US military base in Darwin
As Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono arrives in Australia for talks with Prime Minister Julia Gillard, there is speculation that the increased US presence in Australia’s north, announced during President Barack Obama’s visit in November, may be another item up for discussion during the two-day leaders’ meeting. For some the decision to allow 2500 US Marines at Robertson Barracks in Darwin on permanent rotation presents risks for Australia and brings back memories of the US military presence in the Philippines, writes Melodee Deng.
Chilling.
This is the word Jane Corpuz-Brock used when she described what it was like to live in the Philippines with its US military presence.
It has been more than 15 years since Jane left the Philippines and came to Australia. She is now working with several Filipino-based community groups and women’s rights organisations but when she started to talk about the old days, her voice trembled with indignation.
“The US practically made the whole country its US base. As a result, we experienced corruption of our political institutions, routine assassinations, dictatorships, prostitution and the trade in women and children’s bodies, and had to migrate to survive.”
The US Army claimed its control over the Philippines in 1899, one year after signing the Treaty of Paris with Spain. Two years later, it built the Naval Reservation in Subic Bay, Olongapo. After that, American troops kept pouring into Subic until Japan snatched it away during World War II.
But the Americans came back. There’s a saying that anyone who has been to Subic Bay will know why the US did not want to lose it again. A deep water harbour with naturally shielded anchorage and critical strategic location. So they signed the Military Bases Agreement with the Philippines in 1947, granting themselves a 99-year lease in Subic Bay and the administrative power over the town of Olongapo.
America said it was there to protect democracy.
Whether or not it did so is debatable but it certainly helped boost the local “entertainment business”. With more than 2000 registered Rest & Recuperation centres and roughly 55,000 prostitutes, the industry became the pillar of the local economy.
In 1991, the Filipino government refused to prolong the agreement but it took a volcanic eruption to finally force the US Army to say goodbye in 1992.
When the American GIs left, they did not take with them the 50,000 Amerasian children they fathered. Most of these children never knew who their fathers were; they never had the chance to meet their fathers and never saw a dime in child support.
When the troops left, they left behind a legacy of massive toxic chemicals. Land was polluted with lead, mercury and other heavy metals, and people were dying of cancers.
When the Americans left, they also forgot to return the 250,000 hectares of land leased to them rent-free for 99 years. Indigenous people want to reclaim their ancestors’ domain and farmers need the land to make a living but the US has never released any report on this and the local government has been ignoring these requests.
“This is not the kind of arrangement we want with the US in Darwin,” said Jane, choking with obvious anger. “Will the US be any different in Australia than it was in the Philippines? Hardly. And that makes me fearful.”
Some argue that the increased US presence is a counterweight to the growing Chinese economic and military power, and that US allies across Asia have been asking for help in case of potential threats in the disputed South China Sea.
“That has to be a nonsense,” said Stuart Rees, director of the Sydney Peace Foundation. He mocked the idea of making China “the bogey person” in foreign policy.
“We have to realise that most of our security has nothing to do with warships and tanks and defense budgets,” he said.
Indeed, the challenges facing Darwin have nothing to do with other countries.
The Northern Territory has the highest crime rate in Australia, even after a huge decrease in 2009-10. A large percentage of these crimes are drug or alcohol related. There has also been a spike in sexually transmitted diseases in recent years, as well as a disturbing increase in the number of homeless people and the alarming school retention rate for Indigenous children.
The north does need help but flooding Darwin with American marines will not help solve these problems. They pay taxes to the US government and probably will not spend money supporting NT public services. Based on past record, their money is more likely to go to other kinds of “services”, the kind that will make the NT’s existing problems even worse.
But at least in Australia, if US soldiers breach the law, our government will do something about it, right?
In March WA Greens Senator Scott Ludlum asked Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr about the legal status of American forces in Darwin and who the prosecuting authority would be in case of illegal behavior.
“I asked about the agreement between the US and Australia because treaties and agreements come under the foreign affairs portfolio, and it is conceivable that the status of forces agreement signed between the US and Australia would need updating because this is the first time troops will have been stationed here since the Second World War. It is an agreement that was signed in 1963. The new arrangement with the US government has been described by the defence minister as: … the single biggest change or advancement of alliance relationships since the joint facilities regime was established back in the 1980s.
“Under this agreement, if US personnel commit an offence under Australian law while in the course of their duties it is entirely ambiguous whether Australian law will apply.”
Senator Carr replied that to focus on such possibility was “very narrow” and he would look into it. What a nice way of saying “I don’t have a clue”.
So why are we shipping in problems we have no solutions to?
“I am an Australian citizen now, and I am a part of this country,” said Jane. “And I would say, ban the US base here. It should be taken out.”
