partner states, allowing governments to reinvest funds earmarked for security into infrastructure or welfare projects, which can grow
political support through economic improvements.25 These pathways may explain why Ethiopia and Djibouti, two of the largest hosts of U.S.
military presence in Africa, are also two of the fastest-growing economies in sub-Saharan Africa.26 U.S. Presence Can Increase Opposition
Groups’ Motivation U.S. forward presence, however, also carries a risk of enflaming popular sentiments against incumbent governments and
inciting greater anti-regime movements. U.S. forward military presence and U.S. global interests are often cited as central tenets of
antiAmerican sentiments and terrorist attacks in partner states.28 U.S. troop presence in partner nations may be perceived
by local
populations as a soft occupation or through a lens of post-colonialism, leading to nationalist sentiments against foreign invasion or
involvement in domestic politics. Foreign troop presence can also be associated with other negative consequences, such as increased demand
for illicit activities, environmental damage, and disruptions to local markets that can further alienate local populations. Such sentiments have
plagued external actors in domestic politics, notably in galvanizing militant support against Russian forces in Afghanistan and U.S. forces in Iraq
and Afghanistan.29 As such, many experts assert that U.S. troop presence abroad often helps foment popular opposition or radicalization that
U.S. security cooperation is designed to hinder. Similarly, U.S. military presence abroad may indirectly increase opposition movements by
increasing human rights abuses by partner governments. Scholars have noted that the use of repression and human rights abuses, designed to
suppress anti-regime activity, often serves to increase dissent.31 Human rights abuses diminish popular support for the regime and increase
popular anti-regime sentiments.32 At the same time, repression of peaceful dissent may prompt opposition movements to substitute violence
for peaceful protest as a strategic means of survival. Net Effects of U.S. Presence on Intrastate Conflict Each of these pathways link U.S.
presence with the belligerent actions of partner regimes and opposition groups, respectively. But these actions by governments and opposition
groups, while independent outcomes, are also intermediate effects that may put partner states at an increased risk of civil war. As noted
previously, the belligerent actions of governments and opposition groups are interdependent; levels of state repression and anti-regime activity
are strategically connected. These lower-level interactions can escalate through increasing levels of violence, resulting in full-scale civil war. As
such, this report focuses on both the intermediate effects of U.S. presence, state repression and anti-regime activity, and the ultimate effect of
civil war. However, while our intermediate pathways toward civil war are often interdependent and cyclical, our statistical modeling approach
forces us to treat our three outcomes separately. While we recognize this limitation, our approach of separating the effects of U.S. presence by
intrastate actor, and examining the combined effects of actors’ intermediate actions on the risk of civil war, still can provide important insights
into the effects of U.S. forward presence on the risk of intrastate conflict around the world.
Presence culminates in indigenous death and broader social death in two ways:
1. Through reifying existing Spanish colonial trauma under the guise of military aid
and counterterrorism efforts in the Phillippines
Tuminez 08 [Astrid Tuminez is Assistant Dean and Director of Research at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public
Policy in Singapore. From 2003-2007, she served as the senior researcher on the Philippine Facilitation Project of
the United States Institute of Peace. She is a former Senior Fellow at the City University of Hong Kong, director of
research for alternative investments at AIG Global Investment Group, program officer at Carnegie Corporation of
New York, and Moscow office director of the Harvard Project on Strengthening Democratic Institutions. She is the
author of Russian Nationalism Since 1856 Ideology and the Making ofForeign Policy, “Rebellion, Terrorism, Peace:
America's Unfinished Business with Muslims in the Philippines Territorial Conflicts”,
https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/brownjwa15&id=211&type=text&collection=journals, dp]
Unlike its predecessor, Spain, which engaged in centuries of unsuccessful intermit- tent warfare with the Moros, the United States, in a much shorter period, conquered the remnants of the
ancient Muslim sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao using su- perior military technology, bait-and-switch treaty-making, cooptation of Moro elites, deployment of local spies and fighters, and
Today U.S. foreign policy has re-focused on the Moros, not because they are a marginalized
"ethnic and religious minority," but because they might be a source of ter- rorism. Moro areas on the island of Mindanao and the Sulu
archipelago in the southern Philippines have become part of the "second front" in the U.S. global war on terror. Before 9/11,
occasional unbridled cruelty toward Moro rebels.2
terrorists such as Ramzi Youssef, Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, and Hambali had been active in Manila and Mindanao. Youssef was involved in the 1993 attempt to bomb New York's World Trade
Center; Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, plotted terrorist acts from Manila; and Hambali was a leader of the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiyah, which was implicated in the 2002
Washington fears that al-Qaeda and its affiliates may have exploited, and could continue to exploit, local Moro
grievances to advance a larger agenda against U.S. interests. Marking the new urgency of the Moro problem,
U.S. security assistance to the Philippines, which languished at $1 million per year since the closure of U.S. bases in Clark and Subic Bay, rose to $100 million
Bali bombing.
in fiscal year 2001 to 2002.' U.S. officials laud U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the southern Philippines as a success.4 With U.S. intelligence and support, the Philippine military and police have
been able to arrest or kill leaders of W h a t a ils t h e M o r o s a n d f u e ls v io le n c e in t h e te a b u S a ya f G r ( A G ) w hit- the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), whit- southern Philippines is not
Islamic extrem- tling its fighters down to a couple ism, terrorist ideology, or anti-Americanism. of hundred from several thousand. Many suspected terrorists have been captured or killed. Yet,
What ails the Moros and fuels violence in the southern Philippines is not Islamic extremism, terrorist ideology, or anti-Americanism. Rather,
the Moro problem is one of grievances tied to land and marginalization. Government corruption and incompetence have stymied the peaceful 212 resolution of
these successes are short-lived.
these grievances, while general lawlessness, weapons proliferation, and intra-Moro divisions have intensified and prolonged violence. These realities must influence U.S. foreign policy more
strongly in order to stabilize Mindanao and make it a less hospitable environment for extremists in the long-term. WHAT AILS THE MOROS: MINORTIZATION, 1902-1968 Approximately five
million Moros live in the Philippines, comprising over five percent of the national population.5 They include 13 ethno-linguistic groups, whose ancestors began converting to Islam as early as
the fourteenth century. The largest are the Tausugs and Maguindanaos, who dominated the old Moro sultanates-state formations that had discrete governance systems, a culture based on
Islam, and an active set of relations with the outside world. Tausugs ruled the Sulu Sultanate from roughly 1450 to 1913, while Maguindanaos dominated the Maguindanao Sultanate from the
early sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries.6 Moro tribes resisted Spanish and U.S. rule but failed to preserve the sultan- ates, resulting in the minoritization of Moros. Begun under Spain,
minoritization intensified during U.S. rule and continued under Philippine independence. Spanish rule disregarded the Moro tradition of communal land ownership, whereby clan chiefs THE
BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS Rebellion, Terrorism, Peace: Americas Unfinished Business with Muslims in the Philippines ruled over and disposed of land under their jurisdiction. It also
invalidated the Moro idea that individuals could not own land because it belonged to the Almighty and could only be managed or shared. Spanish rulers disregarded the sultanates' domains
and invalidated the prior occupancy rights of Moros and other indigenous tribes.7 When the United States took control of the Philippines, officials initially recog- nized the distinctiveness of
Islam and Moro culture. They created a separately admin- istered Moro province in 1903 and did not proselytize the Moros.
Over time, however, U.S. policy shifted
toward integrating Moros into the emerging Philippine state. The Moro Province was abolished in 1914, and in 1920, non-differentiation
between Moros and other Filipinos progressed as Moro lands came under the jurisdiction of a new Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes. In 1936, the United States incorporated Mind- anao and
Sulu fully into the Philippine commonwealth in preparation for Philippine independence.8 Moro leaders repeatedly petitioned the U.S. government between 1910 and 1935 to consider Moro
identity and the historically troubled state of affairs between Moros and Christian Filipinos as reasons to keep Moros separate from the Hispanized and Christianized majority. In 1935, for
example, over one hundred clan leaders signed a petition to the U.S. president and Congress, declaring: Should the U.S. government grant the Philippines independence, the islands of 213
Mindanao and Sulu should not be included... Our public lands must not be given to other people.. .The practices, laws and decisions of our Moro leaders should be respected similar to what
the Americans have extended to us. Our religion should not be curtailed in any way .. .Once our religion is no more our lives are no more.' In 1926, New York congressman Robert L. Bacon
submitted a bill in Congress to continue to keep Mindanao and Sulu under U.S. control. However, the bill failed; U.S. legislators ultimately sided with Filipino elites in the north, who were eager
to become the dominant rulers of an independent Philippines, including the rich lands of Mindanao. U.S. policy created a political and social foundation that favored Christian Filipinos over the
minority Moros. Moros, in response, became the resentful and angry subjects of a people they perceived to be fundamentally different and unsympathetic to their culture. U.S.-mandated laws
Because only individuals and
corporations could register land, Moro and other indigenous clans with ancestral and communal
concepts of land ownership were excluded. Low literacy, lack of financial means to pay for surveys and taxes, and the absence of other kinds of knowledge
intensified Moro minoritization. The Land Registration Act of 1902 required landowners to acquire titles for their properties.
and resources required for land registration worsened the Moros' situation. In 1903 another law removed the authority of traditional chiefs to dispose of land and FALL/WINTER 2008 *
VOLUME XV, ISSUE I ASTRID TUMINEZ nullified land grants previously granted by Moro leaders. The Public Land Act allowing individuals to acquire homesteads was amended in 1919 to give
Christians up to 24 hectares, but non-Christians only 10.1° Legal discrimination, along with government and corporate development projects, displaced Moros and other indigenous peoples
from land they had occupied for centuries. Resettlement policies from 1911 to the late 1960s also intensified Moro marginal- ization: U.S. officials brought planters from overpopulated
Philippine areas to Mindanao to enhance rice production and cultivate new crops. New agricultural colonies emerged that were populated mainly by Christian settlers. Labor from other parts
of the Philip- pines also migrated to Mindanao to work on plantations and government-supported logging concessions. During the Philippine Commonwealth period (1936-1946) and the first
two decades of independence (1946-1966), the government continued to bring Christian settlers to Mindanao to mitigate "peace and order" problems with the Moros and give incentives to
military trainees who received farms upon completion of training. The settlers also attempted to increase rice and corn production, imple- ment land reform programs, and give land to
communist and Huk rebels who had surrendered in the late 1950s. By the 1960s, Moro minoritization had become afait accompli. In the Cotabato region, for example, the census of 1918
showed Moros to be a majority. But ten-fold 214 growth in Christian settlers from 1918 to 1960 caused Moros to be outnumbered 2:1 by 1960. Other sources note that, in 1903, Moros
constituted as much as 76 percent of Mindanao's population, but they dwindled to 23 percent in 1960 and 20 percent by 2000. With regards to land ownership, Moros evolved from majority
owners in 1912 to owning only 18 percent of land in Mindanao by 1982.11 FIGHTING BACK: MORO REBELLION AND FAILED PEACE, 1968-2001 By the late 1960s, competition for land,
resources, and political power fueled Moro- Christian tension. Individual Moro politicians who lost in elections began calling for Moro independence. In 1968 the army massacred up to 30
Tausug army recruits, who were part of a contingent being trained secretly by the Marcos government to invade Sabah in Malaysia.12 This event, known as the Jabidah Massacre, intensified
Moro anger against the government, and no one was punished for the crime. Finally, in 1972, Presi- dent Marcos declared martial law and obliged all citizens to surrender their weapons. The
Moros, who viewed their weapons as an integral part of their warrior heritage and their survival, saw this as threatening. Moro rebellion initially coalesced around the Moro National
Liberation Front (MNLF), led by former University of the Philippines professor Nur Misuari. Full-scale THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS Rebellion, Terronsm, Peace: Americas
Unfinished Business with Muslims in the Philippines war followed from 1973 to 1976, killing tens of thousands of individuals. In 1976, after a personal entreaty by former First Lady Imelda
Marcos to Muammar Kadafi, Libya assisted in brokering an agreement between the government and the MNLE The so-called Tripoli Agreement temporarily ended bloodshed and promised
autonomy for 13 provinces and nine cities in Mindanao.13 To Moros, a form of self-rule was about to begin. Yet, using constitutional strictures and martial law powers, Marcos created two
super regions in Mindanao without giving the Moros autonomy. Although mass violence subsided, the MNLF continued to operate as an armed rebellion. When Corazon Aquino became
president, she met with MNLF leaders and in 1989 created the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to redress the excesses of the Marcos dictatorship. A new constitution,
however, mandated that ARMM's composition be determined through mass plebiscite. Knowing that the ma- jority Christians in the south would outnumber Moros, the insurgent groups (i.e.,
the MNLF and a breakaway group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF) boycot- ted the vote. Instead of 13 provinces and nine cities originally promised in the Tripoli Agreement, the
Moro autonomous region garnered only four poor, Moro-dominated provinces. In 1992, President Fidel Ramos renewed peace talks with the MNLE But the breakaway MILF, whose leaders felt
that the MNLF did not sufficiently emphasize Is- lam as a pillar of Moro national identity, abstained from negotiations. After four years, 215 the government and the MNLF signed the 1996
"Final Peace Agreement." ARMM expanded to five provinces and two cities, and MNLF leader Misuari became ARMM governor. Nearly 5,000 of 30,000 MNLF fighters were integrated into the
Philippine army, while others received livelihood training or government jobs.14 Most Moros, how- ever, saw little improvement in their lives. Many former MNLF guerillas complained that
spots in the police, army, or government allotted to them were instead sold to the highest bidders. ARMM governance also proved to be corrupt and incompetent, with many officials using
resources from Manila and outside donors for personal benefit. President Ramos also pursued negotiations with the MILF, but his term ended in 1999 without an agreement. His successor,
Joseph Estrada, reacting to two major incidents of civilian kidnapping by the criminal Abu Sayyaf Group, launched an all-out war against MILF strongholds in 2000. Estrada's defense secretary
believed that the only thing Moros understood was force and that a "clash of civilizations" between Muslims and Christians was inevitable. In 2001, Estrada's successor, Gloria MacapagalArroyo, re-opened talks with the MILE Both sides agreed to a three-point agenda, including security, rehabilitation of conflict-affected areas, and ancestral domain. Notwithstanding a brief war
in 2003, the peace talks (still ongoing as of early 2008) produced interim agreements on security and rehabilitation. The third agenda item, ancestral domain, FALL/WINTER 2008 * VOLUME XV,
ISSUE I ASTRID TUMINEZ has proven to be thornier. Ancestral domain refers to the Moro demands for territory that would constitute a Moro homeland (larger than the ARMM), sufficient
control over economic resources on that territory, and a political structure that would allow Moros to govern themselves with minimal interference from Manila.5 Ancestral domain addresses
the roots of Moro grievances and builds a case for genuine self-determination short of-but not entirely excluding-independence. MILF negotiators note that a self-governed Moro homeland
could be given time to thrive, but ultimately, Moros should be allowed to vote on their final political status in an internationally-supervised referendum. Among the options for a Moro-only
vote would be autonomy, free association, and independence. As of mid-2008, talks appear indefinitely stalled over territorial, legal, and political obstacles, including President MacapagalArroyo's own liabilities stemming from allegations of serious corruption. U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM EFFORTS AND THE LIMITs OF SUCCESS Before 9/11, U.S. policy viewed Mindanao as a
. Since 9/11, however, U.S. policy and presence in Mindanao have become more palpable,
in the form of military counterterrorism and development assistance. Moreover, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has been
Philippine domestic affair
indirectly involved in the government-MILF 216 peace process, but the military has been the most prominent instrument of U.S. policy. Yearly Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) joint Philippine-
Since 2002, thousands of U.S. soldiers have
engaged in combat training with-and given intelligence and logistical support to-Philippine troops in
pursuit of terrorists in Sulu, Basilan, Tawi- Tawi, and central Mindanao. U.S. troops have also engaged in humanitarian missions,
U.S. military exercises, ongoing since the 1980s, have taken on a strong counterterrorism flavor.
including dental and medical assistance; road repair and construction; and the building of schools, clinics, bridges, and other civic infrastructure. Humanitarian activities aim to soften Moro
attitudes toward U.S. and Filipino soldiers, while hardening their stance toward local and foreign terrorists. Approximately 500 U.S. troops are stationed in Zamboanga City at the southern tip
Together with the Philippine Navy,
U.S. soldiers have conducted thousands of "visit, board, search and seizure" operations in the seas
around Sulu.6 Finally, the U.S. Rewards for Justice program gives millions of dollars for information leading to the arrest or killing of wanted terrorists. Although not a military
of Mindanao as part of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF- P), an initiative in the global war on terror.
program per se, Rewards for Justice functions as an integral part of U.S. military counterterrorism in Mindanao. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has also been active in
THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS Rebellion, Terrorism, Peace: America Unfinished Business with Muslims in the Philippines Mindanao, where it spends approximately two-thirds of its
annual $70 million Philip- pine budget. USAID has contributed to education, local infrastructure, microfinance, and livelihood for former MNLF combatants. But this assistance addresses only a
The reality and perception of conflict and lawlessness prevent outside private
investors from providing the capital needed to create a vibrant and stable economy in Moro areas. Finally,
tiny fraction of needs in the region.
