On this day in 1899, the US started what became known as the “first Vietnam” when it began colonizing the Philippines. During the “Philippine-American War”, up to 1.4 million Filipinos were massacred. 🧵
30,000 brave Filipino guerillas organized by the revolutionary society called the Katipunan had only just gotten rid of Spanish colonizers in 1896, after 300 years of colonial rule.
The US meanwhile had also been busy fighting the Spanish, not for freedom, but to take over Spanish colonies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
Instead of surrendering to the Filipinos, Spain agreed to sell its colony to the US for $20 million under an agreement called the Treaty of Paris. But the US government failed to secure the backing of Congress for the Treaty and so declared war on the Philippines on February 4.
With Congress’ backing for the Treaty looking unlikely, the US government declared war on the Philippines on the false pretext that Filipinos had fired shots at US troops who were now occupying Manila.
US troops piled up the thousands of Filipino bodies lining the streets and made fortifications of them. Meanwhile, the Katipunan who had until now been busy fighting the Spanish switched focus to their new enemy, the US.
As the revolutionaries launched a heroic campaign of mobile guerilla warfare with the support of the Filipino masses, the US deployed 70,000 troops with instructions to use “overwhelming force”.
They slaughtered entire villages, tortured civilians and built concentration camps where thousands perished from hunger, disease and violence.
By December, Congress approved the Treaty, but the war wouldn’t end until 1902 with the US claiming “victory”. The end of the war began 44-years of US colonization of the Philippines and despite the latter securing independence in 1946, today it remains a semi-colony.
All post-independence Filipino governments have submitted to US-dominated international finance institutions whose prescriptions have plunged millions of Filipinos into extreme poverty.
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