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NEOCOLONIALISM</div>
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<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/operation-pacific-eagle-in-the-philippines-washingtons-new-colonial-war/237281/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration: none; font-size: 32px;" class="">Operation
Pacific Eagle in the Philippines: Washington’s New Colonial War</a></h1>
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Critics contend that Operation Pacific Eagle Philippines is aimed at strengthening Washington’s grip on the long-subjugated people of the Philippines, defeating a half-century leftist
insurgency, and securing the country for the interests of U.S. multinational corporations.</p>
</h2>
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Americans don’t know that the Philippines was our colony, and now they are our latest occupied territory in our “war on terror.” One of the poorest people in Asia, SE Asia, the Pacific they are workers everywhere in the world. with their major export being
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px;" class=""><time class="entry-time" itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2018-02-07T13:44:16+00:00" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; font-style: italic;">February 07th, 2018</time></p>
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px;" class="">By <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/elliott-gabriel/" class="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">Elliott
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<div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox at-style-responsive social-icons-full" data-urldata-title="Operation Pacific Eagle in the Philippines: Washington’s New Colonial War" data-description="Critics contend that Operation Pacific Eagle Philippines is aimed at strengthening Washington’s grip on the long-subjugated people of the Philippines, defeating a half-century leftist insurgency, and securing the country for the interests of U.S. multinational corporations.
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">In the first part of this MPN exclusive, we speak to Ka Oris of the New People’s Army and Professors William I.
Robinson and Roland Simbulan about the new U.S. intervention in Asia, which raises the Philippines to the same level as Syria and Iraq for the Pentagon’s war plans.</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">In the second part, we will look at the 1999-2015 counterinsurgency initiative “Plan Colombia” as a template for
Operation Pacific Eagle, as well as the use of the operation to continue the encirclement of China by U.S. bases.</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 64px; line-height: 50px; padding-top: 3px; padding-right: 6px; font-family: Times, serif, Georgia;" class="">M</span>ANILA,
PHILIPPINES –</span> Last month, the U.S. Armed Forces finally admitted that a new mission was underway in the Philippines. Dubbed <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872555/-1/-1/1/FY2018_LIG_OCO_OIR_Q1_12222017_2.PDF" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">“Operation
Pacific Eagle – Philippines,”</a> the operation allows for an unlimited budget to be set aside for the purpose of armed U.S. operations in the Southeast Asian region.</p>
<span id="add-5a7cc4d9e9580" class="ad" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/MintPressNews" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class=""><img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Citizen-Activist-email.png" data-lazy-loaded="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline;" class=""></a></span>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""> </p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Designated on Sept. 1, 2017 by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis amid total secrecy in the U.S. and the Philippines, the overseas contingency operation – an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">official
designation</a> for the military theaters of the former “War on Terror” – is presented as a continuation of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. military’s crusade against the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Pacific Eagle, an open-ended mission aimed at “countering radicalization and violent extremism” in the Southeast Asian region, could see the U.S. military re-establish itself as
a virtually permanent fixture in a former U.S. colony described by President Donald Trump as a “<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/prime-piece-real-estate-trumps-verdict-philippines-711040" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">prime
piece of real estate</a>.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Critics contend that the operation is aimed at strengthening Washington’s grip on the long-subjugated people of the Philippines, defeating a half-century leftist insurgency, and
securing the country for the interests of U.S. multinational corporations.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""> </p>
<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Oswald, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: 30px;" class="">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">The ‘ISIS’ specter</span></h2>