U.S. policy has been indirectly involved in the peace process. In 2003, the U.S. State Department gave a grant of $3 million to USIP for a four-year effort to help expedite an agreement between
the government and the MILE This project added value to ancestral domain negotiations and conducted a broad range of activities in conflict resolution. But it was too small, short-lived, and
unable to make a substantial impact at the negotiating table due to opposition from Malaysia, the official facilitator of talks.17 U.S. counterterrorism has had successes in Mindanao in helping
Philippine armed forces kill or capture leaders of Abu Sayyaf and other smaller terrorist groups. Assistance from the United States has helped professionalize the Philippine military and
modernize its equipment. And in Basilan province, it has helped eliminate militants and facilitate the return of normal activities. But counterterrorism success has a dark flipside. Foremost, it
has helped legitimize the Philippine government's militarized ap- proach towards the Moro minority. In the last four decades, this approach has killed over 217 100,000 and displaced millions,8
. Violence is the hallmark of a failed Philippine state policy
in Mindanao. The state, historically by itself and now with U.S. counterterror- ism assistance, sustains
violence against Moros while failing to integrate them into the national body politic, mitigate
while failing to address the historical, cultural, and political grievances of the Moros
widespread anti-Moro prejudice, or implement more effective governance in Mindanao. In a larger context, U.S.
counterterrorism success barely addresses the official corruption, incompetence, and lawlessness that
contribute to terrorism and violence. For example, Philippine military personnel have acknowledged
privately their role in creating "deep penetration agents" within Abu Sayyaf, which exacerbated human
rights violations when these agents used their special status to eliminate personal enemies. Rival politicians,
Muslim and non-Muslim, have used bombs against other politicians while pressuring police and military personnel to ascribe such incidents to terrorism. Bombings and kidnappings are also
most bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations linked to Moro perpetrators
or alleged terrorists are judicially unresolved. Government and independent commissions assigned to investigate cases yield conflicting findings. Arrested
used for extortion and economic blackmail. Sadly,
individuals disappear in the slow and corrupt prison and legal systems, and a few have been brutally executed without transparent and full trials, as happened in the Taguig prison in Manila in
2005. Noto- FALL/WINTER 2008 - VOLUME XV, ISSUE I ASTRID TUMINEZ rious terrorists have escaped from jail; Indonesian bomber Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi broke out of national police
headquarters in Manila in July 2003. Guards and police implicated in his escape all failed lie detector tests, but were eventually exonerated (al-Ghozi was killed in Mindanao days before
Other "terrorists" have been arrested without charges,
while individuals have been wrongly apprehended for resembling certain terrorists. The Indonesian terrorist Dulmatin,
President Bush arrived in Manila for a state visit to the Philippines in October 2003).
who is wanted for the 2002 Bali bombings and has been at large in Mindanao, has been reported killed eight times by the Philippine military. As of May 2008, reports of his demise remain
inconclusive.9 In Mindanao, hundreds of thousands of legal and illegal small weapons and larger munitions are in the hands of terrorists, bandits, civilian militias, politicians, private armies,
insurgent groups, the military, and the police. Theft and illegal sales have trans- ferred ammunition and weapons from the police and military to Moro rebels, and most likely, to criminals and
terrorists. In 2004, for example, a Malaysian-led inspection of MILF troops discovered some of the MILF wielding new weapons that had only re- cently been issued to the police.20 Firefights
and bombings also routinely occur in clan or family disputes over land and political spoils. Because judicial institutions are weak, opponents resort to relatives from rebel, state, or civilian
Thus, notwithstanding overt wins in U.S.-backed counterterrorism, 218 weak
official accountability, weapons proliferation, lawlessness, and poor governance will likely continue to
exacerbate incidents of terrorism and violence in the future. The United States' effort to win hearts and minds has had mixed results.
Moros are grateful for U.S. military-supported humanitarian and civic missions but also rec- ognize the
fleeting nature of such missions. U.S. and Philippine military dentists may pull out rotting teeth, but
sustained dental care is not an option. U.S.-built clinics are terrific, but local doctors and nurses do not stay in conflict-prone neighborhoods. New or renovated
classrooms are worthwhile, but teachers, without proper resources or consistent salaries, tend to give up . Some Moros also question the intent of the
U.S. military, whom they see working closely with a Philippine military tainted by human rights abuses,
extra-judicial killings, and a long history of ill-treating Muslims. In 2003, for example, the armed forces used the false pretext of pursuing
armed groups to help them in their battles.
the "terrorist Pentagon Gang" to launch war against the MILF, killing scores of MILF troops and displacing thousands of Moro civilians.2' And in the Sulu Sea, the presence of MkV boats
manned by U.S. Navy Seals initially alienated Tausug fishermen, whose huts were flooded by waves created by the boats. U.S. military might, when linked with a maligned Philip- pine military,
is sometimes perceived as lacking in moral authority.22 The predominance of military counterterrorism reveals a narrow, ahistorical, and, in the long-term, unworkable approach. The essence
of the "Moro question" is not THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS Rebellion, Terrorism, Peace: America' Unfinished Business with Muslims in the Philippines terrorism. Terrorism,
As long as legitimate Moro grievances persist, and as long
as a per- missive environment of corruption and lawlessness prevails (including within Moro tribes and
communities), any U.S. counterterrorism success will be short-lived. In the long-term, the bombings,
beheadings, wars, banditry, kidnappings, and assassinations that terrorize Mindanao and other parts of
the Philippines will not go away. REFRAMING U.S. POLICY IN THE Fu-ruRE In 1906, nearly a thousand Moros on Sulu resisted a
U.S.-imposed head tax, which they deemed insulting and blasphemous. These "rebels" sought shelter in
a volcano called Bud Dajo. Major General Leonard Woods, administrator of the Moro Province, ordered several battalions of infantry to "clean up" Bud Dajo. What
perpetrated by individuals and small groups, is only a symptom of deeper ailments.
ensued was a massacre of hundreds of Moro men, women and children. In one commentator's words: On March 5, 1906, the reinforcements arrived and laid siege to the heights. The next
At daybreak on March 7, the final assault commenced, the Americans
working deliberately along the rim of the crater and firing into the pit. Periodically, "a rush of shrieking men and women would come
day, they began shelling the crater with artillery.
cutting the air and dash amongst the soldiers like mad dogs," one eyewitness reported, but the results were foreordained. When the action finally ended some 219 24 hours later, the
extermination of the Bud Dajo Moros had been accomplished. Among the dead lay several hundred women and children.23 Moros know the Bud Dajo story well and are familiar with other
injustices inflicted by U.S. rule. Though they lament some of the counterterrorism policies in Mindanao, they continue to view the United States as a friend and its government as a benign
power who would support them in their legitimate struggle for justice and self-determination. Moro rebels cite the United States' assistance to Afghan fighters after the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan in 1979 as evidence of U.S. justice on behalf of Muslims. In 2003, the late chairman of the MILF, Salamat Hashim, wrote a letter to President George W. Bush inviting the United
States to help "accelerate the just and peaceful negotiated political settlement of the Mindanao conflict." He appealed to the United States as the "champion of freedom and democracy" and
cited Moro historical efforts to convince the U.S. government to govern the Moro people separately from the rest of the Filipinos.4 In Moro communities in the Philippines, analysts would be
hard-pressed to find any large number of Muslims committed to violent Islamism or an implacable hatred for the United States. A more effective policy that protects the United States'
interests in the long-term means that it must make the peace process at least as important-if FALL/WINTER 2008 - VOLUME XV, ISSUE I ASTRID TUMINEZ not more-than its military
counterterrorism. In pursuing this route, it is possible to achieve success, defined as a genuine narrowing of geographic and social space for ter- rorist operations, palpable and sustainable
improvement in the socio-economic plight of common Moros, and a strengthening of Philippine state cohesion. A successful peace agreement means that the bulk of the 10 to 12 thousand
MILF fighters can be given livelihood and eventually demobilized. This would diminish the problem of "rogue elements" that allegedly give shelter to, or otherwise support, terrorists.
Philippine resources now used to fight the MILF could be re-allocated to the policing needed to apprehend criminals and extremists. An agreement could also bind MILF leaders to clean up
their own ranks or jeopardize gains from negotiations. An agreement based on ancestral domain will also allow Moros to develop natural resources on their lands. If a transparent process is
instituted to disburse funds and use them equitably and efficiently, common Moros might finally see their community infrastructure and services improve. With conflict subsiding, jobs could
be generated in resource-rich Moro areas and a slow process to lift Moro provinces from the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder could begin. Over time, as Moro rights and dignity are
enhanced, the risk of separatism would wane and Philippine state cohesion would be enhanced. The United States can build on advantages that already exist should it choose to 220 support
the peace process more conscientiously. It enjoys a long and unique historical role in the Philippines, giving it leverage as an outside player. Officials in Manila tend to be willing to listen to
their U.S. counterparts, and the latter could provide reasoned and sustained arguments on the potential political, security, and economic benefits of resolving the "Moro question." Likewise,
Moro leaders eagerly seek the attention of U.S. officials and are likely to listen to their advice. Other developments augur well for the United States' involvement in the region. Relative peace
has prevailed in Mindanao since 2003. In part, such peace can be credited to the Malaysians, who have led a peacekeeping effort called the IMT (International Monitoring Team). Together
with troops from Libya and Brunei, and, more recently, civilian representatives from Japan, the IMT has prevented small conflicts and local tensions from turning into larger battles.25
Complementing the IMT are civilians and officials who have created "peace zones" in local communities, bringing together Chris- tians, Muslims, and non-Islamic indigenous groups to sign
peace pacts, resolve conflict over land, and prevent weapons from entering their territories. Another measure that has strengthened peace on the ground is the joint government-MILF team
called the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (AHJAG). Through this body, Philippine soldiers and Moro guerillas have worked together to apprehend criminals and terrorists, recover kidnap victims,
and coordinate troop/rebel movements to avoid unintended skirmishes. THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS Rebellion, Terrorism, Peace: Americas Unfinished Business with Muslims in
the Philippines Another positive factor for the Moros is the negotiations themselves. Over a decade, the peace panels have developed consensus points on ancestral domain. These points
include partial territorial restitution for the Moros (enlarging ARMM to include most Moro-dominated areas in Mindanao) and genuine devolution of power (except national security, treasury,
and the postal system). The panels have studied the experience of minorities in other conflict situations and sought to balance Philippine territorial integrity with Moro aspirations for greater
autonomy. The draft consensus on ancestral domain envisions an opportunity for Moros to write their own charter, thereby giving the oft-divided and sometimes violently competing ethnic
Moro groups a chance to resolve their differences and craft a unified vision of their future. This is an idealistic undertaking, but international oversight and assistance could increase the
likelihood of cooperation among Moro leaders, who must discuss and confront tough choices. They could unite and share power in the new Moro homeland, or split amicably into two Moro
autonomous zones. Malaysia has officially facilitated peace talks since 2001; in 2003, the U.S. gov- ernment funded the USIP as an independent party to help expedite the peace process and
coordinate support with the U.S. government, but Malaysia hesitated to invite an unofficial entity to the negotiating table. Although it remains to be seen, the Malaysians might be more open
to an official U.S. presence, particularly if the United States com- mits to post-agreement support. The U.S. government must follow the peace process closely in order to have an The U.S.
government must follow the peace informed basis for its role during implementation. process closely in order to have an informed PledgedU.S. development basis for its role during
implementation. assistance in the wake of an agreement could be more effectively targeted if policymakers have a detailed knowl- edge of the actors, substance, and process underlying the
agreement. U.S. experience in such places as Northern Ireland could be used to help create an international body (call it "Friends of Mindanao") to monitor the implementation of an
agreement, assist in dispute resolution, and maximize development assistance. By working with pioneers in Mindanao, including Malaysia and Indonesia, the United States could enhance its
prestige and relationships in the larger Asian Muslim world. Moro hearts and minds might be more credibly won, and greater local cooperation could result in hunting down real terrorists, if
. U.S. engage- ment must include greater accountability from the Philippine military and
government on human rights, legal reform, and due process. This could be done quietly, but firmly and consistently, and progress could be
the peace process succeeds
rewarded with increased security and develop- ment assistance. Finally, through USAID or institutions such as USIP, the United States FALL/WINTER 2008 - VOLUME XV, ISSUE I ASTRID
TUMINEZ could help strengthen the public constituency for understanding Moro grievances and strengthening Moro minority rights. Education still needs to be emphasized to counter
widespread anti-Moro prejudice. Civil society organizations are making a difference in this area, and generational attitudes toward Moros are changing positively, albeit slowly, in places like
U.S. colonial policy helped create
this problem, and U.S. policy now has an opportunity to move Mindanao towards a more constructive
direction. U.S. fairness and constructive engagement will win Muslim hearts and minds in Asia. By supporting the peace process, the United States will have the opportunity to correct
Manila. Ralston Hayden correctly characterized the "Moro question" in 1928 as "the problem of an ethnic and religious minority."
historical wrongs, strengthen the stability of an old ally, prevent extremism, and give the Moros a chance for a more dignified existence.
2. Causing material environmental harm disproportionately effecting indigenous
populations – they continue to aid in base making to absolve responsibility of
the US military
Tritten 10 [Travis J. Tritten has reported for Stars and Stripes since 2007, including assignments in the
Philippines, Iraq and Guam. He graduated from Ohio State University in 2001 with a bachelor of arts in
journalism. Tritten covered government and politics for daily newspapers in South Carolina and Florida
before joining Stars and Stripes. He is based in Washington, D.C, “Decades later, U.S. military pollution in
Philippines linked to deaths”, https://www.stripes.com/news/decades-later-u-s-military-pollution-inphilippines-linked-to-deaths-1.98570, dbp]
CLARK AIR BASE, Philippines - The
U. S. military is long gone from bases in the Philippines, but its legacy remains buried here. Toxic waste was spilled on the ground, pumped
into waterways and buried in landfills for decades at two sprawling Cold War-era bases. Today, ice cream shops, Western-style horse ranches, hotels and public parks have sprung up on land
once used by the Air Force and the Navy — a benign facade built on land the Philippine government said
is still polluted with asbestos, heavy metals and fuel. Records of about 500 families
who sought refuge on the deserted bases after a 1991 volcanic eruption indicate 76 people died and 68 others were sickened by pollutants on the bases. A study in 2000 for the Philippine
Senate also linked the toxins to "unusually high occurrence of skin disease, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, cancers, heart ailments and leukemia." The 1991 base closing agreement gave
the Philippines billions of dollars in military infrastructure and real estate at the bases and in return cleared the United States of any responsibility for the pollution. The Department of Defense
told Stars and Stripes it has no authority to undertake or pay for environmental cleanup at the closed bases. Philippine government efforts never gained traction. Philippine President Joseph
Estrada formed a task force in 2000 to take on the issue, but it fell dormant and unfunded after he left office a year later. Efforts by private groups and environmentalists to force a cleanup
have largely fizzled. After two decades, the base closing agreement has run up a troubling environmental record. Filipinos claim exposure to U.S. pollutants has brought suffering and death. As
the U.S. military works to become greener in the 21st century, the Philippines stand as a dark reminder of how environmental responsibilities can go astray overseas.
