War on America – seen from the Indian Ocean

In my last column, I began a review on the book War on America – Seen from the Indian Ocean. It was given to me by the author himself, founding president of Seychelles James R. Mancham, whom I personally met in Seoul recently during an International and Interreligious Federation for World Peace (IIFWP) conference. What he says in his book can give us an additional perspective to view the US war against terrorism and the controversial presence of American troops in Mindanao.

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Two stories. Sir James Mancham tells two stories in his book, one is about his personal disillusionment with American foreign policy and the other is how that foreign policy affected his country. A third factor, the question of America’s capability to lead the world in the campaign against terrorism after September 11, is implicit in both stories. It is this third factor that is my concern as a Filipino journalist reading into Mancham’s story. While I would go along with President Arroyo’s decision to allow the Balikatan Exercises 2002 in Basilan in solidarity with the American war against terrorism, we need not go through it blindly. Indeed, the more information we have to guide us in our decision, the better we will be able to cope. Whatever we do we must do so with open eyes and there is no better source of information than those who have gone through a similar experience. It will be up to us, not up to the Americans how we handle their presence as visiting troops whether it is to instruct or to help our soldiers fight the Abu Sayyaf. I review this book with an important caveat: since it is a review of the book , it was my only source. There may be information I do not possess that could change my opinion altogether but I do not have these now.

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A personal disillusionment. Mr. Mancham tells the story of how as a young lawyer he helped the Americans establish a tracking station in his country round about the 60s. He moved on to become a politician flourishing on a platform of pro-Americanism and reaching the peak of his career when he became President of Seychelles. He was later deposed by his arch rival, the anti-American communist, Mr. France A. Rene while on a visit to London. He blames Americans for not informing him fully on the tracking station which he helped build in record time. He may have been materially and politically rewarded but it was poisoned fruit. The full implications of Seychelles tracking station became known to him only much later, through CBS’s "60 minutes" . "The mission of the Seychelles station was to operate and maintain a remote tracking station to launch critical first acquisition and on orbit command and control of more than 90 satellites supporting the war-fighting nations of all unified and specified commands. The station also provides direct support to the space shuttle and to NASA, NATO and allied nations satellites. It operates a defence satellite communications system terminal and performs total small base support. The station, located five miles south of Victoria,has been part of the US airforce tracking network since 1963. Indi as the station is often called handled more than 10,000 operation-supports each year. ‘ He had realized too late thata he had put his country in peril.

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From idyll to a military target. With the tracking station, Seychelles changed from an island paradise to a military target. In geopolitical terms, it became ‘strategic territory’. It also polarized the country between pro Americans and anti Americans and has remained this way since, with the latter receiving support from America’s enemies. This meant that divided Seychellois lost control to determine the fate of their country. "Looking back over the years I must in all sincerity, admit that the decision of the United States to establish a presence in our islands marked the beginning of the end of the period known as "La Belle epoque’ — that wonderdul innocent era of sweet and peaceful life which had earned the Seychelles the reputationof being ‘The Last Lost Paradise" and the Seychellois, the reputation of being among the friendliest people in the world."

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Mancham also realized too late that had a war broken out between the United States and the Soviet Union as it very nearly did in the 60s, his country would have been a sitting duck not unlike the twin towers of the World Trade Center with the trackingstation protruding from a mountaintop as the obvious target. Mahe could have gone up in flames with deaths and injuries to innocent islanders.. But if that was the price to pay to modernize their country they were willing to pay that price. Mancham and his fellow Seychellois soon realized even that would not be achieved as the importance of Seychelles diminished.. Mancham eventually returned home after many years of exile. Other US facilities were built in nearby islands, the biggest of which was in Diego Garcia. Adding insult to injury, America pulled out its embassy in Seychelles due to ‘budgetary’constraint. When he asked an American diplomat when it would reopen he was told "when you find oil’. Meanwhile the biggest embassy in Seychelles now is the Chinee Embassy (built not rented like the US then ). "We are not fairweather friends", assured the Chinese to Mancham.

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True friends. Mancham is a politician writing a book, not an author writing on politics, so it is not surprising that he should rush to publish this work after September 11 to make his point. He uses other sources, all friends of the US, even Americans themselves, to demonstrate that he means well in giving this advice now. America may be a friend but it needs advice. It is from this approach that the Philippines can find a rich trove of lessons to keep in mind as Balikatan 2002 unravels.One source he uses is Henry Kissinger ‘s Does America need a Foreign Policy — Towards a Diplomacy for the 21st Century (Simon & Schuster, Copyright 2001. "Whilst traditional patterns are in transition and the very basis of experience and knowledge is being revolutionised, America’s ultimate challenge is to transform its power into moral consensus, promoting its values not by imposition but by their willing acceptance in a world that, for all its seeming resistance, desperately needs enlightened leadership.