<div id="attachment_237284" class="alignnone wp-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 1010px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Mattis_Du30_DVIDS.jpg" class="thickbox" title="Defense Secretary James Mattis meets with the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Ministers (ASEAN) meeting in Clark, Philippines on Oct. 24, 2017. (Photo: DVIDS)" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;"><img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Mattis_Du30_DVIDS.jpg" class="wp-image-237284 size-full" alt="Defense Secretary James Mattis meets with the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Ministers (ASEAN) meeting in Clark, Philippines on Oct. 24, 2017. (Photo: DVIDS)" width="1000" height="537" srcset="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Mattis_Du30_DVIDS.jpg 1000w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Mattis_Du30_DVIDS-300x161.jpg 300w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Mattis_Du30_DVIDS-768x412.jpg 768w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Mattis_Du30_DVIDS-800x430.jpg 800w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" data-lazy-loaded="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline;"></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;">
Defense Secretary James Mattis meets with the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Ministers (ASEAN) meeting in Clark, Philippines on Oct. 24, 2017. (Photo: DVIDS)</p>
</div>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">The operation comes to light months after the conclusion of the bloody siege of Marawi, a now-pulverized city in the southernmost island of Mindanao that became the scene of a ruinous
counterinsurgency campaign by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against hundreds of alleged “Islamic State affiliates” of the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">The campaign entailed the declaration of martial law in Mindanao until the end of 2018, the displacement of thousands of families, and the deployment of U.S. Special Forces to the
city as advisors and <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/06/12/17/look-americans-spotted-flying-drone-in-marawi" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">drone
operators</a> assisting the Philippine military.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">A recent video released by Philippine Army Special Operations Command, highlighted by <a href="http://www.interaksyon.com/military-intervention-bayan-slams-operation-pacific-eagle-philippines-as-u-s-counter-terror-interference/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">Interaksyon</a>,
noted the clear evidence of U.S. logistical support to the AFP campaign, including M4s rifle optics, PEQ-2 laser designators, machine guns, grenade launchers and Harris tactical radio systems.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">Watch | The Philippine Army Special Operations Command’s Battle of Marawi</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">
<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/_4zXI0X8Brc?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="1000" height="535" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;" class="">
</iframe>
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">The U.S. participation was seen by the country’s leftists as proof of President Rodrigo Duterte’s hypocrisy, exposing his angry anti-U.S. statements and pledges to align with regional
powerhouses such as Russia and China as the empty bluster of a <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Philippine-Communist-Leader-Vows-to-Fight-Puppet-Duterte--20170728-0011.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">U.S.
puppet</a>.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">A <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872555/-1/-1/1/FY2018_LIG_OCO_OIR_Q1_12222017_2.PDF" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">report</a> published
for the U.S. Congress last Friday by Lead Inspector General Glenn Fine repeatedly invokes “ISIS-Philippines” as justification for the report while subtly mentioning “other terrorist organizations” that remain unnamed:</p>
<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 40px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">OPE-P is described as the comprehensive counterterrorism campaign by the DoD, in coordination with other U.S. Government agencies and international partners, to support the Philippine
government and military in their efforts to isolate, degrade, and defeat Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) affiliates and other terrorist organizations in the Philippines.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Critics see the use of the term “other terrorist organizations” as a red flag signaling that the Pentagon’s focus is far from limited to those who are seeking to help establish
a global “caliphate” from the Southeast Asian archipelago.</p>
<hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">Read more by <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/elliott-gabriel/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">Elliott
Gabriel</a></span></p>
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<hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">For, Roland Simbulan, a professor at the University of the Philippines and scholar of U.S. military activities in the region, Operation Pacific Eagle represents a new stage in the
counterinsurgency against the Maoist guerrillas of the New People’s Army (NPA).</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">“The Operation Pacific Eagle marks a new era of U.S. military intervention in the Philippines,” Simbulan told <em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">MintPress News</em>:</p>
<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 40px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Internally, it is directed against the Philippine left and externally, to use the Philippines as a springboard to reassert U.S. military power in the Pacific. It is Trump’s way