Both the Air
Force and the Navy polluted haphazardly in the Philippines. The Navy pumped 3.75 million gallons of untreated sewage each day into local
fishing and swimming waters at Subic Bay, according to a 1992 report by what was then known as the General Accounting Office. The bases poured fuel and chemicals from firefighting
exercises directly into the water table and used underground storage tanks without leak detection equipment, the agency found. At least three sites at the Subic Bay Navy base — two landfills
and an ordnance disposal area — are dangerously polluted with materials such as asbestos, metals and fuels, the Philippines government found after an environmental survey there. Clark Air
Base was a staging area during the Vietnam War. Its aviation and vehicle operations contaminated eight sites with oil, petroleum lubricants, pesticides, PCB and lead, according to a 1997
Before the U.S. closed the bases, it drew up a rough bill for cleaning the
hazardous pollution. Though they never tested the water or soil, the Air Force and the Navy estimated
cleanup at each could cost up to $25 million — the average cost of handling the most polluted sites back in the United States, according to the GAO. Rose
environmental survey by the Philippine government.
Ann Calma is believed to be one of the warning signs of pollution at Clark Air Base. Now 13 years old, she weighs just 32 pounds and must wear diapers. Cerebral palsy and severe mental
retardation have stolen her ability to speak or walk. Her mother and about 500 other families who were displaced by a volcanic eruption in 1991 moved onto the base and set up a tent village.
They drilled shallow wells on a former motor pool site and drank the untreated water — despite an oily sheen — until they were moved off the land in the late 1990s. Records of the families,
published by the Philippines Senate, said 144 people were sickened at the camp, 76 of whom died. It said at least 19 children were born with disabilities, diseases and deformities between
1996 and 1999. Tests in 1995 by the Philippine Department of Health confirmed wells on Clark were contaminated with oil and grease, a byproduct of decades of military use. "If it is God’s will,
then I accept it," Rose Ann’s mother, Susan Calma, said recently. In a village near Subic Bay, Norma Abraham, 58, holds an X-ray showing the lung disease that killed her husband, Guillermo.
Her husband worked through the 1980s and early 1990s sorting the Navy waste that went into local landfills, which are the most polluted sites at Subic Bay. Many aborigines like Abraham,
who are among the poorest in a poor country, were paid about 30 cents per day to hand-sort recyclable metals from Navy waste that included asbestos, paint and batteries, villagers told Stars
and Stripes. No protective equipment other than gloves was ever used, and asbestos dust was often thick in the air, the villagers said. Sometimes, when a truck dumped new waste for sorting,
they said the workers would faint from the toxic fumes. Guillermo Abraham began to cough, feel tightness in his lungs and have trouble breathing while working there, his wife said. The lung
ailment plagued him through his life and after an X-ray in January showed he was terminally ill with lung disease, he died on May 29, Norma Abraham said. His disease, which mirrors
The aborigines rarely get
quality medical treatment and do not keep birth or death records. But they compiled a list for Stars and
Stripes of 41 people who they believe died over the years from toxic exposure. Any real chance for an
environmental cleanup was scuttled by the two governments in the agreement that gave the Philippines
billions of dollars in base infrastructure and real estate in return for absolving the United States of any
responsibility for the pollution. As a result, the United States has no legal responsibility or authority to
conduct a cleanup, and an influential Philippines politician said that government has little interest in the problem. "It is not one of its priorities," said Philippine Sen. Aquilino
asbestosis, is the most common ailment and killer among the 70 or so families who worked with the Navy’s waste, according to the villagers.
Pimentel Jr., a former majority leader and Senate president. "If it was, it would have been done a long time ago." Dolly Yanan keeps the records and photos of the gray-faced, emaciated and
disabled children believed to have been poisoned by U.S. military pollution in the Subic Bay area. The records count 38 deaths from disease between 2000 and 2003. But the record-keeping
has begun to lapse in recent years as hope for a cleanup and enthusiasm for the cause recedes. "For the past four or five years, we cannot track the leukemia," said Yanan, who runs a
coalition of citizens known as the People’s Task Force for Bases Cleanup has fought
for U.S. accountability for two decades and met with a string of disappointments. The Philippine Senate inquiry and task
community center in Olongapo City. A
force in 2000 led to no action, and a lawsuit designed to force a U.S.-led environmental assessment survey, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco, was thrown out
in 2003. "If only our government was strong enough, I think there would have been a cleanup or at least an initial assessment," Yanan said. "First, it should be our government who should have
a strong will and call for a cleanup."
 The education article desai
Military exploitation is particularized in the Duterte administration, who is ramping up
violence against the Filipinx population—assault at the hands of police, the murder
and repression of civil rights, environmental, and labor activists, and bombing of
indigenous communities – taking cues from US
After Globalism Writing Group 18 [an investigative group led by led by Michael Mandiberg, a
professor of media culture at the College of Staten Island, CUNY and Doctoral Faculty at The Graduate
Center, CUNY, “State Violence is Redundant”, Social Text, 65-69, https://doi.org/10.1215/016424724298586]
Out of the inhuman
black ghettos of American cities, out of the cotton plantations of the South,
comes this record of mass slayings on the basis of race, of lives deliberately warped and distorted by the
willful creation of conditions making for premature death, poverty and dis- ease.” That is the opening sentence of the
1951 document “We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government against the Negro
People.” How
can this charge and record of state violence not be the charge of our own times, resounding
with plaints of the Black Lives Matter movement? How could it not resound with the plaints of groups targeted by other states under the
direct protection and patronage of the United States, such as Israel and the Philippines? “History has shown that the racist theory of government of the USA is not the
private affair of Americans, but the concern of mankind everywhere,” the petition argues. It is so because “ a
policy of discrimination at home
must inevitably create racist commodities for export abroad —must inevitably tend toward war.”1 Among
those racist commodities that have been exported through the military alliances and networks developed during
the twentieth-century are techniques of governance and statecraft that have become both the exceptions
and the rule within the universal political protocols of nation-states. Philippine president Duterte’s campaign of
extrajudicial capital punishment for drug users and pushers—criminalized “offenders” of Philippine society— clearly draws from the
playbook of the US–Latin American war on drugs of the last few decades for its ideological campaign, even as its operations are also its
own invention. It also draws directly for its drives, tactics, and techniques on the long, continuous history of
low-intensity counterinsurgency campaigns conducted by the United States and its proxy states before
and after the “democratization” shift in US foreign policy in the late 1980s, a shift taken to recover
hegemony in the face of the undeniable gains of decolonizing peoples’ struggles from two decades
before. “We Charge Genocide” offers as evidence of the crime for which it holds the US government accountable the beatings, murders, and rapes of black men
and women by local police, sheriffs, and other law enforcement agents. It also offers as evidence of genocide the infliction on black lives of “conditions of life
calculated to bring about [their] destruction,”2 through employment policies, residence and housing regulations, and rules and practices of transportation, medical
care, and education. Such conditions of life, the petition argues, effectively reduce the vitality of black people an average of eight years. The measures are there to
prove the systemic reduction of life chances as much as the outright elimination of persons of a group, to prove that economic terrorism, as well as police terrorism,
claims its victims. But the measures will, in our own present time, also become the instruments of a more calibrated life taking (on which more later). Antiblackness
lives in the heart of these policing, work, and welfare (housing, health, education) policies, what now some might call equal measures of sovereign and necropolitical
power and biopolitics. And though the recent charge of mass murder and crimes against humanity brought up against Duterte in the International Criminal Court
might not name it as such, antiblackness is arguably at work in the postcolonial state when it carries out the learned and shared tools and techniques of genocidal
violence on subgroups of its own people. We know these sovereigns and strong rulers from another era. What is certain is that such violence
constitutes
the international fraternal language of state sovereignty through which individual
states authorize, communicate, and negotiate their power on the global stage. Duterte could not exist
withoutthis language system in place, and without the network of power alliances in the global security
complex in which the nation-state he oversees serves as logistical provider support. One way to pursue
this historical trace is through the rhetoric of the war on drugs that haunts the current political imaginary and the rhetorics of
securitization in the Trump/Duterte era. Another way is through the rhetoric of democracy that accompanied the
US imperial project at the turn of the twentieth century, as it tried to distinguish itself from the blighted model of Spanish colonialism
with its guarantee to extend “that full measure of individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of free peoples” to its colonial wards.3 Sovereign
violence is the state’s bid for international recognition. It doesn’t matter whether such recognition is
positive or negative. Or whether such violence is legitimate or not. It is the fiat political currency of the
day. The present-future condition of possibility is framed by a past that calls forward the ongoing
experience of coloniality. This is what Paul Amar refers to as “the security archipelago” or the geographies that reach across the complex that is the
human-security regime.4 Though many theorists mark the origin point of such securitization in the modern architectures of fascism, we might think about a longer
historical arc of imprisonment, war, and othering. With the recent ironic appointment of Jeff Sessions to the Department of Justice, the return to the war on drugs
seems imminent as a strategy of containment against demographic shifts and the activation of social movements that name and revise the racial state.
However, Sessions’s security rhetoric, alongside strengthening the state and the legal infrastructure for repealing voting rights, also opposes consent
decrees aimed at reducing police violence against communities of color, law-and-order discourses that have been condemned by Amnesty International. Such rhetoric,
which displaces the disproportionate impact of security across social groups, threatens
to return us to a colonial/modern Cold War
past where the “enemy from within” continues to be the vessel for state containment. Beyond statecentered politics, there is the environmental, atmospheric violence that could be properly called state
sanctioned insofar as this is a form of violence that is licensed, authorized, and endorsed by governmental
agencies. This is a slow as well as an instantaneous violence, as when the pipelines for oil continue to be built, and the long-term effects of fossil fuel extraction
are joined by the instant contaminating effects of spills and other anticipated accidents, risked on the lands and lives of indigenous communities. The struggle of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline continues their own centuries-long struggle within this particular long arc of political
violence. David Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, talked about this struggle as the latest battle of his people against the theft of their belongings
and their conversion into resources: gold, land, water.5 It foregrounds this particular environmental racism as indigenous dispossession and counter(indigenous)
sovereignty, the elimination of peoples as the means and consequence of the capture of space and the future.6 What is this kind of state
violence if not the
continuation of a colonial violence against nonhuman nature, which feminists have long understood as also and always concomitant
with the rise of sexual violence as imperial policy and capital relation. What is human sovereignty if not the conjoining of man and state—each made in the godly
image of the other—in the colonization of the planet? Masters of the universe. An early globalism, the most recent version of which struts under the name of
neoliberalism. And so what? What good does it do to trace these long arcs, to find nothing egregious about such modern state violence except the fact that, despite
centuries of brutal evidence to the contrary, it continues to be viewed as exceptional or merely instrumental? When we continue to observe the rituals of electoral
politics and choose between one form of state or another, all our hates and fears coursed through the men and women who vie for the freedom and impunity of state
power? Even when we profess faithlessness in this system of political representation that is itself the standing, infrastructural violence we have yet to dismantle or
even undermine. When the notion of state violence is redundant, and might speak only to old liberal conceits. Everyone else flees or circumvents the state because
they know what’s up. (They’ve long known that “everything is fucked up,” though this is not how they would have thought it—since surely they had none of the
illusions that things were ever fair or even working.) Liberalism has always been an exception. Most of the world has lived in other times, under other orders. There
and then, people knew that the state is the harsh feature of an inescapable landscape in which people must till their dreams or find a crevice in which to sleep, if not
some dignified way to die. Even as death as well as life is full of unfathomable devastation and disappointment.
The violence will never end on its own – just like the war on terror the military falls
into the same traps that enable corruption and incentivize the philippines to remain
the oppressors – only cutting off support can exit the circle of violence
Abuza 18 – Zachary, Professor at the National War College, and the author of Forging Peace in
Southeast Asia, "WHERE DID THE U.S. GO WRONG IN THE PHILIPPINES? A HARD LOOK AT A ‘SUCCESS’
STORY", War on the Rocks, 6/14/2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/where-did-the-u-s-gowrong-in-the-philippines-a-hard-look-at-a-success-story/ JHW
But America’s biggest failing
was to treat the wrong problem and to do so through a narrow tactical lens that
failed to account for the political environment. The United States was focused on combatting terrorism,
rather than helping the host government conduct a more holistic counter-insurgency. Narrow counter-terrorism
was exactly what the Philippines wanted, as it enabled the government to avoid the tough reforms necessary to address the long-running
insurgencies and ungoverned spaces. This is most obvious when one looks at the case of the MILF. In 1996 the group began providing sanctuary
and training camps for Al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah. What eventually cut the group’s ties to Jemaah Islamiyah was a peace
process with the government that began in mid-2003. Once the peace process began, the al-Qaeda affiliate became a liability, and many,
though not all, were forced out of MILF-controlled territory. A peace agreement was signed in 2014, but in the midst of deliberations by Filipino
lawmakers over the implementing legislation, a police unit launched a raid into MILF-controlled territory in January 2015, bypassing the normal
ceasefire coordinating mechanisms. The death of 44 police aborted all congressional deliberation. It was a tactical encounter, with strategic
costs. Although the United States repeatedly has said that it supports the peace process, it largely accepted the Philippine position, placing the
onus on the MILF. Washington has done little since 2015 to raise the cost for the Philippines to follow through, and the peace process — until
very recently — has been stalled. As the Philippine Congress refused to pass implementing legislation, in the midst of a national election, cells
declaring allegiance to the Islamic State were proliferating across the southern Philippines. Today, central Mindanao has at least four different
pro-Islamic State groups including the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, Ansuar al-Khalifa Philippines, and the Maute Group. They were
able to take advantage of frustration and disillusionment with the MILF leadership, and mistrust of the government. The MILF leadership
acknowledges they are powerless to stop the defections or compete with these groups for new recruits. Until a peace agreement is concluded,
the group has neither the incentive, will, nor, increasingly, the capacity, to police its territory. While there has been some recent progress
towards the implementation of the peace agreement, the MILF is a weaker, less cohesive organization and will have a much harder time
implementing its end of the deal. The Mautes and Abu Sayyaf are regrouping and recruiting anew, taking advantage of the government’s
botched reconstruction of the city, which will only deepen animosity towards the government from its 400,000 displaced people. Meanwhile,
Mindanao continues to draw foreign militants. While the Philippines continues to conduct counter-terror operations, more often than not, their
tactics – which the U.S. tried to wean them off of – have fuel the proliferation of extremist groups and created a more complex security
landscape for a military that is already challenged and under-resourced. The Counter-Terrorism Trap For
17 years, the United States
has fallen into the same trap it has created for itself repeatedly since 9/11. It has enabled corruption in
host-nation security forces, focused on counter-terrorism instead of counter-insurgency, allowed the
government to pursue policies that are inimical to U.S. security interests, turned a blind eye to failures
of governance, and focused on tactical successes while losing sight of strategic objectives. First, the failure to root out
corruption has created moral hazard: There is simply no incentive for the AFP to ever finish the job.
Open-ended commitments ensure that America will be played, and it seems to be repeating this
mistake. Second, the United States has framed the Philippines as a counter-terrorism problem, not a
counter-insurgency problem. It lost sight of the fact that indigenous insurgencies were what created the
ungoverned space that terrorists utilized. And the United States backed aggressive counter-terror operations that led to the
collapse of a peace process at a critical time. Third, although few insurgencies are ever defeated on the battlefield, the United States was
unwilling to use its leverage to push the Philippines into a negotiated settlement when it mattered most. U.S.
reticence continued, even as the security situation on the ground worsened and the Philippine government and Congress continued to stall on
the peace process. If
the host government doesn’t have the political will to solve core grievances, no amount
of assistance can help them. Fourth, the United States never held the Philippine government to account
when its rule of law, democracy, and political institutions were constantly being degraded. Even if U.S.
security assistance had gone well and the decapitation strategy had worked, these gains were
meaningless given that the underlying political context was so much worse. With legal and political channels and
protections weakening, what is to preclude significant portions of the population from taking up arms against the state? Fifth, the United
States focused on short-term tactical successes, rather than the big picture: ungoverned space in which terrorists could
regroup, train, and execute attacks. After several years of improvement, Mindanao is once again a black hole for regional security. The
experience in the Philippines should raise serious questions about counter-terrorism efforts that are
declared successful. The case is a cautionary tale about the much-touted light footprint approach and, more generally, about America’s
ability to influence political and security conditions in a host country with more deeply rooted problems. If the United States can’t
influence the actions of a treaty ally that is dependent on American aid and professes to share U.S.
interests, it shouldn’t expect to achieve anything better elsewhere.
