East Asia has been an area of growing importance in Washington's "war on terror," as evidenced by growing levels of U.S. security assistance and military collaboration with nations including the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. Whether these increases in U.S. security assistance will have the desired effect without aggravating the region's existing conflicts remains to be seen.

The Philippines

U.S. security assistance to the Philippines has increased dramatically since 9/11, as the Bush administration has backed efforts by the Philippine military to root out insurgent groups. The Philippines has hosted scores of U.S. military exercises--37 in 2006 alone--and U.S. forces have secured access to a variety of locations within the country as possible jumping-off points for U.S. action elsewhere in the region.[35]

In connection with these activities, the Philippines has received over $520 million in U.S. security assistance from FY2002 through FY2009, with more than half of that amount coming through the Pentagon's Foreign Military Financing program (see table 12).

Table 12
Major U.S. Security Assistance Programs to the Philippines
FY 2002 through FY 2009 (dollars in thousands)

Source: U.S. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations, FY 2004 through FY 2009 editions.
^aFY 2008 figures are estimates.
^bFY 2009 figures are as proposed in the administration's budget.

The Philippine government is in the midst of a multi-front war against communist insurgents organized under the umbrella of the New People's Army (NPA), separatist groups that include the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and the Islamic fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which has links to the global Al Qaeda network. Fighting between the government and the separatist and communist insurgent forces goes back nearly four decades. The war against the separatists in the southern Philippines alone has claimed over 120,000 lives since its inception in 1971.[36]

The Philippine government's military campaign against the MILF and Abu Sayyaf in the southern islands of the Philippines has been aided by U.S. military and Special Forces personnel. Immediately after 9/11, the United States sent 1,650 troops to this region to participate in a military exercise aimed at addressing the threat from Abu Sayyaf and the MILF. According to the International Crisis Group, "About 180 [U.S.] troops are stationed on the island [of Mindanao] at a time, supported by another 170 at the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) at AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] Western Mindanao Command Headquarters in Zamboanga City."[37]

Has U.S. military assistance made a difference? In a May 2008 analysis of the situation in the Philippines, the ICG suggested that U.S.-backed Philippine armed forces have overreached in their attempts to destroy the 300- to 400-strong Abu Sayyaf Group. Instead of cooperating with larger insurgent groups like the MILF to isolate members of the ASG (as it did with some success through mid-2007), the Philippine military has been attacking strongholds of support for the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front in its pursuit of key ASG leaders. These attacks have only served to generate sympathy for the ASG among local populations.[38] The ICG recommends a more nuanced approach that involves negotiations to address the grievances of groups like the MILF and the MNLF, with the aim of fostering cooperation in the fight against Abu Sayyaf.

Unfortunately, the diverse threats to the Philippine government have sparked a widespread crackdown on civilian opponents of the regime, including a campaign of murders of leftist opposition members that is currently under investigation by the United Nations. According to Human Rights Watch:

Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took office in 2001, hundreds of members of left-wing political parties, human rights activists, politically active journalists, and outspoken clergy have been killed or abducted. Although the government has adopted numerous measures it claims will stop extrajudicial killings and bring perpetrators to justice, at this writing no member of the military has been convicted for involvement in any case that occurred since 2001.[39]

The violence against opponents of the regime is part of a larger human rights problem in the country, as noted in the following passage from the State Department's most recent country report on the Philippines:

Arbitrary, unlawful, and extrajudicial killings by elements of the security services and political killings, including killings of journalists, by a variety of actors continued to be a major problem. Despite intensified government efforts to investigate and prosecute these cases… concerns about impunity persisted. Members of the security services committed acts of physical and psychological abuse on suspects and detainees, and there were instances of torture. Arbitrary or warrantless arrests and detentions were common.[40]

Thailand

The Thai government has been wracked by instability in recent years, largely due to an ongoing conflict against Muslim insurgents in the southern part of the country. The International Crisis Group estimates that over 3,000 people have died in the fighting over the past four years, during which time the country has seen two prime ministers driven from office, one in a 2006 military coup and one in a political scandal. As this report went to press, yet another Thai prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, stepped down amidst massive protests and a ruling by Thailand's top court that banned him and his party from public office on charges of electoral fraud.[41]

The roots of the current military conflict in Thailand date back to the early 20th century, when Thailand (then known as Siam) annexed the independent sultanate of Patani and attempted to assimilate its population of primarily Malay Muslims into the Buddhist-dominated Thai polity. The ICG and a number of other outside observers have suggested that the best way to resolve the conflict would be to offer some form of autonomy to the southern provinces in conjunction with an end to martial law and negotiations with legitimate rebel forces (i.e., those with actual influence over the Muslim fighters in the area).