of supporting the creeping authoritarianism in the country while using U.S. military forces and assets to make sure that Duterte does not change the U.S. military presence [in relation to] China.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""> </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Oswald, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: 30px;" class="">
The Philippine Revolution</h2>
<div id="attachment_237285" class="alignnone wp-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 1610px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_16329254777581-1145x649.jpg" class="thickbox" title="Members of the New People's Army march during the entry of colors as part of ceremonies before a news conference held at their guerrilla encampment tucked in the harsh wilderness of the Sierra Madre mountains southeast of Manila, Philippines. The group warns that a peace deal with President Rodrigo Duterte's government is unlikely if he won't end the Philippines' treaty alliance with the United States and resist control by other countries, Nov. 23, 2016. (AP/Aaron Favila)" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;"><img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_16329254777581.jpg" class="wp-image-237285 size-full" alt="Members of the New People's Army march during the entry of colors as part of ceremonies before a news conference held at their guerrilla encampment tucked in the harsh wilderness of the Sierra Madre mountains southeast of Manila, Philippines. The group warns that a peace deal with President Rodrigo Duterte's government is unlikely if he won't end the Philippines' treaty alliance with the United States and resist control by other countries, Nov. 23, 2016. (AP/Aaron Favila)" width="1600" height="907" srcset="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_16329254777581.jpg 1600w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_16329254777581-300x170.jpg 300w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_16329254777581-768x435.jpg 768w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_16329254777581-800x454.jpg 800w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_16329254777581-1145x649.jpg 1145w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" data-lazy-loaded="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline;"></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;">
Members of the New People’s Army march during the entry of colors as part of ceremonies before a news conference held at their guerrilla encampment tucked in the harsh wilderness of the Sierra Madre mountains southeast of Manila, Philippines. The group warns
that a peace deal with President Rodrigo Duterte’s government is unlikely if he won’t end the Philippines’ treaty alliance with the United States and resist control by other countries, Nov. 23, 2016. (AP/Aaron Favila)</p>
</div>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">For nearly 50 years, the NPA – affiliated with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) – has waged a prolonged insurgency against successive governments in Manila, which it
accuses of serving U.S. imperialist interests rather than the interests of poor people and Indigenous communities in resource-rich rural areas desired by multinational mining firms and local exporters.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Duterte once called himself a “socialist” and “<a href="https://thediplomat.com/2016/11/why-the-philippines-rodrigo-duterte-hates-america/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">anti-imperialist</a>,”
and even <a href="http://www.ltrendingnews.com/duterte-mabuhay-ang-npa/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">expressed sympathies</a> for
the red fighters in a manner considered taboo in a country that, for decades under former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, once nursed a single-minded hatred of the left.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Since 1986, however, Manila has taken part in intermittent peace talks with the banned Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) through the National Democratic Front, an alliance
of social movements affiliated with the clandestine party.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">While Duterte initially championed the peace process, which hinged on the implementation of an <a href="http://ibon.org/2017/05/casergoals-opportunity-for-real-economic-reforms-should-not-be-missed/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">ambitious
socio-economic reform agenda</a>, the negotiations were derailed last May after his declaration of martial law in Mindanao.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">Watch | Why is there an armed revolution in the Philippines?</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">
<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/6W4AHPImZMU?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="1000" height="535" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;" class="">
</iframe>
</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Accordingly, the end of last year’s peace talks eventually led to Duterte designating the Philippine communists, both armed and unarmed, as “terrorists.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">“I will follow America, since they say that I am an American boy,” Duterte <a href="http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/11/21/1761141/duterte-douses-fears-revolutionary-government" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">noted</a>.