Passive colonial presence emboldens US military to overstep power – creates both
Filipino hostility and Chinese aggression
Poling and Cronin 18 – [Gregory B. Poling is director of the Asia Maritime Transparency
Initiative and a fellow with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, DC. He oversees research on U.S. foreign policy in the
Asia Pacific, with a particular focus on the South China Sea disputes, democratization in
Southeast Asia, and Asian multilateralism. Conor Cronin is a research associate with the Asia
Maritime Transparency Initiative and was previously a research associate with the Southeast
Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He
conducts research on the maritime disputes of the Asia Pacific and U.S. foreign policy in
Southeast Asia, “THE DANGERS OF ALLOWING U.S.-PHILIPPINE DEFENSE
COOPERATION TO LANGUISH” https://warontherocks.com/2018/05/the-dangers-of-allowingu-s-philippine-defense-cooperation-to-languish/]
On April 17, Philippine defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana and U.S. ambassador Sung Kim took part in a groundbreaking
ceremony for the first official construction
project under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The project to build a warehouse for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief supplies at Cesar Basa Air Base in Pampanga Province
comes more than four years after the two sides inked EDCA, and two years after the Philippine Supreme Court affirmed its constitutionality. The ceremony was at once an important
milestone, and a sobering reminder of how far short of expectations EDCA has fallen. If implementation of the agreement
continues at this rate, the national interests of both the Philippines and the United States will suffer. Without a fully implemented EDCA, the Philippines will likely lose its maritime rights in the South China Sea, either by force or the
threat of force from China, and the United States will be seen as a paper tiger unable to protect its allies or defend freedom of the seas. The Reasons for EDCA Manila and Washington signed EDCA in 2014 as a vehicle to modernize
the U.S.-Philippine alliance to better meet shared challenges In particular, the agreement was meant to help address growing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and natural disasters in the Philippines, which are projected
to become more frequent and more destructive with a changing climate. Less than two years before, China had seized control of Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines, prompting Manila to file its landmark case against Beijing’s
claims before a tribunal at The Hague. In late 2013, the Philippines was hit by Typhoon Yolanda, or Haiyan—the strongest storm on record to make landfall in the country. The U.S. military’s rapid response proved critical in
delivering supplies and evacuating the injured from affected areas, and reminded both sides of the public goods that the alliance could offer. In case there was any doubt about its aims, Article 1 of EDCA says the agreement is
meant to ensure that both sides can meet their obligations under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.” The only state actor threatening armed
attack against the Philippines or Filipino forces is China in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. The shared perception of a Chinese threat to Philippine, and ultimately international, interests in the South China Sea is clearly
at the core of the agreement. Article 1 goes on to say that EDCA will focus on improving interoperability…and for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) addressing short-term capabilities gaps, promoting long-term
modernization, and helping maintain and develop additional maritime security, maritime domain awareness, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief capabilities. [emphasis added] To accomplish these goals, EDCA
negotiators agreed that the Philippines would allow U.S. troops and military platforms to access and preposition equipment in certain “agreed locations.” In 2016, Manila and Washington settled on five initial Philippine military
bases on which the United States would construct facilities, position equipment, and rotate forces . These were Basa Air Base and Fort Magsaysay, both in Luzon; Antonio Bautista Air Base in Puerto Princesa, Palawan; MactanBenito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu, Visayas; and Lumbia Air Base in Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao. The United States would undertake construction of necessary facilities at those locations, to be eventually handed over to the Philippine
military. This would allow for more joint training and boost America’s ability to assist with maritime domain awareness, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and other missions in the short and medium-term, while
contributing directly to the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ long-term modernization and capacity-building efforts. Four of the five EDCA sites are on Philippine Air Force bases, reflecting the agreement’s focus on maritime domain
awareness and security, as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, both of which rely heavily on air capabilities that the Philippines is sorely lacking. The fifth, Fort Magsaysay, is the largest military base in the country
and the hub for the annual U.S.-Philippines Balikatan joint exercises. The ability to preposition military equipment and rotate more troops there could boost joint training and help modernize the Philippine military. While each of
the five initial locations has certain advantages, Basa and Antonio Bautista Air Bases are most important for accomplishing EDCA’s stated goals (though Mactan and Lumbia could prove important for disaster relief and counterterror operations, respectively). Most U.S. military aircraft that currently rotate through the country for training or other missions, such as maritime patrol (e.g. P-8 Poseidons that regularly patrol the Spratly Islands) operate from
Clark Air Base north of Manila. Basa would provide a much-needed alternative nearby, especially as future U.S. access to Clark is uncertain because of ambitious plans to develop Clark International Airport into an alternative civilian
hub for Manila. U.S. combat aircraft rotating through Basa would also be well-placed to respond quickly to any incidents threatening Filipino assets at Scarborough Shoal. Puerto Princesa, meanwhile, is the home of AFP Western
Command and its air component, the Tactical Operations Wing West, whose area of responsibility includes the Spratly Islands. Building up the capacity of this air wing with U.S. assistance is critical if the Philippines hopes to
monitor, patrol, and eventually establish a minimum credible defense posture within its exclusive economic zone and disputed land features in the South China Sea. Finally, in the short and medium term, having U.S. combat
aircraft rotate through Antonio Bautista would allow rapid response to, and create a deterrent against, attacks on Filipino ships or soldiers in the Spratlys. Delays, Downgrades, and Diminished Hopes More than two years later,
plans for all five military bases face considerable hurdles, and it is unclear whether two will see any EDCA activity at all. During a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Assistant Secretary of Defense Randy Schriver
insisted that the delays were merely bureaucratic, but the problems are much deeper than that and will require serious political effort on both sides to correct. EDCA’s future became uncertain almost as soon as President Rodrigo
Duterte entered office in July 2016. Duterte is famously anti-American and has repeatedly said that the United States cannot be trusted to fulfill its treaty commitments to the Philippines. As evidence, he has cited
Washington’s refusal to confirm that the Mutual Defense Treaty applies to the South China Sea—which President Barack
Obama did for the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty and the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China
Sea. Most Filipinos remain supportive of the alliance, but America’s failure to confirm that it will step up in the only region where the Philippines is likely to face an external threat raises doubts. And it provides ammunition for
Duterte and his allies to chip away at the security relationship, including EDCA. Throughout his first six months in office, Duterte repeatedly threatened to scrap the agreement, while Lorenzana and the military brass urged its
continuation. Eventually, the military’s arguments carried the day, likely bolstered by the important security assistance the United States provided during the May to October 2017 siege of Marawi city. In November, Duterte
reaffirmed Manila’s commitment to the deal in a joint statement with President Donald Trump. But in the first year and a half of the Duterte administration, plans for the agreed locations were delayed and, in important ways,
downgraded. In January 2017, Lorenzana said that the United States would prioritize work at Basa, followed by Antonio Bautista and Lumbia Air Bases, with construction at all three expected to start later that year. The first two
made perfect sense given EDCA’s original stated goals, which focused on modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, joint training, maritime security and domain awareness, and humanitarian assistance and disaster
relief. Lumbia, the only EDCA site in restive Mindanao, could also boost counterterror cooperation –increasingly relevant after the Marawi siege and one of Manila’s primary objectives, according to Lorenzana – through the
agreement. The secretary confirmed that the United States would undertake runway improvements, construct housing for troops, and build storage facilities for equipment, all of which would eventually be transferred to the
Philippine military. But a few days later, Duterte decried rumors that the United States was “unloading arms” at those three bases and insisted he would not allow it. The Philippine defense establishment moved quickly to reassure
the president no weaponry was being unloaded, and highlighting EDCA’s focus on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief while downplaying other aspects of the agreement. Military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla
insisted that storage facilities built by the United States would be used to preposition disaster relief supplies like generators, rubber boats, tents and water purifiers. Lorenzana followed this by assuring the president, “There will be
no stockpiling of weapons or anything that could be used for war games,” and said Duterte had made that a precondition for continuing with the agreement. The only indication that EDCA sites would still be allowed to contain
more than humanitarian assistance and disaster relief warehouses was Padilla’s concession that the United States would be permitted to construct fuel storage facilities that U.S. planes would need during disaster relief operations.
In March 2017, the Philippines suddenly called off plans for EDCA construction at Antonio Bautista. No reason was given, but the decision fit with the Duterte government’s broader effort to deprioritize its maritime disputes with
China and reject U.S. security assistance focused on the South China Sea. Lorenzana said at the time that construction would still begin at Basa and Lumbia Air Bases later in 2017.That timeline again proved unrealistic, though
planning and survey work for facilities at Basa and Lumbia, along with Fort Magsaysay, slowly moved forward. Adm. Phil Davidson, nominee to head U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), provided further details on the agreement’s
implementation in written responses to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month. The admiral said PACOM would be pursuing construction projects at Basa, Lumbia, and Magsaysay in FY18 and FY19. These include the
humanitarian assistance and disaster relief warehouse as well as a Command and Control Fusion Center at Basa. Construction at Lumbia and Magsaysay will likely follow the same footprint, focused on humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief storage. Fuel storage facilities should also be expected at the two air bases, as Padilla said last year. But there is no indication so far that barracks, hangars, storage for other defense equipment and materiel, or any of
the other infrastructure to support a robust U.S. rotational presence will be allowed at the three locations. The situations at Antonio Bautista and Mactan Air Bases are even more worrying. Under the Duterte administration, it
appears that plans to expand Philippine armed forces facilities and build EDCA locations at those sites have been deprioritized in favor of more ambitious upgrades to the adjoining civilian airports (which share runways with the
military bases) under the government’s push to boost tourism. It is unclear whether EDCA plans at either site will, or can, be reworked to accommodate these civilian initiatives, or whether the Duterte government will be open to
such plans. But even if those sites are still being considered, the delays at the other three locations suggest they are unlikely to see construction anytime soon. Dangers of Delay Changes to the regional security environment in the
four years since EDCA was signed have made Article 1 of the agreement more prescient than negotiators intended. Without robust implementation, both sides will find it increasingly difficult to “maintain and develop their
individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack,” at least within the South China Sea. China has constructed three large air and naval bases in the contested Spratly Islands, which are now primed for deployments of combat
aircraft and have reportedly been equipped with surface-to-air and anti-ship cruise missiles. Every ship or plane near the Spratly Islands is now operating inside Chinese missile range, and will soon be within the combat radius of
Chinese fighter jets. Should there be any violent incident, unless there happens to be a U.S. carrier sailing through the South China Sea, the United States has no combat aircraft nearer than Okinawa and Guam—at distances of
about 1,200 and 1,700 nautical miles. Rotational deployments under EDCA could resolve that dilemma. But without fully implementing the defense cooperation agreement, the United States will be incapable of rapidly responding
to threats against Filipino troops and vessels in the South China Sea. This could have the perverse effect of making a violent incident between China and the Philippines more likely. The threat of a U.S. response under the Mutual
Defense Treaty has been the strongest deterrent against a Chinese use of force. The treaty has allowed Manila to push back against certain Chinese actions, such as the 2014 blockade of the Sierra Madre, because Philippine leaders
By failing to
publicly affirm that an attack on Philippine troops or vessels in the South China Sea would fall within the
scope of the Mutual Defense Treaty (as the text of the treaty indicates it should), the United States has
repeatedly called into question its willingness to live up to its commitment to an ally. Proponents of that
ambiguity privately argue that keeping the treaty’s scope vague avoids provoking Beijing and could be
quickly remedied with high-level public statements in case of a crisis. But in the meantime, it breeds
concerns about U.S. reliability, makes it difficult for defenders of the alliance in Manila to make their
case, and reduces the likelihood that EDCA will be implemented as originally envisioned. And without EDCA, the
credibility of the U.S. treaty commitment to the Philippines, along with broader U.S. goals in the South China Sea, will be undermined by simple distance. China will be present; the United
States will not.
could be reasonably confident that Beijing would not employ direct military force. The immediate fault lies with the Duterte administration, but American policymakers have had a role to play as well.
The US military alliance is the primary means by which we maintain a neocolonial
legacy and how Duterte can commit violence—only the plan solves
Chew, 19
(Amee, has a doctorate in American studies and ethnicity and is a Mellon-ACLS Public Fellow "It’s Time
to End U.S. Military Aid to the Philippines," April 8 https://fpif.org/its-time-to-end-u-s-military-aid-tothe-philippines/ NL)
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s
bloody “War on Drugs” has now claimed over 27,000 lives — almost all
poor and indigent people, including children, summarily executed by police or vigilantes. Over 140,000 pre-trial
detainees are being held in overcrowded Philippine prisons, many on trumped up drug charges; 75 percent of the total prison population still awaits their day in
assassinations of human rights lawyers, journalists, labor and peasant
organizers, indigenous leaders, clergy, teachers, and activists are spiraling out of control. Duterte has
systematically silenced voices of political dissent, jailing Senator Leila DeLima, an early drug war critic; ousting Supreme Court Chief
court, let alone conviction. On top of this,
Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who opposed the imposition of martial law in Mindanao; and now arresting Maria Ressa, internationally renowned journalist and
executive editor of the indy outlet Rappler. Meanwhile, less known to U.S. audiences, Duterte
has repeatedly dropped bombs on
Philippine soil, impacting over 368,000 people — and some 450,000 civilians have been displaced by
militarization. After scuttling peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP),
Duterte has jailed internationally protected peace consultants. And in January, consultant Randy
Malayao was murdered in cold blood by armed hit men. Ever since the Philippines attained formal
independence in 1946, the U.S. has maintained a military presence on its former colony, guiding and
supporting “counter-insurgency” operations to put down constant rebellions against an oligarchic
government. Today, the Philippine armed forces overwhelmingly direct violence not against outside invaders, but at poor and marginalized people within its
borders. U.S. military aid is only making internal conflict worse. U.S. taxpayer funds are bankrolling the worsening human
rights crisis in the Philippines. Duterte’s repressive regime is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in
East and Southeast Asia. In 2016, the U.S. helped inaugurate Duterte’s drug war by giving $32 million to
the Philippine police (supposedly for “training and services” in “policing standards” and “rule of law,” besides equipment). In July 2018, the
United States announced an additional $26.5 million in U.S. tax dollars to beef up support for Philippine
police, in the name of “counter-terrorism.” In FY2018, the Defense Department provided roughly $100 million in military aid, including
equipment, weapons, and aerial surveillance systems, to the Philippine military and police, though Operation Pacific Eagle — a so-called “overseas contingency
operation” that is exempt from congressional limits on spending. The amount demanded for this program will increase to $108.2 million for FY2019 — even as the
Defense Department has admitted it lost track of transactions for 76 of 77 arms sales conducted under bilateral agreements with the Philippines. In 2018, on top of
the above, the U.S. sold the Philippine police and military over $63 million worth of arms. It also donated 2,253 machine guns, over 5 million rounds of ammunition,
surveillance equipment, and other weapons. Military aid totaled at least $193.5 million last year, not including arms sales, and donated equipment of unreported
worth. At least $145.6 million is already pledged for 2019. In January, Trump authorized $1.5 billion annually for the Asian Pacific region, including the Philippines,
from 2019 to 2023. Although this authorization includes a stipulation that counter-narcotics funds will not go to the Philippines (“except for drug demand
reduction,” a potential loophole), it’s too little, too late. The set-aside has no restrictions on weapons funding for the Philippine military. And separately, the State
Department already plans to deliver $5.3 million this year to the Philippine police for anti-narcotics activities. Worse,
rampant corruption
together with a total lack of transparency means it’s hard to ensure where military aid could actually
end up. U.S. military equipment forms the backbone of Duterte’s “military modernization” program.
