The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) denounces the United States government’s decision to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine. This latest move by the Biden administration further stokes the flames of war by provoking Russian counterattacks, consistent with its strategy to prolong the conflict in Ukraine and relentlessly exhaust Russia’s military capability.

The use of cluster bombs is prohibited under the 2008 Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions signed by more than 120 states. Cluster bombs often disperse submunitions that fail to explode on impact and can leave a field of landmines that pose grave risk to civilian life. By supplying prohibited weapons of mass destruction to Ukraine, the US directly contravenes international humanitarian law and rules of war.

With this latest supply of cluster bombs to Ukraine, US imperialism once again exposes itself as the number one war criminal in the world. As the top manufacturer of weapons globally, it feeds on wars to amass great profits, deliberately inciting conflict to market its inventory of deadly war materiel as it pursues its imperialist agenda.

These US-instigated wars of aggression extend beyond the conflict in Ukraine. Notably, the US has supplied advanced military technology and support to the fascist Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) which is being used in US-supported bloody counterrevolutionary campaigns against the Filipino people. For instance, the AFP has launched multiple aerial bombing operations in Butuan, Bukidnon, and Rizal this year using mostly US-supplied bombs, rockets, and FA-50 fighter jets. Between May 2017 to April 2022, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Information Bureau documented at least 108 cases of aerial bombings across the country.

Most recently, the US launched 20 rockets on Philippine soil in the province of Nueva Ecija under the so-called PH-US Army Artillery Rocket System Subject Matter Expert Exchange (SMEE) using High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). Ukraine is using this same US-made and supplied weaponry system against Russian forces.

The NDFP condemns the US government’s savage thirst for wars meant to encircle other imperialist powers that threaten its place in the world and to arrest the US strategic decline. The NDFP joins all democratic forces in denouncing US war instigations and in calling for an end to the US-NATO war in Ukraine.