“OK, granted, I will admit that I am a fascist. I will categorize you already as a terrorist.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">The clandestine party and its military wing have both been included in the official U.S. government list of foreign terrorist organizations since 2002.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Duterte’s accusations came shortly after U.S. President Trump’s visit to Manila for the ASEAN leaders’ summit last November, drawing criticisms that the Philippine president was
acting under the direction of his “<a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/multimedia/As-Trump-Visits-ASEAN-Summit-Philippine-Groups-Stage-Huge-Anti-Imperialist-Rallies-20171112-0022.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">idol
and puppet-master</a>” from Washington.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">“Duterte’s martial law against the so-called ‘ISIS’ in Mindanao set a perfect backdrop for the reentry of U.S. troops and their permanent
basing in the country without a signed treaty,” the CPP Information Bureau said in a</span> <a href="https://www.ndfp.org/quid-pro-quo-operation-pacific-eagle-philippines-exchange-support-dutertes-corrupt-criminal-rule/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">statement</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> released
last month:</span></p>
<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 40px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">His termination of the peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and subsequent declaration of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New
People’s Army as ‘terrorist organizations’ further set the stage. The declaration, which was made specifically in line with the U.S. State Department’s foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) listing, bolstered Duterte access to the U.S.’ budget for overseas
contingency operations (OCO), the Pentagon’s bloated ‘anti-terror’ slush fund.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""> </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Oswald, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: 30px;" class="">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Mindanao’s riches</span></h2>
<div id="attachment_237286" class="alignnone wp-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 1610px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_080508013788-1145x560.jpg" class="thickbox" title="The mountains of the South Cotabato province of Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines. (AP Photo)" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;"><img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_080508013788.jpg" class="wp-image-237286 size-full" alt="The mountains of the South Cotabato province of Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines. (AP Photo)" width="1600" height="783" srcset="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_080508013788.jpg 1600w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_080508013788-300x147.jpg 300w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_080508013788-768x376.jpg 768w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_080508013788-800x392.jpg 800w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_080508013788-1145x560.jpg 1145w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" data-lazy-loaded="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline;"></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;">
The mountains of the South Cotabato province in the resource-rich Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines. (AP Photo)</p>
</div>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">The material incentives of the United States government are key to understanding why the U.S. declared Operation Pacific Eagle, according to Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos, the spokesman
for the New People’s Army (NPA) National Operations Command.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">“ISIS in the Philippines is more imagined than real,” Ka Oris told <em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">MintPress News</em>:</p>
<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 40px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">By using the general catchphrase ‘radicalization and violent extremism,’ the U.S. is encompassing all armed groups resistant to its puppet state’s rule, both existing and those
bound to emerge due to its interference. In Mindanao, this includes legitimate Moro groups/clans fighting for their ancestral lands and right to self-determination.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">The lush island has long been known for its lucrative natural gas and mineral deposits and its wide tracts of land ideal for large-scale commercial plantations operated by multinational
corporations based in the U.S., Ka Oris explains.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Multinationals have also looked covetously at the Liguasan Marsh, a huge and biodiverse complex of rivers, channels, lakes, freshwater marshes and ponds.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Viewed as sacred patrimony for the Maguindanaoan Muslim tribe, the 220,000-hectare marsh was described in U.S.<a href="http://www.pesoreserve.com/2011/08/wikileaks-us-says-island-mindanao-has-1.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class=""> diplomatic
cables</a> from 2006, obtained by WikiLeaks, as containing untapped mineral wealth totaling anywhere from $840 billion to $1 trillion.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Manila government officials at the time described the region as a “treasure trove” of mineral resources — including gold, copper,
chromites, nickel, manganese, silver, iron ore, lead and zinc. According to subsequent surveys carried out by U.S. oil engineers, the natural gas reserves of Liguasan alone amount to $580 billion.</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">Watch | Making a Difference in Ligawasan Marsh</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">