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So is America capable of that enlightened leadership? On this question Mancham turns to British political commentator and former Times Editor William Rees-Mogg who said "The West needs to make a new political approach. Inevitably oil has distorted the relationship between Islam and the West. Most significant Islamic countries of the Middle East are not those which have most oil but thoe which have the most developed socieites, particularly the larger countries. Perhaps most important are the three large Arab countries of Egypt, Syria and Iraq and three adjoining non-Arab countries of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. The present relationships between the West and these countries differ widely, ranging through good relations with Turkey and Egypt, manageable relations with Pakistan and Syria, to the damaged relations with Iraq. When bin Laden is gone, Islam will remain a problem and an opportunity for the world. A new friendship should be sought with the large Islamic powers. Globalism without Islam will make no sense." That is the challenge for America as it sallies forth to punish bin Laden.

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Saudi Arabia as spiritual fountainhead of Islam. Rees Mogg may be right about bigger, more developed Arab countries, but Saudi Arabia remains a spiritual and economic fountainhead as far as Muslims are concerned. Recently it has made a proposal for Arab recognition of the state of Israel in exchange of for its return to the 1967 boundaries. This has been welcomed by Sharon. At first blush the Americans seemed like going it alone with President Bush and his trenchant statements as he traipses around the world seeking partners for its coalition against terrorism. That has now changed. There are no apologies for President Bush’s reference to "axis of evil" countries but America will not be isolated by this stand alone statements. There are now consultations with the EU after the Europeans made it clear that if they need to depart from Bush’s black and white rhetoric in finding a solution to the Palestinian problem, they will. And that is where we are now.

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The quality of a nation. America’s friends want to remind her that the greatest danger to her world leadership is hubris and the sole superpower label might be going to its head. Mancham writes that one might suggest a rereading of the American realist Hans Morgenthau on the inevitable limits to any nation’s power, or George Kennan, when he argues that the permanent influence of a nation comes from its quality, its ability to compel the respect and confidence of a world which despite all its material difficulties is still more ready to recognize and respect spiritual distinction than material opulence. That rule is true of smaller nations like the Philippines as well, although weak and without military might can summon the respect of countries by the way her leaders behave themselves and underpin their statements and alliances with principles. Certainly one principle that can help is that we consider the sensitivities and concerns of our close neighbors in the region.

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The role of IIFWP. We come now to the IIFWP conference itself which has served as a forum for some of America’s disenchanted allies like former President Mancham. The main speaker, former Indonesian President Wahid exhorted Muslims in the audience to seek reforms not only in the West but in the Islamic world as well. He chided Muslims who still hang on to the archaic inerpretation of the Koran that changing religion is an apostasy. This too must change. All the other heads of state and government I interviewed were one in the opinion that poverty is at the root of terrorism and unless more innovative ways are found to seek a massive transfer of wealth, trouble is inevitable. I asked Mancham whether these conferences were useful given that some of the more controversial teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon whose followers are sometimes referred to derisively as ‘moonies’ tend to detract from his more substantial and sound teachings.. This is most unfair and those who have been to the conferences find them not only useful but ground-breaking especially in the light of September 11. The IIFWP conferences were pioneers in interreligious dialogues and were way ahead of similar efforts being done today. Here is a marketplace of ideas which you are free to accept or reject and exchange with other participants and all this at the expense of Rev. Moon and his organizations. Insofar as Mancham and a dozen other world leaders are concerned whether past or present, there is unanimity that it is not superior arms or military expertise that will win the war. A peaceful world will come about when nations are at peace and nations are at peace when their families are at peace.

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Change in the world will begin with change in the family. It has to do, of all things, with mundane considerations that used to be brushed aside as too unimportant for international political conferences. That is, until the IIFWP conferences began. The visionary Korean has decided to spend his own money where his mouth is and has called on all men, followers and leaders alike to begin an era of change, moral change and he fervently believes it will have to begin in the family. That was the most important message Mancham got from the Seoul conference and other IIFWP conferences before that and the message that he will carry as he roams the world – the family must be the center of reform. Interestingly, that will also be the message of Pope John Paul II when he comes to Manila.

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Mancham on IIFWP conferences. In the democratic world, governments are supposed to be merely an external manifestation of the will of the people. That is why it has become important for the civil society to espouse a new set of values based on interreligious harmony, true justice, human rights and the full recognition of fundamental freedom as the pillars on which true society should be built in this country. It is against this background that one should recognize the value of the efforts deployed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon since he founded the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace and the Summit Council for World Peace in 1981. Over the last twenty years, these organizations have been active assembling heads of states, former heads of states, prime ministers, former prime ministers, religious leaders, academics, and media people – all with a view to promote a culture of peace in an otherwise sadly divided world: A peaceful nation is needed before there can be world peace. The pre-condition for peace in a nation is peace in the family. Power, wealth, and knowledge which worldly people have ordinarily desired, cannot be the necessary condition for peace and happiness. True happiness is not proportional to how much property one owns and is not depended on the external degree of comfort. Genuine peace and infinite happiness can only be gained when we serve others with true love and when that love is returned. This is the core of the message which the most Rev. Sun Myung Moon has consistently propounded over the last twenty years all over the world in gatherings and assemblies sponsored by the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace.

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