RedbloodedAtenean

Youth activists burn US flag to protest continued US military intervention



Davao City— In time of the commemoration of the September 11 World Trade Center Bombing, militant youth group League of Filipino Students (LFS) together with members of the Kabataan Partylist burned the flag of the United States in a symbolic protest to condemn the ongoing U.S. military intervention in Mindanao and in other parts of the country.



“The burning of the US flag is a symbolic act to show that we must defend our democratic rights and national patrimony from the U.S. government’s military and capitalists’ interests. After the 9/11 bombing, US aggression in the country has intensified as the Arroyo administration offered our country to be the 2nd front of the US war on terror,” League of Filipino Students - Davao Spokesperson Karlos Manlupig said.



The group urged the scrapping of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), a military agreement between the Philippine and the US governments which the group called “one-sided and a fetter on Philippine sovereignty.”



Manlupig added, “The VFA has ensured that the country remains as a puppet to the dictates of the US government. It has allowed our country to become a front in the U.S. war of terror and its other proxy wars against our own people and other nations. It has as well led to the unbridled plunder of our natural resources to benefit the coffers of capitalist nations.”



LFS noted said that in Bangsamoro areas where US military presence and actual participation in combat has been documented, human rights violations against the Moro people have been rampant.



Recounting how the U.S. military has maximized the said agreement to keep erring US military personnel under U.S. jurisdiction, LFS noted the Subic rape case wherein the U.S. government refused to hand over Lance Corporal Daniel Smith even after the latter was convicted.



LFS, which celebrates its 32nd anniversary today, enjoins the youth to keep a vigilant stand against the intensifying U.S. military aggression in the country which has led to gross atrocities against the Filipino people, especially in the Bangsamoro areas.