<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zkekp53gQgA?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="1000" height="535" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%;" class="">
</iframe>
</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">“At the same time, the island is also home to robust people’s movements and has a strong presence of armed groups, including the NPA,” Ka Oris notes.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">In hopes to advance their demands for self-determination from the distant Manila government, Maguindanaoans have long taken part in armed insurgencies led by groups such as the
Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) — both groups that faced accusations of terrorism” from Manila and the U.S. Both groups have since signed peace deals and now hope to finalize a law granting autonomy to local elites.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Controversially, Duterte has tied the granting of autonomy to a new push to drastically raise the constitutional ceiling limiting the right of foreign investors to own Philippine
land, among other measures that have <a href="http://ibon.org/2018/01/independent-foreign-policy-foreign-interests-behind-train-cha-cha-says-ibon/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">raised
the ire of watchdogs </a>and opposition figures. Filipinos who oppose Duterte see the reform of foreign land ownership laws as key ingredients of a recipe for a return to colonialism in the country.</p>
<div id="attachment_237287" class="alignnone wp-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 1610px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_17163224599726-1145x844.jpg" class="thickbox" title="A protester holds a placard during a rally in Manila, Philippines, near the U.S. Embassy to denounce the U.S. military's role in the battle between government forces and Islamist militants. The protesters also denounced President Rodrigo Duterte's declaration of martial law in the whole region of Mindanao in southern Philippines. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;"><img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_17163224599726.jpg" class="wp-image-237287 size-full" alt="A protester holds a placard during a rally in Manila, Philippines, near the U.S. Embassy to denounce the U.S. military's role in the battle between government forces and Islamist militants. The protesters also denounced President Rodrigo Duterte's declaration of martial law in the whole region of Mindanao in southern Philippines. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)" width="1600" height="1180" srcset="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_17163224599726.jpg 1600w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_17163224599726-300x221.jpg 300w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_17163224599726-768x566.jpg 768w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_17163224599726-800x590.jpg 800w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_17163224599726-1145x844.jpg 1145w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" data-lazy-loaded="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline;"></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;">
A protester holds a placard during a rally in Manila, Philippines, near the U.S. Embassy to denounce the U.S. military’s role in the battle between government forces and Islamist militants. The protesters also denounced President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration
of martial law in the whole region of Mindanao in southern Philippines. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)</p>
</div>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Manila also hopes a new law on autonomy can smooth over the lingering rage provoked by Marawi’s destruction. According to Moro advocates, the city’s Islamist insurgency was itself <a href="http://www.manilatoday.net/moro-group-calls-end-military-ops-marawi/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">rooted
more in a neglect</a> of Moro people’s legitimate interests than in locals’ interest in the ISIS program.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">“The U.S. even acknowledges that the Marawi siege may have further complicated the Moro situation in this part of the country,” Ka Oris explained.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Local Moro advocates see recent developments, such as plans to build a second major military camp in the city, as proof that Manila <a href="http://davaotoday.com/main/todays-views/conspiracy-theory-no-more/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">intends
to transform Marawi City</a> into a de facto “military reservation” directly owned and operated by the U.S. armed forces. The developments cast new light on the <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Philippine-Mass-Movements-Decry-US-Backed-War-Crimes-as-Martial-Law-Enters-3rd-Week-20170606-0039.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">overuse
of force</a> against the city’s civilian infrastructure and neighborhoods for the purpose of quelling a relatively small number of Islamist insurgents.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Ka Oris notes:</p>
<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 40px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">The U.S. is sure to consider the city as one of its potential bases, as it hosted the main U.S. base in Mindanao in the 1900s (then known as Camp Keithley). Duterte has already
displaced almost all its civilian population and is in the process of <a href="http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/965472/moros-oppose-new-afp-camp-in-marawi" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">building
a military base</a> there. Resistance, both armed and unarmed, to this latest injustice is bound to intensify.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""> </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Oswald, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-size: 30px;" class="">
