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Thursday, May 13, 2004
GMA seeks review of safety of Pinoys in Iraq
MANILA -- President Arroyo Wednesday ordered the Philippine Iraq Team to re-assess the safety of Filipinos staying in American camps in Iraq and to consider transferring them to safer areas if needed.
Arroyo issued the directive following the death of four Filipino civilian contractors who were killed in a mortar attack on a US air base in Camp Anaconda in Balad, Iraq.
The attack happened Tuesday at Camp Anaconda, a military base near the town of Balad, in the so-called Sunni triangle of anti-coalition resistance north of Baghdad, Arroyo said.
"I condole with the families affected by this tragedy," she said.
The deaths follow the killing last month of a Filipino truck driver in an ambush by insurgents on the main road linking Baghdad with Kuwait.
An estimated 3,000 Filipino civilians are working in Iraq, including some 1,300 inside Camp Anaconda employed by Dubai-based contractor Prime Projects International.
A small contingent of 43 Filipino soldiers and eight policemen is based with a multinational force at the town of Hilla in central Iraq.
Arroyo said the government would "make a clear-cut assessment of the safety" of Filipino civilians employed in US military installations in Iraq.
"If they cannot be adequately secured, they must be transferred or evacuated to safer areas," the president said.
"We cannot allow Filipino lives to be placed at wanton risk in a situation where unpredictable attacks are rife."
"Our OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) there have been registered and their safety ensured by newly-built, protective underground bunkers. It was a stroke of bad luck that they were exposed and unprotected at the time of the attack," she said.
Philippine charge d'affaires to Iraq Ricardo Endaya was on his way to Camp Anaconda, some 120 kilometers north of Baghdad, to check on the other Filipinos.
A special government envoy to the Middle East, former armed forces chief Roy Cimatu, was to also prepare a "threat analysis" and was expected to fly to Iraq from Saudi Arabia, the foreign office said.
"Whether this incident will cause a review (in our contingency plans), we don't know yet," Foreign Undersecretary Jose Brillantes said.
"Cimatu would be there to complete as soon as possible the threat analysis," he added.
Arroyo said a government team had visited Camp Anaconda three times before the attack and found that Filipinos there were housed in "newly built, protective underground bunkers."
But at the time of the attack, the Filipinos were "exposed and unprotected," Arroyo said.
After the Filipino driver was killed last month, Arroyo banned local employment agencies from sending Filipino nationals to work in Iraq until further notice.
Arroyo is a staunch ally of the United States and was among the first world leaders to back the Iraqi occupation and ouster of Saddam Hussein.
She had ignored calls from the political opposition to pull out the Filipino contingent in Iraq, but said civilians must be accorded "best protection" by their employers.
Last month, 50 Filipino civilians quit their jobs in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul after complaining of threats to their safety in the war-ravaged country.
The Filipinos were working mostly as kitchen hands and cooks in the camps, where they complained of long working hours and no days off. JMR/AFP
(May 13, 2004 issue)
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