Although the above aid is tiny compared to the U.S.’s own bloated military budget, this tremendous transfer of weapons and
surveillance technology is significant in propping up the Philippine armed forces’ capacity. Duterte has
embarked on an ambitious program to “modernize” the Philippine military, massively increasing funding and pouring
more money towards this than spent in the last 15 years. (Meanwhile, he’s doubled the salaries of military and police.) He could not do so without
U.S. aid and arms. For its part, the U.S. is particularly interested in expanding aerial “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance” missions over Mindanao,
the largest island in the Southern Philippines, rich in untapped mineral resources. Without U.S. aid, the Philippine military would lack
the airplanes and technology to perform this surveillance. What’s more, this year’s Operation Pacific Eagle
budget sets aside an extra $3.5 million for U.S. military efforts to collect and analyze “local media in
native languages” — underscoring that the U.S. is striving for an upper hand in directing Philippine
military operations. And in winning an information war over public opinion. In recent years, the U.S. has had up to
5,000 troops deployed in the Philippines at any one time. Officially, U.S. troops are limited to “joint exercises” and war games. But questions have been
raised over possible U.S. personnel involvement in secretive missions, resulting in killings of civilians
and human rights abuses. In the case of the 2015 Mamasapano massacre, supposedly under the jurisdiction of Philippine police and military only,
hearings later uncovered U.S. guidance and surveillance support, despite U.S. denials. Meanwhile, U.S. troops who themselves commit
human rights abuses, murder, or sexual assault, are insulated from being held accountable by the U.S.Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement. What are the consequences of the bonanza of military aid for Duterte? The bottom line is,
the U.S. government is complicit in — and actively supporting — the deepening human rights crisis in the
Philippines.
Bandung spirit requires self-determination mandates reductions in MDT
Timossi 15 [Senior Programme Officer at the Global Governance for Development Programme, South
Centre, “REVISITING THE 1955 BANDUNG ASIAN-AFRICAN CONFERENCE AND ITS LEGACY”,
https://www.southcentre.int/question/revisiting-the-1955-bandung-asian-african-conference-and-itslegacy/]
On April 18-24, 1955, leaders of Asian and African countries gathered in a historic meeting in Bandung, Indonesia. They included Premiers Chou En-Lai of China, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, U Nu of Burma, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt besides President
Sukarno of Indonesia, and leaders from Liberia, Sudan, Gold Coast, Jordan, Iran, Ceylon, Nepal, Pakistan and Philippines. The meeting of these leaders was a key point in the history of developing countries that gave rise to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and
the concept of the Third World or the South. At the start of the Cold War between the West and the former Soviet Union, the leaders of the developing countries gathered in Bandung asked for an alternative way of just global governance and global justice, to
achieve greater social and economic development for their people, and to continue the proc ess of political and economic decolonization. Sukarno’s Opening Speech In his opening speech at the first Asian-African Conference, President Sukarno of Indonesia
recognized that the gathering of the leaders of the 29 Asian-African independent countries was a result of the sacrifices made by their forefathers and by the people of their own and younger generations. “The hall was filled not only by the leaders of the nations of
Asia and Africa but also contained within its walls the undying, the indomitable, the invincible spirit of those who went before them”, he said. Their struggle and sacrifice paved the way for this meeting of the highest representatives of independent and sovereign
nations from two of the biggest continents of the globe. In a historic event, Asian and African peoples were meeting together to discuss and deliberate upon matters of common concern to them. Sukarn o stated that the burden of the delegates attending the
Conference was not a light one. “For many generations our peoples have been the voiceless ones in the world. We have been the unregarded, the peoples for whom decisions were made by others whose interests were paramount, the peoples who lived in poverty
and humiliation. Then our nations demanded, nay fought for independence, and achieved independence, and with that independence came responsibility. We have heavy responsibilities to ourselves, and to the world, and to the yet unborn generations. But we do
not regret them”. Below are some extracts of his speech: “We are often told ‘Colonialism is dead’. Let us not be deceived or even soothed by that. I say to you, colonialism is not yet dead. How can we s ay it is dead, so long as vast areas of Asia and Africa are
unfree. And, I beg of you do not think of colonialism only in the classic form which we of Indonesia, and our brothers in different parts of Asia and Africa, knew. Colonialism has also its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual physical
control by a small but alien community within a nation. It is a skilful and determined enemy, and it appears in many guises. It does not give up its loot easily. Wherever, whenever and however it appears, colonialism is an evil thing, and one which must be eradicated
from the earth. “If this Conference succeeds in making the peoples of the East whose representatives are gathered here understand each other a little more, appreciate each other a little more, sympathise with each other’s problems a little more – if those things
happen, then this Conference, of course, will have been worthwhile, whatever else it may achieve. But I hope that this Conference will give more than understan ding only and goodwill only – I hope that it will falsify and give the lie to the saying of one diplomat from
far abroad: “We will turn this Asian-African Conference into an afternoon-tea meeting”. “I hope that it will give evidence of the fact that we Asian and African leaders understand that Asia and Afric a can prosper only when they are united, and that even the safety of
the World at large cannot be safeguarded without a united Asia-Africa. I hope that this Conference will give guidance to mankind, will point out to mankind the way which it must take to attain safety and peace. I hope that it will give evidence that Asia and Africa
have been reborn, nay, that a New Asia and a New Africa have been born! “Our task is first to seek an understanding of each other, and out of that understanding will come a greater appreciation of each other, and out of that appreciation will come collective action.
Bear in mind the words of one of Asia’s greatest sons: “To speak is easy. To act is hard. To understand is hardest. Once one understands, action is easy”. Let us remember that the highest purpose of man is the liberation of man from his bonds of fear, his bonds of
human degradation, his bonds of poverty – the liberation of man from the physical, spiritual and intellectual bonds which have for too long stunted the development of humanity’s majority.” The other 28 leaders also spoke eloquently in calling for unity among Asian
and African countries and for greater solidarity, self-determination, mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, and equality. The Bandung Final Communiqué 1955 The Final Communiqué of the 1955 Bandung Asian-African
Conference provided the basis for South-South cooperation with concrete proposals for promoting economic, political, technological, cultural spheres. It declared full support of the fundamental principles of human rights as set forth in the Charter of the United
Nations and took note of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations in a moment in history when many South nations were still under Western colonial rule. The communiqué deplored all forms of
racial segregation and discrimination. In declaring support for the cause of freedom and independence for all peoples it also deplored colonialism, in all its manifestations. The communiqué took note that several States had still not been admitted to the United
Nations, and that for effective cooperation and world peace, membership in the United Nations should be universal. The leaders also considered that representation of Asian and African countries in the UN Security Council, in relation to the principle of equitable and
geographical distribution, was inadequate, as it is today.
The right to self-determination, stated the communiqué, should be enjoyed by all peoples .
The
Principles enunciated in 1955 continue to be as relevant today
follows:
Ten Bandung
as it was 60 years ago and in the decades since.
These are as
“Free from mistrust and fear, and with confidence and goodwill towards each other, nations should practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours and develop friendly cooperation on the basis of the following
Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations. “3. Recognition of the equality of
the equality of all nations large and small. “4. Abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another
country. “5. Respect for the right of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations. “6. (a)
Abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defense to serve the particular interests of any of the big
powers, (b) Abstention by any country from exerting pressures on other countries. “7. Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country. “8. Settlement of
principles: “1. Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. “2.
all races and of
all international disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties’ own c hoice, in conformity with the Charter of the
United Nations. “9. Promotion of mutual interests and cooperation. “10. Respect for justice and international obligation.” The 1955 Bandung communiqué concluded by expressing its conviction that friendly cooperation in accordance with the 10 Principles of
Bandung would effectively contribute to the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security, while cooperation in the economic, social and cultural fields would help bring about the common prosperity and well-being of all. What has the Bandung
In the six decades after the 1955 Bandung Conference that gave rise to the “Bandung Spirit” of South-South cooperation, decolonization has for the most part taken place, with
The basic principles of Bandung, namely, mutual interest, solidarity and respect for national sovereignty, continue to play important roles in
shaping and guiding the relations of developing countries with each other. Developing countries have also joined the United Nations and actively developed different
spirit achieved in 60 years?
most developing countries now independent.
regional and multilateral South-South institutions to defend and promote their common interests in the various multilateral negotiating processes. The “Bandung Spirit” continues to animate and motivate the spirit of South-South cooperation, as can be seen in the
fact that the recent 60th anniversary commemoration of the 1955 Bandung Conference saw over 100 developing countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America participating. More importantly, the 1955 Bandung Conference led to the establishment in 1961 of the
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). This was followed by the establishment of the Group of 77 (G77) in 1964. These two multilateral groupings of the South together enable developing countries to actively voice and articulate their views and perspectives on political
and economic issues, respectively, in the United Nations and other international arenas and to promote the unity and solidarity among the developing countries of the South in their common struggle for a fairer world. Other multilateral Southern institutions such as
the South Centre (and its precursor the South Commission) can also trace their intellectual and political lineage to the 1955 Bandung Conference and the South-South spirit that it engendered. Several regional initiatives which have taken shape in Africa, Asia, and
Latin America in the past decades are also concrete reflections of the ideals of South-South cooperation and solidarity discussed in Bandung and adopted by leaders in the Final Communiqué. These include the Afric an Union, the African continent’s primary vehicle
for greater continental integration. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) are two newly established initiatives that are contributing t o open a new
era of integration among the countries of the regions and their representation in global affairs with greater independence. It is also the case of Asia, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC) among many other initiatives. The emergence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) grouping itself, as well as recent projects such as the BRICS Development Bank and the Bank of the South are important examples of the vision of
South-South cooperation from Bandung. These and many other developments that have taken place, and which continue to take place, in the developing world are all examples that point to the continuing relevance of the intellectual and political legacy of the 1955
Bandung Conference.
Solvency
Through the spirit of the Bandung Darshni and I affirm that the United States federal
government should reduce its alliance commitments with the Philippines by
withdrawing from the defense pact.
1AC – Solvency Advocates
Employ Bandung spirit to redefine former colonizer-colony relationships Parikh 17
[Crystal Parikh is Professor of Social & Cultural Analysis and English at New York
University. She specializes in twentieth-century and contemporary American literature
and culture, with a focus on comparative race and ethnic studies, as well as ethical and
political theory, and gender and sexuality, diaspora, and postcolonial studies, “The
Political Imaginaries of Writers of Color, The Bandung Spirit and the Right to SelfDetermination (pp 1-19)”,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1pwt7xq?turn_away=true]
The Conference is agreed: (a) in declaring that colonialism in
all its manifestations is an evil which should speedily be brought to an end; (b) in affirming that the subjection of peoples to alien subjugations, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an
impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation; (c) in declaring its support of the cause of freedom and independence for all such peoples, and (d) in calling upon the powers concerned to grant freedom and independence to such peoples. —Final Communiqué of the
Asian-African Conference of Bandung (24 April 1955) Solidarity is a desire, a promise, an aspiration. It speaks to our wish for a kind of unity, one that does not exist now but we want to produce. —Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folk One of the “old men” of Ernest Gaines’s A
Gathering of Old Men (1983), Johnny Paul, looks out over a Louisiana sugarcane field, recalling where his parents’ house, “gone like all the others had gone,” once stood.1 He observes to the white sheriff of the small town, “What you see is the weeds, but you don’t see what we don’t
see,” as a way of explaining the murder of a white Cajun farmer, Beau Boutan, whose death provides the central catalyst for the plot (89). The assertion, backed up by other black members of the community, confounds Sheriff Mapes, especially as the men offer this uncanny absent
presence as the motive behind the murder for which each of them claims responsibility. Told as a series of fragmented, first-person accounts from the perspective of the individual men, as well as a few white characters and black children, the novel unfolds as a mystery about who has
shot Beau, as well as a tale of growing resistance by an African American community long subjected to de facto racial violenc e and de jure segregation. A Gathering of Old Men has been rightly received as a treatment of newly forged black masculine agency in the face of ongoing racial
stratification in the American South during the late twentieth century.2 However, its insistence that one “had to be here to don’t see it now” offers the suggestive possibility that the absences that haunt the novel go well beyond the conventional measures of personhood that civil
integration into American life affords (89). Instead, it asks us to consider the limits of an American imaginary of integration in order to see, and not see, what and how its subjects might “want otherwise.” The minor perspective of a minor character like Johnny Paul makes evident how a
white supremacist culture and even a more liberal official discourse, both of which Mapes comes to represent over the course of the novel, has “only little knowledge” in “how to deal with black folks,” which amounts more or less to “knocking them around” (93). In this chapter, I consider
how the institution of the “united nations world”—that is, the international order of formally equal, sovereign states meant to serve as containers of political energies and guardians of world peace described in the introduction—foreclosed those dimensions of antiracist struggle in the
United States that, in solidarity with anticolonial struggles in the global South, laid claim to social and economic rights and the right to self-determination as crucial to the freedom of subjugated peoples. Considering the political principles elaborated in the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) alongside A Gathering of Old Men, as well as The Woman Warrior (1975) by Maxine Hong Kingston, I demonstrate how a human rights approach traverses the disciplinary border between critical American studies and postcolonial
studies to ascertain how minoritarian struggles in the United States have been, and might once again be, attached to decolonization and socialist movements in the global South. Rendering visible the limits of an American formulation of rights, justice, and good life as it has been
represented on a planetary terrain since the Cold War, minor literatures record, in Johnny Paul’s words, “what we don’t see” any longer. In illuminating forms of solidarity and political community rendered illegible within the united nations world and the great power politics of the Cold
War, minor literatures might be said to reanimate a “Bandung Spirit,” or in Cynthia Young’s terms, the “soul power,” associat ed with the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of 1961. The Asian-African Conference, held in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955, with representatives from twentynine countries in attendance, was hailed by its host, Indonesian president Sukarno, as “the first intercontinental Conference of colored peoples in the history of mankind” and served as the forerunner of the NAM, which sought autonomy, neutrality, and solidarity in the fac e of an
increasingly bipolar international order during the Cold War.3 Fred Ho and Bill V. Mullen identify the “
Bandung
era” of 1955 to 1973 as
movements around the world
still being pursued
momentous for Afro-Asian solidarity
and imperfect dream of a road
, observing that it was “both the watershed and high-water mark of black-Asian affiliation and the unfinished
and paved.”4 Scholars have debated the diplomatic, strategic, and historical implications of the Bandung Conference and NAM for international relations.5 My point in retaining the conference’s moniker, however, is to keep alive “the
feeling of political possibility presented through this first occasion of ‘Third World’ solidarity” and to consider the normative principles at which delegates to the conference arrived by consensus: economic cooperation and development, cultural cooperation, human rights, selfdetermination, and world peace.6 Furthermore, I aim to retain Bandung and NAM’s ambitions, ones also registered in the ICERD, for a postcolonial order (including Latin American nations) that generated alternative forms of political community beyond national states, even if those forms
have remained deferred for a future yet to come.7 Hence, the Bandung Spirit and the ICERD provide analytics by which to read U.S. writers of color at the end of the Cold War, as they animate the seemingly impossible political demands of this earlier era. In the United States, as Young
observes, U.S. Third World leftists in the 1960s and 1970s sought to build “transnational forms of solidarity” that “attacked imperial practices abroad as a way of overturning the domestic forms of oppression facing them.”8 Despite the inevitable ideological limits and pitfalls, this cultural
politics continues to offer an important lesson for the “disturbing historical juncture” of our current century.9 This chapter therefore considers how, beginning in the late 1970s, just as a burgeoning market for writers of color materialized in the United States, authors like Kingston and
Gaines took stock of the radically altered domestic and international landscapes of the late Cold War. Although such literary production has been examined largely in terms of the domestic “culture wars” and the intra-racial divisions between feminist and nationalist politics, I argue that
these works grappled with the breach, which, obtained between domestic civil rights politics and Third World decolonization movements, was an artifact of a united nations world, wherein the nation-state form served as the horizon for all politics. I am thus concerned with how this
literature depicts integration in the United States, delineating the compromises demanded of Americans of color and the foreclosure of radical politics and transnational solidarity in exchange for the promises of national belonging. The Cold War enterprise of liberal democracy in the
organized around the right to political
self-determination and cultural cooperation, as well as rights to social security and economic
development,
United States induced the reformation of domestic civil rights and racial integration. But minor literatures preserve and re-member planetary horizons of AfroAsian solidarity
that human rights instruments record. Freedom from Want Concepts of social and economic rights developed and transformed rapidly in the postwar era, as they reflected the shifting interests and priorities of great power and anticolonial politics.
During World War II, AngloAmerican leaders understood national security as being integrally tied to economic stability for postwar internationalism.10 This became expressly apparent when they apprised the way in which insecurity in these areas, especially in the Weimar Republic, had
contributed to the rise of Fascism.11 The Atlantic Charter thus adopted the language of Roosevelt’s famous “Four Freedoms” from his 1941 State of the Union address, which explicitly included “freedom from want” alongside the more familiar freedoms of speech, religion, and from fear.