Making the Philippines safe for global capitalism</h2>
<div id="attachment_237289" class="alignnone wp-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 1610px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_703266725620-1145x598.jpg" class="thickbox" title="Protesters display placards behind a mock logo of the World Bank outside a hotel near Manila, Philippines to, Oct. 23, 2014. Protesters gathered to coincide with the World Bank consultations with different non-government organizations and civil society groups on the World Bank's new draft of " safeguards?thatwaslaunchedinwashington.protestleaderswouldlaterrejectthedraftanddemandpoliciestoensurerealprotections="" for="" peopleplanet.?(apbullitmarquez)?="" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;"><img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_703266725620.jpg" class="wp-image-237289 size-full" alt="Protesters display placards behind a mock logo of the World Bank outside a hotel near Manila, Philippines to, Oct. 23, 2014. Protesters gathered to coincide with the World Bank consultations with different non-government organizations and civil society groups on the World Bank's new draft of "safeguards" that was launched in Washington. Protest leaders would later reject the draft and demand policies to ensure real protections for people and the planet." (AP/Bullit Marquez)" width="1600" height="835" srcset="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_703266725620.jpg 1600w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_703266725620-300x157.jpg 300w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_703266725620-768x401.jpg 768w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_703266725620-800x418.jpg 800w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_703266725620-1145x598.jpg 1145w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" data-lazy-loaded="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline;"></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;">
Protesters display placards behind a mock logo of the World Bank outside a hotel near Manila, Philippines to, Oct. 23, 2014. Protesters gathered to coincide with the World Bank consultations with different non-government organizations and civil society groups
on the World Bank’s new draft of “safeguards” that was launched in Washington. Protest leaders would later reject the draft and demand policies to ensure real protections for people and the planet.” (AP/Bullit Marquez)</p>
</div>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">When former dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972 — ostensibly to contain the communist insurgency of the CPP-NPA and growing unrest in the cities and schools —
the neocolonial status of the Philippines was drastically deepened. The country was transformed into a laboratory for neoliberal experiments, free-market policies, special economic zones, and a lifting of protectionist laws under World Bank structural adjustment
loan requirements.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">U.S. multinational corporations, operating through loyal elites and oligarch clans, gained unprecedented access to the country’s riches — including its banking, petrochemical, construction,
telecoms, and mineral extraction industries, among other strategic sectors.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">For William I. Robinson, an author and professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, a new period of martial law and militarization would come as little surprise:</p>
<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 40px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Both Trumpism and Duterteism are far-right authoritarian responses to crises of state legitimacy and internecine feuding among the elite. Militarization and authoritarianism in
the United States and the Philippines will become more closely linked through Operation Pacific Eagle.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Even in the past, when Manila abstained from the iron-fisted policies of Duterte, the country’s governance entailed the violent displacement
of millions throughout the country and the resultant export of several millions of displaced Filipinos to all corners of the globe as “guest workers” lacking rights in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa. While women find work as domestic laborers,
servers, caregivers, nurses, or hospitality industry workers — where they are often vulnerable to rape, physical assault, and murder — men find hazardous jobs as construction workers and agricultural laborers. </span><a href="http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/07/30/1482533/unemployment-low-wages-push-pinoys-work-abroad" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Some
reports</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> claim that around 6,000 are forced to leave the country to seek work every day.</span></p>
<div id="attachment_237288" class="alignnone wp-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 1610px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_91534354681-1145x726.jpg" class="thickbox" title="Relatives of OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) display placards as they pitch their tent to begin their planned three-day camp-out at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, Philippines, Monday April 29, 2013. The camp-out was organized in sympathy with more than 2,500 who pitched their tents in Jedda, Saudi Arabia to escape alleged crackdowns on undocument overseas workers by the Saudi government. (AP/Bullit Marquez)" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;"><img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_91534354681.jpg" class="wp-image-237288 size-full" alt="Relatives of OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) display placards as they pitch their tent to begin their planned three-day camp-out at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, Philippines, Monday April 29, 2013. The camp-out was organized in sympathy with more than 2,500 who pitched their tents in Jedda, Saudi Arabia to escape alleged crackdowns on undocument overseas workers by the Saudi government. (AP/Bullit Marquez)" width="1600" height="1015" srcset="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_91534354681.jpg 1600w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_91534354681-300x190.jpg 300w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_91534354681-768x487.jpg 768w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_91534354681-800x508.jpg 800w, https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AP_91534354681-1145x726.jpg 1145w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" data-lazy-loaded="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline;"></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;">
