Angeles City at standstill as hordes of rallyists troop to Clark

ANGELES CITY — This entire city came to a standstill the other day as some 3,000 anti-Balikatan protesters from all over Luzon caused a massive traffic jam as they marched from San Fernando City to the former US military base at Clark Field.

The protesters, vowing to "hound and drive out US troops," stayed overnight in front of the main gate of the Clark special economic zone in Barangay Balibago before marching to the regional police headquarters at Camp Olivas in San Fernando.

While the Balance Piston joint military exercises here ended last Feb. 15, Rafael Mariano, chairman of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), said "sightings of US troops have been monitored in Porac, Pampanga and at Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija."

"Farmers in these areas have revealed that at least two American soldiers are engaged in regular military operations of the Armed Forces," he said.

Members of the Army’s 24th and 73rd Infantry Battalions were allegedly in the company of two US soldiers when they clashed with New People’s Army (NPA) rebels on the slopes of Mt. Pinatubo in Barangay Sapang Bato here last Saturday. The military denied this.

Mariano, however, said, "The entry and basing of three Black Hawks in southern Philippines indicate that the US is now preparing to launch a possible war of aggression against what US President George Bush has called the ‘axis of evil,’ referring to Iran, Iraq and the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of North Korea. We will again be used as a launching pad of such a war of aggression."

Traffic in all major thoroughfares here froze for hours Thursday as the rallyists marched toward Clark where they burned the American flag before trooping to Camp Olivas.

The rallyists symbolically declared Clark a "US-troop free zone," although some US military officials remain there to prepare for another military exercise dubbed "Balikatan 12-02" in April.