While the other freedoms enumerated what have come to be known as “negative liberties,” requiring the state to abstain from interference or action (such as imposition of censorship or of a state religion), the freedom from want calls upon the state to actively secure the welfare of its
citizens. The “positive liberties” of social and economic security include access to food, shelter, clothing, fair wages, employment security, health and safety, education, old age protection, and recreational activities. Insofar as the Four Freedoms relayed to an American public the nation’s
ideological interest in entering the war, it proposed what Elizabeth Borgwardt has called “a New Deal for the world,” effectively internationalizing a vision of the incipient U.S. welfare state crafted through New Deal policies.12 Just as important was the way that “freedom from want”
furnished the basis for the Roosevelt administration to draft a domestic “economic bill of rights,” which it considered to be fundamental for a domestic program of democratic justice in the United States.13 Yet, by the close of the Cold War, a range of (neo)liberal and conservative officials
cast such a notion of rights as an affront to the tradition of American individualism, and since the 1980s, they have steadily attacked all such government programs. Moreover, even in its initial implementation, Roosevelt’s economic agenda sustained the southern labor market and its
deep-rootedness in the color line by excluding agricultural, domestic, and other casual laborers, sectors that have included disproportionate numbers of people of color, from Social Security benefits.14 Likewise, federal housing policies refused to insure mortgages in integrated
neighborhoods, thus readily reproducing patterns of residential segregation. And meanwhile, Southern Democrats successfully filibustered federal antilynching legislation. In this failure to abolish such entrenched social and economic inequity, “racial hierar chy continued to serve as an
explicit limit within the expanded field of government practice.”15
development.
A parallel incompletion marked the history of postcolonial national
As Frantz Fanon prophesied in The Wretched of the Earth, the failure of international economic redistribution for newly established nations has meant that, despite the formal equality and political independence propagated after World War II,
scholars
initially excluded the Third World from Bretton Woods, adopted modernization theory, and approached
such inequity as a problem of “development.”
, U.S. foreign aid was insistently tied to an agenda of structural reforms meant to produce “free men
and free enterprise.” Assuming modern development to be an expression of scientific, “rational action”
by which these peoples would be “liberated” from stultifying “traditional” cultures and ideologies,
American foreign policy maintained striking continuity with the “civilizing mission” that propelled late
nineteenth-century colonial governance
decolonized peoples have remained subject to relations of economic inequity with and dependence on the former imperial powers.16 As they assumed the mantle of international “leadership” after World War II, U.S. policymakers, political leaders, and
This was as much an ideological project as an economic one; while American capitalists invested only hesitatingly, if at all, in the Third World during the Cold
War
17
.18 Expected to overcome “underdevelopment” according to a Western model—regardless of the fact that the West accomplished its own modernization by exploiting natural
and human resources in the colonies—postcolonial development was to proceed by progressive, evolutionary stages that would be culturally, politically, and socially transformative as well.19 At the same time, American officials worried that postcolonial nations might be swayed by an
“incorrect” form of Communist modernity.20 A host of policymakers, social scientists, and other prominent Americans led the c harge to infuse new nations with Western capital and technical knowledge toward modernizing ends, in hopes of countering the Soviet “economic offensive”
that began with Nikita Khrushchev’s 1961 pledge to support “wars of liberation” in the decolonizing world.21 In the end, of course, “development proved an uphill battle,” as Third World countries were compelled to participate in an international economic system organized by former
colonial powers. Prices for raw materials, which the existing international division of labor mandated the global South produce for First World nations, were kept low. Ultimately, the development project in most postcolonial states could sustain little more than state officials and a small
capitalist class, and the demand for intensified production wreaked extensive environmental damage.22 Meanwhile, even by the late 1940s, Truman had revised Roosevelt’s “freedom from want” to connote free enterprise and had dropped “freedom from fear” altogether from his Cold
War version of the Four Freedoms.23 Likewise, American officials discounted economic, social, and cultural rights “as anathema to free enterprise and limited government” and as representativ e of Soviet ideology, and they turned as readily to authoritarian governments as democratic
states to carry out modernizing schemes.24 Nevertheless, the international version of “freedom from want,” inaugurated in particular in the Marshall Plan and the Br etton Woods charters and institutions, remained “surprisingly expansive,” in part because, in Europe, they did not involve
the United States in the thorny questions of racial hierarchy and segregation that domestic policies did. As such, postwar international planning offered “a high-water mark for economic rights as human rights in mainstream American politics.”25 As the New Deal at home sought to
incorporate the working class through a blurring of leftist and liberal ideologies, it also provided a transnational model of democratic sovereignty in the postwar era.26 While Articles 55 and 56 of the UN Charter obligated member nations to promote “higher standards of living, full
employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development,” “solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems[,] and international cultural and educational cooperation,” the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided
foreign aid toward payment imbalances, stabilized exchange rates, and convened members on international monetary matters in what Borgwardt describes as a “multilateralist moment” that “reconfigured the very idea of sovereignty.”27 In the early 1970s, moreover, Third World
leaders put forward a call for a “New International Economic Order”— elaborated for instance in the 1975 UN Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States—which articulated an international obligation for states to aid in “the economic development of other states along the path
chosen by its government” as a remedial measure for the structural advantages Western nations had enjoyed over newly developi ng ones.28 And yet, although the World Bank and the IMF were the most innovative of the global New Deal institutions, they inherently favored market
oriented states, anticommunist regimes, and countries that already retained Western investments.29 By the 1980s, as modernization theory evolved into neoliberal doctrine, these financial institutions became central to the promotion of anti-Soviet ideology, especially by intervening in
the developing world and pushing market-driven policies that created or intensified social problems in postcolonial nations.30 Such
“structural readjustment” programs, anchored in
notions of the minimalist state and fiscal “discipline,” facilitated capital flight, fiscal decentralization,
deregulation of industry and markets, tax subsidies and grants to multinational corporations, the
privatization of space, services, and goods, and an array of other capital-friendly mechanisms that
resulted, beginning in the 1970s, in a deeply polarized landscape of globalization.
Well over a billion people across the globe have actually
experienced economic decline since 1970, with wealth being increasingly concentrated in centers of affluence.31 Structural adjustment programs instituted in the 1980s by the IMF and the World Bank (and the trade policies later set by the World Trade Organization [WTO]) in the wake of
debt crises and recessions in Latin America and Africa, required developing nations to implement immense cutbacks in social programs in order to attract capital investment.32 By 1990, the gap between the wealthiest and poorest nations had increased by 60 percent. At the end of the
twentieth century, over 10 percent of the world’s people were afflicted by hunger, and more than a billion lived in extreme poverty, all while disease and environmental damage wracked the globe.33 The bifurcation of the international bill of rights into two separate covenants, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), readily reflects the Cold War context in which the composition of contemporary human rights took place. “First generation rights” (civil and
political rights) were delinked from “second” and “third generation” ones (social and economic rights, and cultural or solidarity rights, respectively), despite human rights scholars’ and advocates’ insistence that the panoply of rights is actually indivisible. Moreover, not only did it take until
1978 for the United States to sign on to both covenants, but the Carter administration did so with a number of “reservations, understandings, and declarations” (RUDS) that included a provision declaring human rights treaties to be “non-self-executing,” that is, in effect only when
implemented as legislation by Congress. With respect to the ICESCR, the Carter administration further specified that the goals described in Article 2 (the general obligations provision) were “to be achieved progressively rather than through immediate implementation.”34 At the same
time, many newly independent states argued that, given the problems of unemployment, trade imbalances, social conflict, and disease that plagued their societies, social and economic rights could not be immediately implemented in their countries either.35 Because most postwar
accounts of human rights assume the sovereignty of modern states, they tend to equate the vulnerability of human life with those living in conditions of statelessness or those living under weak, rogue, failed or failing states, which are unable or actively refuse to extend protection to their
citizenries. But, as the account above suggests, scholars of neoliberalism have cataloged the many ways in which global capitalism not only increases the number of people displaced as refugees and migrants, but has also steadily diminished the capacity of citizens everywhere to
participate in state processes. Globalized states “introduce new threats and provide declining opportunities to citizens, while increasing numbers of residents who lack citizenship claims.”36 Accordingly, human rights ideationally address not only the rights and protections that
international actors are to extend to the stateless, but the responsibilities of states to their own constituencies as well, even if this aspect too often goes overlooked in practice. Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, social critics and activists have returned to the original kernel of social
and economic rights that underwrote the “freedom from want,” linking it in various ways to a newly conceptualized “right to development.”37 The shift to structural aid programs in the 1980s gave rise to a formulation of reciprocity in international aid, governance, and decision-making,
requiring states to “act in certain ways in order to qualify for development assistance or to be treated fairly (justice as impartiality) in international economic decision-making.”38 While such norms arose and were meant to accord with Western nations’ interests during the Cold War,
since the 1990s, they have been rearticulated as human rights norms by various organizations seeking justice for vulnerable individuals and groups. Thereby querying the limits of state sovereignty, these political challenges once again open up the subject and meaning of selfdetermination as a human right.39 At the same time, numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have begun focusing on the implementation of socioeconomic rights and on the United States as a site for human rights activism.40 These projects often “build on the theory that
many poor or otherwise disadvantaged Americans already have some sense that they have a ‘right’ to food, health care, education, and other basic needs” but want “the language and legal status of the international instruments outlining those rights.”41 To be clear, then, it is not my
contention that political subjects and disenfranchised peoples should simply not make appeals to the state. In fact, to the extent that it has been effective at all, the international human rights regime has perhaps been most so in establishing standards for states’ obligations to their own
citizens. Nevertheless, as I explain further in chapters 2 and 3, in its sovereign form, the state (and the legal and juridical practices through which the state grants recognition) can too easily simply “disappear” violence, loss, and deprivation altogether, especially when the state authors
those forms of social abandonment. Thus, we urgently need other methods for reading such abandonment and for imagining political subjects and communities from within, but also in difference from, the state. The point is not to fault political struggles that address and attempt to
remake the state so much as it is to remind us that the sovereign state is, despite its own projections otherwise, a historical formation that, in its dialectical contradictions, might give rise to other forms of political community that it puts under erasure. A human rights record proves one
resource for wanting and imagining such other possibilities, despite the ongoing attempts of states to instrumentalize it otherwise. Anticolonial Self-Determination and Antiracist Humanity Despite the outsized influence the United States exerted in its activities in the postwar years, by
1960, the United Nations was no longer a straightforward extension of U.S. power. The inclusion of Third World nationstates transformed it into a “more diverse forum, less susceptible to American influence than before”; by 1970 the global political map had been entirely redrawn to
include 142 nations, compared with 56 independent nations in 1910.42 But by the 1968 UN International Conference on Human Rights held in Tehran, where the Afro-Asian nations formed a coalition that wielded much control over the human rights agenda, the majority of Third World
countries were ruled by authoritarian systems that openly disparaged political rights and civil liberties.43 Ultimately, then, for most of the twentieth century, the United Nations failed to prove the “central forum for and singular imaginative custodian of the norms” of human rights,
whether political, social, economic, or cultural.44 Instead, as historian Samuel Moyn has shown, it was primarily NGOs (and Amnesty International in particular) and “delocalized grassroots agents” who led the way with respect to human rights advocacy.45 Moreover, although
contemporary human rights discourse had been penned in the late 1940s, it was not until the 1970s, with the repression of “revisionist” socialism by both the Soviet Union in Prague and the United States in Latin America, that it emerged as something like a “plausible utopia” in an
international arena.46 Accordingly, with the collapse of the Communist bloc in the 1980s and the acceleration of globalization, transnational human rights discourses became increasingly conflated with humanitarian rhetoric, whereby guarantees of self-determination, state sovereignty,
human rights approach enables us to
recover a moment during the Bandung era of significant engagement by leaders of a newly emergent
Third World and of the U.S. black freedom movement with human rights that is otherwise obscured
by the official memories of the united nations world.48 After all, billions lived in African and Asian
lands that had been subjected, “in the name of ‘progress’ and ‘humanity,’ ” to European colonialism,
and by the end of World War II, their leaders began to want “to conquer modernity for themselves.”
and nonintervention, at least for postcolonial nations in the global South, became increasingly subject to globalized moral imaginaries and sentiments.47 Nevertheless, a
49
Most of the NAM nations became members of the UN Group of 77 Developing Countries (G-77), established during the 1964 Conference on Trade and Development, and have since dominated the agenda of the UN General Assembly.50 If we thus take seriously the right to selfdetermination and the social and economic rights inscribed as part of what I am calling “the human rights record,” we recover the real force of possibility that the Bandung Spirit and NAM posed to the emergent postwar assumptions of the American good life. D ue in good part to the
advocacy of Third World leaders, Article 1 of both the ICCPR and the ICESCR declare first and foremost: “All peoples have the right of self-determination,” reflecting the absolutely vital, anticolonial aspiration that, in the United Nations’ early days, the great powers jealously guarded for
Western nations.51 Critically, though, while Third World diplomats argued vigorously for the adoption of self-determination as a fundamental human right, the meaning of self-determination at this moment was itself highly contested, and anticolonial leaders did not necessarily equate or
limit self-determination to unassailable state sovereignty. Not incidentally, then, the Afro-Asian bloc of nations undertook the next major human rights initiative, the ICERD, adopted in 1965, which, while focused primarily on apartheid and ongoing colonial abuses in Africa, also included
an optional right to universal petition meant to apply throughout the world.52 As the first completed human rights treaty, the ICERD represented, as historian Steven L. B. Jensen observes, “a successful crack at the hard nut of international law-making, namely the problem of
sovereignty.”53 In fact, the standoff between the Cold War powers since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had hampered the completion of the two human rights covenants. It was the precedent set by the NAM nations (with notable leadership by
representatives of Jamaica and Liberia) who brought the ICERD to the General Assembly, where it was completed in one session, that blazed the path for the subsequent completion of the ICCPR and the ICESCR.54 Below, I consider how the ICERD queries the relation between formal
political equality, material well-being, social security, and legal standing. Here I would underscore how the convention regards colonialism and racism as cut from the same historical cloth; for example, in its preamble, the convention cites both the 1963 UN Declaration on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples as indispensable precedents for its own provisions. As such, I suggest, the ICERD regards self-determination as an essential characteristic of racial equality,
and vice versa. Between 1950 and 1966, when the ICCPR and ICESCR were adopted by the UN General Assembly, the interpretation of the right to selfdetermination did indeed shift from a concern with individual, democratic rights to a strictly anticolonial state prerogative that was
indifferent, if not explicitly hostile, to democratic practice.55 In the early 1950s, Third World diplomats such as Charles Malik and Jawdat Mufti promoted an essential link between human rights and national self-determination, which necessitated both democratic domestic governance
and nonintervention by foreign powers. However, by the early 1960s, many representatives endorsed separating the right to self-determination from questions of political freedoms.56 Hence, rather than a means to individual, democratic rights, the right to self-determination became an
end unto itself, such that the attainment of sovereignty “exhausted” the “idea of self-determination” and became aligned with the international state system I describe in the introduction.57 For this reason, Moyn dates the true advent of a “human rights revolution” as commencing in the
1970s, arising from the frustration of international jurists with decolonized nations whose claims to self-determination shielded them from international scrutiny and rebuke. By excoriating Third World regimes for their human rights abuses, former imperialist powers continued to horde
the prerogative to determine who might control their own political destinies and on what terms. Here, human rights discourse readily appeared to be a flexible and strategic neocolonial and neoliberal rhetoric, selectively assessing the moral fitness of postcolonial governments from a
Western perspective.58 Already by the 1968 Conference on Human Rights in Tehran, representatives from most Third World nations, even those not circulating in the Soviet orbit, criticized the UDHR as “an irrelevant artifact from a past age,” unable to address a postcolonial Third World,
for which economic development and maintaining national liberation were the most pressing priorities.59 For example, Article 1 of the 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development (and its precursor, the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights) gave pride of place to
economic development and self-determination, before declaring in Article 2 that “the human person is the central subject of development and should be the active participant and b eneficiary of the right to development.” Moreover, Article 2 accords to states “the right and the duty to
formulate appropriate national development policies that aim at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals, on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in dev elopment and in the fair distribution of the benefits resulting
therefrom.”60 While the 1986 Declaration did not wholly repudiate individual rights, its primary aim in both its preamble and main body was to advance guarantees of national and economic security from which the Third World had historically been excluded.61 Indeed, most leaders of
While such elites fought against
foreign rule, they did not typically disavow the conceptions of modernity extended by colonial
powers, and they usually believed the state form was best able to mobilize resources and to
counteract the colonial “underdevelopment” from which their people suffered.
