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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Filipino Genocide


In an article "We Charge Genocide: A Brief History of US in the Philippines" that appeared in the December 2005 issue of Political Affairs (an online magazine that bills itself, "Marxist Thought Online"), E. San Juan, Jr., director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center, Connecticut, argued that during the Philippine-American War (1899–1902) and pacification campaign (1902–1913), the operations launched by the U.S. against the Filipinos, an integral part of its pacification program, which claimed the lives of over a million Filipinos, constituted genocide.[71]

In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported: "The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog...."[72] U.S. Army Gen. Leonard Wood, who took part in the Moro Crater massacre in 1906, called for the extermination of all Filipino Muslims since, according to him, they were irretrievably fanatical.[73]

Gore Vidal, in an exchange of letters in the New York Review of Books about the Philippines campaign says, discussing General J. Franklin Bell's own reporting that American troops were responsible for 600,000 dead men, women, and children on the island of Luzonalone, "If this is not a policy of genocide (no dumb letters on the dictionary meaning of the word), it will do until the real thing comes along."[74]

Total Filipino casualties was and is still a highly-debated and politicized number. A discussion and analysis of this is contained in John M. Gates, "War-Related Deaths in the Philippines", Pacific Historical Review.[75] It is estimated that some 34,000 Filipino soldiers lost their lives and as many as 200,000 civilians may have died directly or indirectly as a result of the war, most due to a major choleraepidemic that broke out near its end.[76] Another estimate, in the Encarta Encyclopedia, is that between 200,000 and 600,000 Filipinos died during the war with fewer than 5,000 American deaths. More deaths occurred during the pacification program (1902–1913) following the declaration of victory in the war.[77] One estimate of total Filipino deaths is as high as 1.4 million.[71]


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Philippines


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