Relatives of OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) display placards as they pitch their tent to begin their planned three-day camp-out at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, Philippines, Monday April 29, 2013. The camp-out was organized in sympathy with
more than 2,500 who pitched their tents in Jedda, Saudi Arabia to escape alleged crackdowns on undocument overseas workers by the Saudi government. (AP/Bullit Marquez)</p>
</div>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">“The export of this surplus labor has provided a political escape value to an explosive situation of displacement and mass immiseration,”
Robertson told</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> MintPress News</em>.</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Likewise, he continues,</p>
<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 40px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Agro-industrial zones have spread through the countryside and the export-industry that first took off in the 1980s has eclipsed national industrial development and has been expanding,
as has the transfer of transnational corporate services – call centers, Facebook censors – to the Philippines. These transnational agro-industrial, industrial, and service complexes, along with the global export of Philippine labor, are the face of capitalist
globalization in the Philippines.“</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Such processes can only accelerate in a “hot-house fashion,” as global markets and the transnational capitalist class seek temporary fixes to their deepening financial worries in
resource-rich yet poverty-stricken countries such as the Philippines, Robertson suggests — ensuring that Operation Pacific Eagle will embroil the U.S. in a deeper role policing the internal social turmoil within the country.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Robinson also sees Operation Pacific Eagle as quite similar to <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/after-onset-of-plan-colombia-cocaine-profits-record-highs/229949/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; color: rgb(240, 185, 32); text-decoration: none;" class="">Plan
Colombia</a>, the 1999-2015 counterinsurgency aid program that saw billions of dollars in weaponry poured into Colombian security forces and paramilitaries for the purpose of destroying the FARC’s left-wing insurgency and, ostensibly, continuing the “war on
drugs.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">The New People’s Army is prepared to weather the storm, according to Ka Oris, who sees continued revolutionary rigor as key to the survival of the Filipino people and New People’s
Army:</p>
<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 40px;" class="">
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Expanding the mass base, strengthening and expanding the people’s army through trainings and mass recruitments, making sure that revolutionary
work is done in a comprehensive manner – [this is how we can] ensure that the guerilla forces and bases can withstand and outlast relentless attacks from enemy forces. These, alongside the study and adaptation of the NPA and the people to U.S. sophisticated
weapons, such as surveillance and attack drones, that the local armed forces are already using against civilian communities.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">For the Filipino revolutionaries, it remains unclear as to whether Operation Pacific Eagle marks a new phase in Washington’s militarization
of the Philippines. The interventionist policies of the United States have been a constant since the end of the Spanish colonial period when the U.S. military waged a brutal war that claimed around one million lives in the country.</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">However, Ka Oris notes, Operation Pacific Eagle is clearly consistent with the past administration’s so-called “pivot to the Pacific”
and the United States’ push to maintain military supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region. For the Pentagon’s war-planners, the Philippines remains key to their plans for containing an increasingly strong and confident China.</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">In Part II, we will look at the 1999-2015 U.S. initiative “Plan Colombia” as a template for Operation Pacific Eagle,
as well as the use of the operation to continue the encirclement of China by U.S. bases.</span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class="">Top Photo | A U.S. Marine teaches a Philippine Marine weapon handling techniques during Air Assault Support Exercise 2015-2 at Basa Air Base in Pampanga, Philippines, July 15, 2015.
(Photo: U.S. Marine Corp)</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;" class=""><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">Elliott Gabriel</span> is a former staff writer for teleSUR English
and a MintPress News contributor based in Quito, Ecuador. He has taken extensive part in advocacy and organizing in the pro-labor, migrant justice and police accountability movements of Southern California and the state’s Central Coast.</em></p>
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