nationalist and Marxist resistance movements in colonized nations preferred the sovereign state form when it came to organizing the postcolonial societies for which they struggled.62
63 These modernizing projects included the expansion of
education, health and sanitation, public works, communication networks, national censuses, and agricultural reforms, as well as the implementation of organized police, judicial, and penal apparatuses. In keeping with these social and political objectives, postcolonial states usually
adopted constitutions that, at least in governmental kind, were “isomorphic” with former imperial rule.64 The establishment of such states, often, in Odd Arne Westad’s words, “substituted for the nonexisting ‘nation’ in territories otherwise arranged by colonial powers” and aggravated
Because self-determination found limited legitimized expression in the
sovereign state form, domestic repression and abuse executed by authoritarian or one-party regimes
led to the well-publicized scandal and “decisive failure” of postcolonial governance beginning in the
1960s.
social tensions, especially around ethnic and religious differences.65
66 The principle of state sovereignty, especially as manifested in the domestic jurisdiction clause that I discussed in the introduction, rendered the recognition and protection of all other rights subject to the dominion of individual nation-states.67 Military leaders,
dictators, and other authoritarian governments fashioning themselves as modernizers who could meet their nations’ economic needs through development while holding Communists at bay eagerly sought support from the United States. In places like the Philippines, South Korea, and
the Dominican Republic (all of which I discuss in Writing Human Rights), as well as South Vietnam, Guatemala, Iran, and Indonesia, the United States provided aid, training, and advisers, with little concern for how such regimes flouted even the liberal political rights that were supposedly
part and parcel of modernization.68 In the 1980s, the detachment of economic development and national self-determination from individual political rights was further compounded by the rise of a discourse of radical cultural relativism, which dismissed human rights as altogether
foreign and irrelevant constraints imposed in order to control non-Western nations.69 Rather than simply replicating a Soviet rhetoric about political sovereignty and economic security, postcolonial avowals of cultural relativism emphasized the inconsistency of individual rights with
traditional cultures.70 After the end of the Cold War, in the 1990s, this debate came to be framed as one between, on the one side, (neo)liberal claims to individual political and civil rights— thought to characterize the democracies of the global North—and, on the other side,
communitarian or traditional values promoted throughout much of the rest of the globe (although they were often referred to by the shorthand “Asian values”). Those such as Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, argued that “traditional” values did not include political
freedoms, which were much less important to developing nations than obeisance to national authorities. Even worse, the rhetoric from authoritarian regimes who violently abused their own citizens came to uncomfortably mirror that of those Western advocates of relativism who
championed respect for Third World cultures, as they identified democratic human rights to be pernicious neocolonial missives.71 Thus, in a postsocialist era, claims to social and economic rights had been folded into either demands for liberal, first-generation individual rights or thirdgeneration cultural ones, fracturing what human rights activists and scholars had maintained to be an indivisible panoply of the three generations. Official, academic, and popular discourses in the United States and elsewhere conceived of international politics as the contest between
first- and third-generation orders of rights, and of those orders as themselves irreconcilable. The social and economic concerns that secondgeneration rights reflected were rendered either as products to be purchased in the free markets of liberal democracies (and their ever-shrinking
That the rise of cultural relativism and
the shift away from individual rights in postcolonial politics took hold at the same time as
authoritarian postcolonial governments replaced democratic ones was neither coincidental nor a
merely cynical turn of events.
welfare states) or as goods that the communitarian state (often with barely any welfare infrastructure to speak of) allocates according to antidemocratic “cultural” norms.
Rather, the historical conditions of national liberation, economic restructuring, and Cold War bipolarity that I have traced in the introduction and in this chapter overdetermined the turn to culturally
conservative and politically repressive agendas. And yet, during the early Bandung era, nationalist aspirations were hardly limited to the capture of the state; rather, they were driven by a fervent desire to be free of colonialism. Bandung participants shared an understanding of the
structural causes of their nations’ underdevelopment by colonial rule.72 Moreover, this desire for liberation was based not so much on conceptions of a homogeneous racial or cultural nation, as on a shared struggle against empire that made possible the broad continental and
intercontinental imagining of Third World solidarity and cooperation. This sort of “internationalist nationalism” reveals the crucial way in which mass-based social movements expressed desires for freedom, justice, and belonging that were distinct from, if not always in contradiction with,
the state form.73 The Final Communiqué from the Asian-African Conference of Bandung in 1955, which I cite in the epigraph to this chapter, fully endorsed the UN Charter principles of human rights and the UDHR. Diplomats such as the Philippines’ Carlos Romulo, who had served as his
country’s ambassador to the United Nations and signed the UDHR, urged delegates at the Bandung Conference to pursue both national selfdetermination and individual human rights, as he rebuked Western imperialism and Communist repression in equal measure.74 Bandung, NAM, and
the intergovernmental organizations and instances of cooperation that followed thus illustrated the possibility of political communities as alternatives to both nation-states and “outsized political entities” such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO.75 Moreover,
Third World formulations of procedural justice, including equitable representation in international institutions and decision-making, along with principles of international diplomacy that included peaceful dialogue and problem-solving, marked a notable departure from the coercive and
domineering modes of both earlier imperialism and the great powers during the Cold War.76 To be sure, neither the Bandung Conference, Afro-Asian internationalism, nor, as I discuss below, the American black freedom movement can simply be shoehorned into a human rights
container.77 But this alternative genealogy of human rights can animate the interlocked antiracist and anticolonial demands for self-determination, as well as social equity, political freedom, and economic justice that racialized U.S. subjects articulated alongside anticolonial and socialist
movements in this era. During and after World War I, the rise of American influence around the world was contested by what Mullen calls a “deliberately miscegenated internationalist politics,” which in turn anticipated the character of anticolonial movements before, during, and after
World War II.78 This internationalism promoted the role of Marxism in twentieth-century world revolutionary struggle, but it also seriously considered pan-African, pan-Asian, and pan-Arab endeavors (as well as dialogues between them) as crucial to its mission.79 After World War II,
many postcolonial regimes looked to a Soviet model of development (one organized, for example, around a central plan for industrialization, building infrastructure, and collectivizing agriculture), which they found to align with their own “state-centered and justiceoriented ideals.”80
American elites accordingly perceived in Soviet Communism the possibility, and the possible threat, of “an alternative modernity; a way poor and downtrodden peoples could challenge their conditions without replicating the American model.”81 But NAM nations also struggled to
maintain political and cultural autonomy from both superpowers, giving rise to the original, positive meaning of a “Third World” founded in human rights, self-determination, and world peace.82 Although Bandung participants were careful to emphasize that they did not form a trading
bloc, they nevertheless called for the need to stabilize international commodity prices, for diversification of exports by way of raw material processing, for greater participation in international economic and governance This content downloaded from 129.174.21.5 on Fri, 21 Aug 2020
18:07:40 UTC All use subject to ht Other Humanities . 59 institutions, and for consultation between members in the interest of economic cooperation.83 Concurrently, in the United States, the existence of the American Communist Party (founded in 1921), albeit with a relatively small
membership, suggested “to some of those whom Americanism had disenfranchised that other methods for organizing society could be envisaged, even in America.”84 Black radicals “voiced visions of communal possibility that consistently surpassed the conceptions available in the
prevailing idioms of U.S. political culture” and took up anti-imperialist critiques as a response to newly emergent relations of power and development across the globe.85 During the Black Power era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, black internationalism flourished, drawing and
expanding upon the earlier antiimperial politics advanced by figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson.86 Movement in tellectuals such as Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, Elaine Brown, Harold Cruse, E. Franklin Frazier, Claudia Jones, Huey Newton, Robert Williams, and Richard Wright
oriented their own expressive and political activities toward the alternative modernity envisaged by the NAM alliances, beyond and in tension with domestic integration.87 At the same time, black nationalism inspired and influenced the radicalization of other communities of color, as
Asian Americans, Chicanos, and Puerto Ricans, along with the American Indian Movement, elaborated theories of “internal colonialism” against which they organized in alliance with one another.88 Members of this “U.S. Third World” Left differed from the larger New Left c oalition by
insisting that capitalism is a fundamentally racialized system.89 As a result, their efforts were informed by intertwined experiences of racial and class inequity, which subsequent activist-scholars have theorized as “racial capitalism.”90 As I have explained in the introduction, the
internationalism of such resistance movements was eventually contained, if not eradicated, by way of various ideological and coercive measures, in the United States and elsewhere. Fracturing domestic and international alliances from the 1950s onward, the liberal imaginary of
integration redirected antiracist efforts toward achieving the equal rights and political freedoms promised by U.S. citizenship. But in the waning years of the Cold War, a mounting backlash against civil rights gains also accompanied the ascendant rhetoric of multicultural tolerance, and
the prevalence of autocratic and dictatorial regimes across much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America provoked a parallel debate in regard to “cultural relativism” and universal human This content downloaded from 129.174.21.5 on Fri, 21 Aug 2020 18:07:40 UTC All use subject to ht 60 .
Other Humanities rights norms. Within this context, many mainstream reviewers and academic critics have cast minor literatures as tra ding in more radical aspirations for the “identity politics” of national visibility and belonging. But, I suggest, these conclusions are perhaps more
symptomatic of the reading practices brought to bear on the works of U.S. writers of color than of the imaginative possibilities such literature harbors. As I turn to consider below, minor literatures from this period also recorded the dialectical contradictions that the norms of state
sovereignty and liberal individualism could not reconcile, contradictions that can and should (re)animate antiracist and transnational human rights politics.91
Radical demands on the state do not affirm of its legitimacy but rather exposes
contradictions in settler colonialism that creates the conditions to rupture the colonial
order
Brenna Bhandar 12. Lecturer, Queen Mary School of Law. “Strategies of Legal Rupture: the politics of
judgment.” Windsor YB Access Just. 30: 59.
https://windsor.scholarsportal.info/ojs/leddy/index.php/WYAJ/article/viewFile/4369/3446.
Strategies of Rupture
In this article, my
aim is to consider the use of law as a political strategy of rupture in colonial and post-
colonial nation states. The question of whether and how to use law in order to transform and potentially shatter an existing
political-legal order is one that continues to plague legal advocates in a variety of places, from Australia, to India, to Canada to
Israel/Palestine. For example, the struggle for the recognition of indigenous rights in the context of colonial settler regimes has often produced
pyrrhic victories. 21 The question of indigenous sovereignty is ultimately quashed, and aboriginal rights are paradoxically recognised as an
interest that derives from the prior occupation of the land by aboriginal communities but is at the same time parasitic on underlying Crow n
sovereignty; an interest that can be justifiably limited in the interests of settlement. 22 Thus, the primary and inescapable question
remains: how does one utilise the law without re-inscribing the very colonial legal order that one is
attempting to break down? 23 I argue that this is an inescapable dilemma; as critical race theorists and indigenous scholars
have shown, to not avail ourselves of the law in an effort to ameliorate social ills , and to promote and
protect the rights of oppressed minorities is to essentially abrogate one’s political responsibilities .
Moreover, the
reality of political struggle (particularly of the anti-colonial variety) is that it is of a diffuse
and varied nature, engaging multiple different tactics in order to achieve its ends. The notion of the ruptural
defence emerges from the work of Jacques Vergès, a French advocate and subject of a film by Barbet Schroder entitled Terror’s Advocate. The
film is as much a portrait of Vergès ’ life as it is a series of vignettes of armed anti-colonial and anti - imperial struggle during the decades
between the late 1940s and the 1980s. I should say at the beginning that I do not perceive Vergès as a heroic figure or defender of the
oppressed; we can see from his later decisions to defend Klaus Barbie, for instance, that his desire to reveal the violence wrought by European
imperial powers was pursued at any cost. But in tracing the development of what Vergès called the
ruptural defence, the film
takes us to the heart of the inescapable paradoxes and contradictions involved in using law as a means of
political resistance in colonial and post-colonial contexts. I want to explore the strategy of rupture as developed by Vergès
but also in a broader se nse, to consider whether there is in this defence strategy that arose in colonial, criminal law contexts, something that is
generalisable, something that can be drawn out to form a notion of legal rupture more generally. To begin then, an exploration of Vergès’
‘rupture defence’, or rendered more eloquently, a strategy of rupture. At the beginning of the film, Vergès comments on his strategy for the
trial of Djamila Bouhired, a member of the FLN, who was tried in a military court for planting a bomb in a cafe in Algiers in 1956. Vergès states
the following in relation to the trial: The problem wasn’t to play for sympathy as left - wing lawyers advised us to do, from the murderous fools
who judged us, but to taunt them, to provoke incidents that would reac h people in Paris, London, Brussels and Cairo... The refusal to play for
sympathy from those empowered to uphold the law in a colonial legal order hints at the much more profound refusal that lies at the basis of
the strategy of rupture, which we see unf old throughout the film. In refusing to accept the characterisation of Djamila’s acts as criminal acts,
Vergès challenges the very legal categories that were used to criminalise, condemn and punish anti - colonial resistance. The refusal to make
the defendants’ actions cognisable to and intelligible within the colonial legal framework breaks the capacity of the judges to adjudicate in at
least two senses. First, their moral authority is radically undermined by an outright rejection of the legal terms of refer ence and categories
which they are appointed to uphold. The
legal strategy of rupture is a politics of refusal that calls into question
the justiciability of the purported crime by challenging the moral and political jurisdiction of the colonial
legal order itself. Second, the refusal of the legal categorisation of the FLN acts of resistance as criminal brought into light the
contradictions inherent in the official French position and the reality of the Algerian context. This was not, as the official line would have it,
simply a case of French criminal law being applied to French nationals. The repeated assertion that the defendants were independent Algerian
actors fighting against colonial brutality, coupled with repeated revelations of the use of torture on political prisoners made it impossible for
the contradictions to be “rationally contained” within the normal operations of criminal law. The revelation and denunciation of torture in the
courtroom not to prevent statements or admissions from being admis sable as evidence (as such violations would normally be used) but to
challenge the legitimacy of the imposition of a colonial legal order on the Algerian people made the normal operation of criminal law procedure
virtually impossible. 24 And it is in this making impossible of the operation of the legal order that the power of the strategy of rupture lies. In
refusing to render his clients’ actions intelligible to a colonial (and later imperial) legal framework, Vergès makes visible the obvious hypocrisy
of the colonial legal order that attempts to punish resistance that employs violence, in the same spatial temporal boundaries where the brute
violence of colonial rule saturates everyday life. In doing so, this is a strategy that challenges the monopoly of le gitimate violence the state
holds. Vergès aims to render visible the false distinction between common crimes and political crimes, or more broadly, the separation of law
and politics. 25 The
ruptural defence seeks to subvert the order and structure of the trial by re-defining the relation
between accuser and accused. This illumination of the hypocrisy of the colonial state questions the
authority of its judiciary to adjudicate. But more than this, his strategy is ruptural in two senses that are fundamental to the
operation of the law in the colonial settler and post-colonial contexts. The first is that the space of opposition within the legal
confrontation is reconfigured. The second, and related point, is that the strictures of a legal politics of recognition
are shattered. In relation to the first point, a space of opposition is, in the view of Fanon, missing in certain senses, in the colonial context.
