Nations label their domestic opponents as terrorists

[Bishop Eliezer] Pascua, general secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, gave nine lectures on a tour from California to Nevada to Chicago [in early summer 2008]. He spoke not just to re-trace the details of several of what he counts as nearly 900 illegal executions since President Gloria Arroyo took office in 2001, but to prick American consciences.

“Continuing to support Bush’s ‘global war on terror,’ President Arroyo has ratcheted up her government’s pressure on the Philippine left, reviving memories of the Marcos dictatorship and its dirty war against the opposition,” wrote author Luis Francia in December. “Manila knows that as long as it supports the Bush Administration, thereby obtaining economic and military assistance from the United States, it can get away with murder—literally. … For Arroyo and [her political party], internationalizing long-running domestic insurgencies and recasting them as terrorist threats to an ill-defined world order has meant tapping into U.S. aid once again.” <...>

There have been repeated warnings that other nations label their domestic opponents as terrorists in order to internationalize internal disputes and gain support from the United States, much as governments used to paint their critics as communists to gain U.S. aid.

The remainder of the story:

Somber message in Sparks
The Philippines’ president called her opposition ‘terrorists,’ so the United States joined her war
by Carol Cizauskas
Reno News & Review
17 July 2008

The author is my sister.