FEATURE

MENDIOLA MASSACRE

Attack on rally
echo of Marcos |

By GARY SHAUL

Looking up Manila’s Mendiola Street
from Malacanang Palace toward the
Mendiola Bridge, I had no idea what
awaited me. I knew farmers were march-
ing there to demand land reform from the
Aquino government. I had joined their
rally in the square at the post office a
couple of hours earlier, but parted ways
along the route.

I later tried to make my way to Men-
diola Bridge, but soldiers were blocking
the road, so I got off at the Palace.

In the distance, I could see four or five
firetrucks and crowds of soldiers. Sev-
eral troopers stood guard at the Palace
Gate.

Walking down the street,
camera in hand, | saw two

Acting like a tourist, I innocently in-
quired about visiting hours, and was in-
formed that I was too late. It was already
4:30 p.m. ‘‘What’s happening up the
street?”’ I asked the guard.

““The KMU (or May First Movement,
a militant trade union centre) is holding a

rally,”’ he replied.
**Are they the good guys or the bad
guys?”’.

‘“*The bad guys,” he said with a smile.
(In fact the march was organized by the
KMP peasants organization with KMU
support.)

Walking down the street, camera in
hand, I saw two large trucks, loaded to
the brim with battle-ready riot police. I
motioned, as if asking permission to take
a photo, and one of them quickly dis-
couraged me.

Laughing Soldiers

Military men, most armed with auto--
matic rifles, were coming and going as I
walked toward the bridge. A group of six

plainclothes men with rifles in hand pas-
sed me going the other way. They were
laughing and seemed in a good mood. In
the rear line of battle-dressed marines,
assembled four-deep, there was a re-
laxed atmosphere. Some of them were
even laughing. Fifty feet up, the scene
was repeated: At a small store, marines
were smoking cigarettes and drinking
Coke.

At the foot of Mendiola Bridge, a line
of riot police, armed with helmets, clubs,
shields and pistols hidden under shirts,
stood in formation. They looked neither
happy nor friendly. The street was lit-
tered with dozens of sandals and a pile of
placards. A couple of hundred people
lingered around on the corners. Tension
hung in the air as the sun began setting.

I asked the man on my right what was
happening. He said that he didn’t know.
The man on my left told me that there
was a dead body under the pile of plac-.
ards. My stomach dropped.

The riot police began banging their
shields with sticks the size of baseball
bats in an attempt to disperse the linger-
ing people. A small group of them
charged the crowd, which quickly dis-
persed. Suddenly I became very ner-
vous. What was I doing standing among
all these soldiers? What had happened
here? What would happen next?

A few minutes after the riot police had
returned to their fold, I decided to ven-
ture out from their ranks towards a group
of journalists standing on one corner. I
walked through the final line of Cap-
coms, knowing that I would not be al-
lowed to return; not knowing exactly
what peril I would be facing.

I approached a TV crew from NBC
Hong Kong, and asked the cameraman
what was going on. ‘‘There was some
shooting when the demonstrators
reached Mendiola,”’ he said.

I asked if many people were hurt.
‘*There’s brain matter all over the road,”’
he coolly replied.

I looked around. Not two feet from me

~ was a pool of blood. In fact, there was

ene

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 11, 1987

blood and human tissue all around me. I
felt nauseous.

“The rally was fired on’ after the
demonstrators tried to push their way
through the riot police. Some rocks and
pillboxes were supposedly thrown,” he
replied.

‘‘Who did the shooting,’’ I asked.

‘‘Well, they’re the only ones with the
guns,”’ he said looking toward Mendiola.
“‘The peasants had nowhere to run be-
cause of the size of the crowd, so they
laid down on the street. When they were
finally able to get out of there, eight bo-
dies were left on the road. Most of them
were shot in the head.”

I started to walk away, fear and anger
beginning to overpower my desire to
play journalist. As I crossed the street,
the soldiers started banging their

shields again. The streets were littered
with thousands of pieces of literature. I
moved more quickly.

Suddenly, everyone began running.
Panic overtook me. I ran too. I didn’t
look back.

I almost slipped into an open sewer as I
ducked into a little alleyway already
crammed with people. For a brief mo-
ment I wondered whether I would be
trapped.

But before I knew it, the tension sub-
sided and people started moving back,
not only to the main street, but even back
toward the bridge. Hundreds of people
stood waiting for something that never
came. In the darkness, traffic_resumed.

Only the littered pamphlets and the
fading bloodstains remained, mute tes-
timony to the brutality and violence that
left 20 dead and 85 wounded. __

After more than a month in the Philip-
pines, five years of working in CAMDI,
and many more years of anti-dictatorship
consciousness instilled by my family and
the Toronto Jewish community, fascism
had finally assumed a three-dimensional
character. :

I felt as though I had witnessed a ghost
of the Marcos-dictatorship which we had
opposed so vehemently. Was this really
January, 1987? How could this massacre
happen on Cory’s doorstep of hope?
Who was really to blame?

Ceasefire: Another Victim

While the casualties lay in hospitals
around Manila, dead and alive, there was
yet another victim. That night, the gov-
ernment and NDF peace panels an-
nounced that the ceasefire talks were
postponed due to security considera-
tions. (They never resumed).

I could not help thinking that the Men-

Trade Union supporters at rally.

diola massacre was a premeditated trap,
laid to sever the already fractured rela-
tions between the Aquino government, -
and the cause-oriented mass organiza-
tions and the underground National
Democratic Front. This trap was intend-
ed to further destabilize the Aquino gov-
ernment in the few remaining days be- —
fore the Constitutional plebiscite. |

It was only the extreme right wing of —
Philippine society: the fascist elements in
the military, the Marcos loyalists, and —
Enrile’s followers; and the Reagan
administration, who stood to gain from
this moderate-left schism.

The Marcos’ own KBL (New Society
Movement) party even had the nerve to
establish a trust fund for the victims at
Mendiola after blaming the communists —
for the violence and the Aquino govern-
ment for its inability to unite the military
while the U.S. government expressed its
‘‘condolences’’. |

| felt as though I had

witnessed a ghostofthe —
Marcos-dictatorship |
which we had opposed so ©
vehemently. Was this |
really January, 1987?

In the final analysis, the Mendiola
massacre was horrifying proof that 20
years of Marcos’ repressive structures:
could not be dismantled quickly, or ea
sily. The Aquino government must re
double its efforts to not only weed out thé
bad elements in the military, but to re
orient its thinking so that workers an@
peasants are not inherently seen as the
‘‘bad guys’’. It is the Philippine, not for~
eign interests, which must be served ;
the military. E |

What I saw at Mendiola was no ghost
come back to haunt, but a cancer, cre
ated and funded by the United States:
that never died in the first place.

——

{
a

ai

Gary Shaul, amember of the Committee 10 _
Advance the Movement for. Democracy |
Independence (CAMDI), was in the Philip-
pines from Dec. 23 to Jan. 29. It was his firs!
visit to the country. He was able to see places
in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, meeting
people from all walks of life and from eve
political persuasion. ‘