Duterte wants US Special Forces out of Mindanao

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said the United States Special Forces based in Mindanao should leave.

“Kaya iyong mga Special Forces, they have to go. They have to go.  In Mindanao, maraming mga puti roon, they have to go. I-review ko iyang foreign policy. Hindi ko lang masalita noon out of respect or I do not want a rift with America. But they have to go,” Duterte said in a speech delivered before his new appointees at the Heroes Hall in Malacañang.

Duterte said this after showing photos of the atrocities committed by American troops against the Muslims during the Bud Dajo massacre in 1906.

“Mas lalong iinit. Makakita ng Amerikano 'yan, patayin talaga iyan. Kukunan ng ransom iyan, patayin. Even if you're a black or a white American, basta Amerikano ka,” Duterte said referring to Abu Sayyaf.

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella in a statement said that Duterte’s recent pronouncement on the presence of US troops was a step in pursuing an independent foreign policy.

“The statement reflects PRRD's new direction towards coursing an independent foreign policy; he has made reference to the unrecognized, unrepented and un-atoned for massacre at Bud Dajo in Sulu by the Americans, hence our continued connection with West is the real reason for the ‘Islamic’ threat in Mindanao,” he said in a statement.

Abella said Duterte wanted the United States to correct the injustices they committed against the Filipinos, especially against the Muslims in Mindanao.

“The American silence on the matter lacks congruence with its ‘moral’ position, in the light of actions taken in the past by the Germans who confessed and made atonement for the Holocaust, and Japan which made reparations for the atrocities it perpetrated among the peoples they conquered," Abella said.

"Mr. Duterte is on morally firm ground by breaking up walls that cover dark corners in US-RP relations,” he added.  — RSJ/NB, GMA News