A space of opposition in which a genuinely mutual struggle between coloniser and colonised can occur is denied by spatial and legal - political
strategies of containment and segregation. While these strategies also exhibit great degre es of plasticity 26, the control over such mobility
remains to a great degree in the hands of the colonial occupier. The
legal strategy of rupture creates a space of political
opposition in the courtroom that cannot be absorbed or appropriated by the legal order. In Christodoulidis’ view,
this lack of co-option is the crux of the strategy of rupture. This strategy of rupture also points to a path that
challenges the limits of a politics of recognition, often one of the key legal and political strategies utilised by indigenous and
racial minority communities in their struggles for justice. Claims for recognition in a juridical frame inevitably involve a variety of ontoepistemological closures. 27 Whether because of the impossible and irreconciliable relation between the need for universal norms and laws
and the specificities of the particular claims that come before the law, or because of the need to fit one’s claims within legal - political
categories that are already intelligible within the legal order, legal recognition has been critiqued, particularly in regards to colonial settler
societies, on the basis that it only allows identities, legal claims, ways of being that are always - already proper to the existing juridical order to
be recognised by the law. In the Canadian context, for instance, many scholars have elucidated the ways in which the legal doctrine of
aboriginal title to land im ports Anglo - American concepts of ownership into the heart of its definition; and moreover, defines aboriginality on
the basis of a fixed, static concept of cultural difference. The
strategy of rupture elides the violence of recognition by
challenging the legitimacy of the colonial legal order itself. In an article discussing Vergès’ strategy of rupture, Emilios
Christodoulidis takes up a question posed to Vergès by Foucault shortly after the publication of Vergès’ book, De La Stratégie Judiciare, as to wh
ether the defence of rupture in the context of criminal law trials in the colony could be generalised more widely, or whether it was “not in fact
caught up in a specific historical conjuncture.” 28 In exploring how the strategy of rupture
could inform practices and theory
outside of the courtroom, Christodoulidis characterises the strategy of rupture as one mode of immanent critique. As
individuals and communities subjected to the force of law, the law itself becomes the object of critique, the
object that ne eds to be taken apart in order to expose its violence. To quote from Christodoulidis: Immanent critique aims to generate within
these institutional frameworks contradictions that are inevitable (they can neither be displaced nor ignored), compelling (they necessitate
action) and transformative in that (unlike internal critique) the overcoming of the contradiction does not restore, but transcends, the
‘disturbed’ framework within which it arose. It pushes it to go beyond its confines and in the process, famously in Marx’s words, ‘enables the
world to clarify its consciousness in waking it from its dream about itself’. 29 Christodoulidis explores how the strategy of rupture
can be
utilised as an intellectual resource for critical legal theory and more broadly, as a point of departure for
political strategies that could cause a crisis for globalised capital. Strategies of rupture are particularly crucial when
considering a system, he notes, that has been so successful at appropriating, ingesting and making its own, political aspirations (such as
freedom, to take one example) that have also been used to disrupt its most violent and exploitative tendencies. Here Christodoulidis departs
from the question of colonialism to focus on the operation of capitalism in po st - war European states. It is also this bifurcation that I want to
question, and rather than a distinction between colonialism and capitalism, to consider how the colonial (as a set of economic and political
relations that rely on ideologies of racial diff erence, and civilisational discourses that emerged during the period of European colonialism) is
continually re-written and re-instantiated through a globalised capitalism. As I elaborate in the discussion of the Salwa Judum judgment below,
it is the combination of violent state repression of political dissent that finds its origins (in the legal form it takes) during the colonial era, and
capitalist development imperatives that implicate local and global mining corporations in the dispossession of tribal peoples that constitutes
the legal - political conflict at issue. After the Trial: From Defence to Judgment In response to a question from Jean Lapeyrie (a member o f the
Action Committee for Prison - Justice) during a discussion of De La Stratégie Judiciare published as the Preface to the second edition, Vergès
remarks that there are actually effective judges, but that they are effective when forgetting the essence of what it is to be a judge. 31 The
strategy of rupture is a tactic utilised to subvert the order and structure of a trial; to re-define the very terms upon
which the trial is premised. On this view, the judge, charged with the obligation to uphold the rule o f law is of course by definition
not able to do anything but sustain an unjust political order. In the film Terror’s Advocate , one is left to wonder about the specificities of the
judicial responses to the strategy deployed by Vergès. (Djamila Bouhired , for instance, was sentenced to death, but as a result of a worldwide
media campaign was released from prison in 1962). While I would argue that the judicial response is clearly not what is at stake in the ruptural
defence, I want to consider the potentia lity of the judgment to be ruptural in the sense articulat ed by Christodoulidis, discussed above.
Exposing a law to its own contradictions and violence, revealing the ways in which a law or policy contradicts and
violates rights to basic political freedoms , has clear political-legal effects and consequences. Is it possible for members of the
judiciary to expose contradictions in the legal order itself, thereby transforming it? Would the redefinition, for instance, of constitutional
provisions guaranteeing r ights that come into conflict with capitalist development imperatives constitute such a rupture? In my view, the
definition of the limitations on the guarantees of individual and group freedom
utilised to justify state repression of rights in
re-
that are inevitably and invariably
favour of capitalist development imperatives, security, or colonial settlement have
the potential to contribute to the re-creation of political orders that could be more just and
democratic. We may be reluctant to ever claim a judgment as ruptural out of fear that it would
contaminate the radical nature of this form of immanent critique. Is to describe a judgment as ruptural to belie the
impossibility of justice, the aporia that confronts every moment of judicial decision - making? I want to suggest that it is impossible to maintain
such a pure position in relation to law, particularly given its capacity (analogous to that of capital itself) for reinvention. Thus, I want to explore
the potential for judges to subvert state violence engendered by particular forms of political and economic dispossession, through the act of
judgment. In my view, basic rights protected by constitutional guarantees (as in the Indian case) have been so compromised in the interests of
big business and develo pment imperatives, that
re-defining rights to equality, dignity and security of person, and
subverting the interests of the state- corporate nexus is potentially ruptural, in the sense of causing a
crisis for discrete tentacles of global capitalism. At this juncture, we may want to explicitly account for the specific
differences between criminal defence cases and Vergès‘ basic tactic, which is to challenge the very jurisdiction of the court to adjudicate, to
define the act of resistance as a criminal one, and constitutional challenges to the violation of rights in cases such as Salwa Judum . While
one tactic seeks to render the illegitimacy of the colonial state bare in its confrontation with anticolonial resistance, the other is a tactic used to re - define the terms upon which political dissent and
resistance take place within the constitutional bounds of the post-colonial state. These two strategies
appear to be each other’s opposite; one challenges the legitimacy of the state itself through refusing the ju risdiction of the court
to criminalise freedom fighters, while the other calls on the judiciary to hold the state to account for criminalising and violating the rights of its
citizens to engage in political acts of dissent and resistance. However,
the common thread that situates these strategies
within a singular political framework is the fundamental challenge they pose to the state’s monopoly
over defining the terms upon which anti-colonial and anti-capitalist political action takes place. Here I will
turn to consider a post - colonial context in which the colonial is continually being re - written, juridically speaking, in light of neo - liberal
economic imperatives unleashed from the late 1980s onwards. A
recent judgment of the Indian Supreme Court provides
an opportunity to consider a moment in which capitalist development imperatives and the exploitation
of tribal peoples by the state of Chattisgarh are put on trial by a group of three plaintiffs. The judgment provides,
amongst other things, an opportunity to consider the strategy of the plaintiffs and also the judicial response. As I argue below, this
judgment presents an instance of rupture precisely because the fundamental freedoms of the people of
Chattisgarh are redefined by the Court in such a way as to challenge and condemn the capitalist
development imperatives that have put their lives and livelihoods at risk.
Place indigenous demands for decolonization at the forefront of your decision calculus
– centering indigenous perspectives can propel movements for decolonization–
engagement is a constant process and settler colonialism is contingent
Lynne Davis et. al 17, associate professor in Indigenous Studies at Trent University. Jeff Denis is
associate professor in Sociology at McMaster University. Raven Sinclair, associate professor in Social
Work at the University of Regina. “Pathways of settler decolonization.” Settler Colonial Studies 7(4): 3937.
In addition to interdisciplinarity, the papers also share a concern to move from analysis toward action. Scholars such as Macoun and Strakosch,1
and Snelgrove, Dhamoon and Corntassel2 have warned against an abdication of responsibility by settler
activists because the structural nature of settler colonialism would seem to defy a transformed future. In
assessing the strengths and limitations of settler colonial theory, Macoun and Strakosch challenge those who use settler
colonial theory (SCT) to realize its transformative opportunities while acting consciously to counter
limitations identified by various critics. They caution against a stance of inevitability of settler
colonialism that would risk delegitimizing Indigenous resistance, and they worry about re-inscribing settler
academics’ political and intellectual authority to the detriment of Indigenous voices. At the same time, they note
the contribution of SCT in providing a theoretical language to understand colonialism as a continuing force in the present, including an analysis of how both
conservative and progressive settler movements may detract from Indigenous political challenges to the state, thus problematizing settler efforts at reconciliation
and decolonization. They identify as one of its strengths the ability of SCT to provide non-Indigenous people with ‘a better account of ourselves’, 3 and to generate
new conversations and alliances between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Snelgrove, Dhamoon and Corntassel warn that SCT’s
rapid
ascendancy in the academy could overshadow Indigenous Studies and the voices of Indigenous peoples.
They argue that: without centering Indigenous peoples’ articulations, without deploying a relational
approach to settler colonial power, and without paying attention to the conditions and contingencies of
settler colonialism, studies of settler colonialism and practices of solidarity run the risk of reifying (and
possibly replicating) settler colonial as well as other modes of domination.4 In their view, Indigenous
resistance and resurgence must remain central in discussions of changing relationships: Theorists of
Indigenous resurgence, such as Taiaiake Alfred and Leanne Simpson, among others, also express the possibility for settler society
listening, learning, and acting […] in accordance with and for what is being articulated [by Indigenous
people]; Indigenous resurgence is ultimately about reframing the conversation around decolonization in
order to re-center and reinvigorate Indigenous nationhood. Macoun and Strakosch, and Snelgrove, Dhamoon and Corntassel
gesture towards action by settler society to follow the lead of resurgence theorists in transforming settler colonialism, despite the structural, relational and affective
challenges of anti-colonial struggle, in order to ‘reinvigorate Indigenous nationhood’ The authors in this volume examine pathways to settler decolonization,
analyzing the uneven terrain of settler efforts and experiences through the lenses of SCT, Indigenous scholars and grassroots communities, and specific disciplinary
analyses. While SCT has been criticized for its inability to theorize a decolonial future, this volume interrogates what happens when settlers engage with and seek to
transform the system. What does such action look like? What challenges, complexities and barriers are faced? What are the stumbling blocks? And what
opportunities and possibilities emerge? The articles in this volume all note the need for settlers to transform our/their relations with the land and with Indigenous
peoples, while recognizing the structural and psychological challenges of applying these principles in practice. It is one thing to care about the environment, and
quite another to reorient one’s lifestyle around sustainable practices and the health of local ecosystems. It is one thing to feel a connection to a place, and another
to accept the notion of ‘non-human agency’. 6 Likewise, it is easier for settlers to advocate for the return of land to Indigenous peoples ‘over there’ rather than right
where settlers and settler states and corporations (claim to) own property.7 Transforming social relations is not just a matter of befriending Indigenous people; it
means developing long-term relations of accountability, engaging in meaningful dialogue, and respecting Indigenous laws and jurisdiction. Learning
to
transform relationships in these ways – and to transform self-understandings and thinking and feeling
patterns or ‘settler common sense’ 8 – is an ongoing process; it is not linear, but rather iterative, occurring in
what Hiller in this volume calls ‘upward and downward spirals’. Moreover, settlers’ anti-colonial learning (and
unlearning) does not simply precede action; it occurs through action, through meaningful relationships
with Indigenous peoples and with other engaged settlers, and through experimentation with activism
of various sorts. The Nehiyawak (Cree) refer to this relational and iterative social justice-focused
process as kisāhkīwewin: love in action. Several papers in this volume also address the role of emotions in settler decolonization. While
critical self-reflection is essential to this process, and while emotions such as guilt, shame and indignation can help motivate settlers to change their ways and
support Indigenous resurgence (as Bacon shows in one of the articles collected here), it
is equally important not to treat ‘unsettling the
settler within’ 9 as an end in itself; rather than dwelling in discomfort, the point of unsettlement is to be
a springboard to action that benefits Indigenous peoples
Reject other models of impact calculus that make even the most impossible scenarios
plausible
Oliver Kessler 8. Professor of Sociology at University of Bielefeld. “From Insecurity to Uncertainty: Risk
and the Paradox of Security Politics.” Alternatives 33 (2008). 211-232.
The problem of the second method is that it is very difficult to "calculate" politically unacceptable
losses. If the risk of terrorism is defined in traditional terms by probability and potential loss, then the
focus on dramatic terror attacks leads to the marginalization of probabilities. The reason is that even
the highest degree of improbability becomes irrelevant as the measure of loss goes to infinity.^o The
mathematical calculation of the risk of terrorism thus tends to overestimate and to dramatize the
danger. This has consequences beyond the actual risk assessment for the formulation and execution of
"risk policies": If one factor of the risk calculation approaches infinity (e.g., if a case of nuclear terrorism
is envisaged), then there is no balanced measure for antiterrorist efforts, and risk manage- ment as a
rational endeavor breaks down. Under the historical con- dition of bipolarity, the "ultimate" threat with
nuclear weapons could be balanced by a similar counterthreat, and new equilibria could be achieved,
albeit on higher levels of nuclear overkill. Under the new condition of uncertainty, no such rational
balancing is possible since knowledge about actors, their motives and capabilities, is largely absent. The
second form of security policy that emerges when the deter- rence model collapses mirrors the "social
probability" approach. It represents a logic of catastrophe. In contrast to risk management framed in
line with logical probability theory, the logic of catastro- phe does not attempt to provide means of
absorbing uncertainty. Rather, it takes uncertainty as constitutive for the logic itself; uncer- tainty is a
crucial precondition for catastrophies. In particular, cata- strophes happen at once, without a warning,
but with major impli- cations for the world polity. In this category, we find the impact of meteorites.
Mars attacks, the tsunami in South East Asia, and 9/11. To conceive of terrorism as catastrophe has
consequences for the formulation of an adequate security policy. Since catastrophes hap- pen
irrespectively of human activity or inactivity, no political action could possibly prevent them. Of course,
there are precautions that can be taken, but the framing of terrorist attack as a catastrophe points to
spatial and temporal characteristics that are beyond "rationality." Thus, political decision makers are
exempted from the responsibility to provide security—as long as they at least try to pre- empt an attack.
Interestingly enough, 9/11 was framed as catastro- phe in various commissions dealing with the
question of who was responsible and whether it could have been prevented. This makes clear that
under the condition of uncertainty, there are no objective criteria that could serve as an anchor for
measur- ing dangers and assessing the quality of political responses. For ex- ample, as much as one
might object to certain measures by the US administration, it is almost impossible to "measure" the
success of countermeasures. Of course, there might be a subjective assessment of specific shortcomings
or failures, but there is no "common" cur- rency to evaluate them. As a consequence, the framework of
the security dilemma fails to capture the basic uncertainties. Pushing the door open for the security
paradox, the main prob- lem of security analysis then becomes the question how to integrate dangers in
risk assessments and security policies about which simply nothing is known. In the mid 1990s, a Rand
study entitled "New Challenges for Defense Planning" addressed this issue arguing that "most striking is
the fact that we do not even know who or what will constitute the most serious future threat, "^i In
order to cope with this challenge it would be essential, another Rand researcher wrote, to break free
from the "tyranny" of plausible scenario planning. The decisive step would be to create "discontinuous
scenarios ... in which there is no plausible audit trail or storyline from current events"52 These
nonstandard scenarios were later called "wild cards" and became important in the current US strategic
discourse. They justified the transformation from a threat-based toward a capability- based defense
planning strategy.53 The problem with this kind of risk assessment is, however, that even the most
absurd scenarios can gain plausibility. By constructing a chain of potentialities, improbable events are
linked and brought into the realm of the possible, if not even the probable. "Although the likelihood of
the scenario dwindles with each step, the residual impression is one of plausibility. "54 This so-called
Oth- ello effect has been effective in the dawn of the recent war in Iraq. The connection between
Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda that the US government tried to prove was disputed from the very beginning. False evidence was again and again presented and refuted, but this did not prevent the
administration from presenting as the main rationale for war the improbable yet possible connection
between Iraq and the terrorist network and the improbable yet possible proliferation of an improbable
yet possible nuclear weapon into the hands of Bin Laden. As Donald Rumsfeld famously said: "Absence
of evidence is not evidence of absence." This sentence indicates that under the condition of genuine
uncer- tainty, different evidence criteria prevail than in situations where security problems can be
assessed with relative certainty.