While the central government has been embroiled in a political conflict in the capital, the military has been given a relatively free hand to run operations in the south. According to some experts cited in a recent Council on Foreign Relations report, the military has employed "brutal counterinsurgency tactics" that have "worsened the situation."[42] The cycle of violence was initially sparked by the brutal tactics of the rebel groups, which targeted civilians--Muslim and Buddhist alike--resulting in the deaths of over 2,000 people between January 2004 and November 2007. According to Human Rights Watch, some rebel tactics are explicitly designed to "spread terror among the civilian population, most notably by beheading victims or setting their bodies on fire."[43]

From FY2002 through FY2009, Thailand has received over $83 million in security assistance from the United States, with the largest portion ($33 million) going for counter-drug programs. After a hiatus in FY2007, Foreign Military Financing and military training programs have resumed (see Table 13).

Table 13
Major U.S. Security Assistance Programs to Thailand
FY 2002 through FY 2009 (dollars in thousands)

Sources: U.S. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations, FY 2004 through FY 2009 editions; and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Collateral Damage: Human Rights and U.S. Military Aid After 9/11 (Washington, DC: Center for Public Integrity, 2007), http://projects.publicintegrity.org/militaryaid/.
^aFY 2008 figures are estimates.
^bFY 2009 figures are as proposed in the administration's budget.
^cThis figure is from "Coalition Support Funds Reimbursement Tracker as of January 12, 1007," a Defense Department document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as part of its Collateral Damage project. The document is available on the consortium's website at http://projects.publicintegrity.org/militaryaid/documents/CSF2.pdf.

The United States suspended military aid to Thailand during the period of military rule from September 2006 through December 2007, restoring it only after an elected government took power in January 2008. When Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat took office in late September this year--after his predecessor Samik Sundarajev was forced from office by a court ruling that he had violated conflict-of-interest rules by profiting from his long-running televised cooking show while simultaneously serving as prime minister--President Bush immediately expressed his support, saying that "the United States looks forward to working with the prime minister and his new government and to continuing strong ties with Thailand."[44] Presumably the successor government to Mr. Somchai's rule will enjoy similar support from Washington, at least initially.

The Bush administration's support for a series of Thai governments has been rooted in Bangkok's willingness to cooperate with Washington on a wide range of security matters. As cited in the FY2008 Congressional Presentation on Foreign Operations, "Thailand has played a leadership role by dispatching military units to Afghanistan and Iraq, sending military observers to Aceh to support the peace process there, and providing access to its military facilities for force projection, military exercises and regional humanitarian relief." Thailand also helped capture Riduan Ismahuddin, more popularly known as Hambali, who is believed to be one of the planners of the nightclub bombings that killed over 200 people in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002. Prangtip Daoreng of the International Consortium of Independent Journalists has documented the role of the CIA in the capture of Hambali, describing it as an example of "extraordinary rendition," i.e., "the transfer, outside of any legal process, of a terrorist to a foreign country for interrogation that human rights activists contend often includes torture."[45]

The State Department's most recent human rights report for Thailand states:

Security forces continued at times to use excessive force against criminal suspects and also committed or were connected to extrajudicial, arbitrary, and unlawful killings. There were reports that police tortured, beat, and otherwise abused detainees and prisoners, many of whom were held in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. The interim government maintained some limits on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly that were imposed following the coup. The longstanding practice of bringing defamation suits encouraged self censorship by the media and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Human rights workers, particularly those focusing on the violence in the south, reported harassment and intimidation.[46]