explained their dilema multinationals start turning away from Marcos.
'The incumbent president is favoured to win, it says, that victory, with SOUT economy, could exacerbate against multinationals Most OUSCEVCIS auce cause worst-case outcome would be a rigged Marcos victory. This could drive workers students to violent protest, paralysing business.
But a rgged Marcos victory is exactly what the US was aiming for when it pushed the dictator into holding the snap elections leaked senate intelligence released on 3 November, three days before the poll was announced, says: 'Marcos remains the one man that has the power to ensure a democratic transition to a SUCCESSOr covenment the strongest base for non-communist future the continued widespread devotion in the Philippines to democratic norms and processes?
The operative point is not the commitment 9. Marcos, , who has been faithful guarantor of intersts for 20 years. His byword fraudulent corrupt He has presided over six electoral exercises since being installed in 1965. In 1969 he was re-elected for a second remin. won a referendum to ratify his introduction of martial law under which 100,000 of his opponents have been jailed 65,000 killed. In 1978 he won a victory in national assembly elections against the immensely popular Benigno Aquino. The scale of his victory was so im1981 plebiscite gave him the power to abolish the naAS THE 7 February elections in the Philippines approach, a mood resembling panic is gripping US ruling circles. Business Week, the US financial journal, in an article entitled The tional assembly, invalidate any laws it might pass, oF make his own laws. In June 1981 he was elected for a further six vears. no doub for his services On 21 August 1983 he had Aquino killed and six months later won his most recent and bloodiest VICI the national assembly elections 1984. His henchmen killed 109 people on election day. alone.
The problem facing US capital that Marcos' cullull policies created explosive social discontent, while disposes of an apparatus terror, corruption and •and neer his personal control, which likely to blow apart if he dies (he is very ill) or is replaced. There is a move to build up bourgeois opcandidate Cor. azon Aquino, but if she Rally measures which favour the poor attack Marcos' will probably be a coup.
Indeed, Marcos has reserved the power to cancel the election if he might Hose Aquino herself has indulgpopular rhetoric which is up business following, but has carefully refrained any enor commens Marcos opened the Philooines to Us inves ment. As a result it is in catastrophic decline. Last year, and the year before, investment actually shrank by five per cent.
Foreign debt is now $26 billion. Average income is $600 - 15 per cent less than it was four years ago. The minimum wage is just $2 a day.
THE U.S. CORPORATE STAKE IN THE PHILIPPINES Philippine subsidiaries in 1984 Citibank Bank of America Caltex Petroleum Chase Manhattan Chemical Bank Del Monte Texas Instruments Colgate-Palmolive Procter & Gamble Castle & Cooke Advanced Micro Devices Union Carbide National Semiconductor Goodyear Tire & Rubber* Fairchild Semiconductor *31° owned by Philippine National OIl Co DATA: BUSINESS DAY tionary opposition to Marcos and to US capital is now a very serious threat. Marcos himself, not prone exaggerate Strength, says the his New People's Army (NPA) control 5000 villages. They claim twice that figure.
The strike level in 1985 was 30 per cent higher thar 0 Miles 200 CHINA Assets Revenues Millions of dollars $1,595 $226 • Clark Air Force US Naval Base at subic bay KALIMANTAN in 1984, which itself was a record year.
The National Democratic Front, which like the NPA is promoted by the ormer Maoist Philippine Communist Party, is calling an with very wide support.
Perhaps the trankest comment on the election Filipino pachin TAIWAI Uganda's new rulers backed by rival imperialist interests strongest in the north.
Moi and attended by a large number of signed.
Guerillas from the National Resistance Army (NRA), headed by former defence minister Yoweri Museveni, have taken control of the capital, Kampala, and deposed the military council, led by General Tito Okello. But many Ugandans fear this is just another chapter in a 20-year history of violence between warring factions in Uganda's ruling military caste, Okello, who took power from Milton Obote last July, is said to have fled to Jinja, Uganda's second city, with somewhere between 3000 and 4000 troops. The military council, which he heads, is a loose coalition of forces, most regionally or tribally based, and whose most powerful component is his own Ugandan National Liberation Army (UNLA). It is Both it and the NRA, whose main base is in the south west, fought to overthrow Obote. But the NRA was kept out of Okello's government and went on fighting. On 17 December after negotiations headed by Kenyan president Arap American 'observers', a peace agreement was Other resistance forces such as the Uganda National Liberation Front (Anti-Dictatorship) say that the agreement merely divided the country into fiefs under military warlords. The civilian population has been the victim of widespread atrocities, looting, rape and general harassment by troops from rival factions.
Both sides lauched mass recruitmen campaigns and began touring the world in search of imperialist backing. NRA leader Museveni appears to have won the British company Lonrho and, his opponents say, has been visiting Europe's capitals in Lonrho's executive jet..