[Reuters]

Published date: 28th Oct 1987

28 October 1987

Reuters News

English

(c) 1987 Reuters Limited

MANILA, Oct 28, Reuter – Gunmen shot dead three Americans, including two airmen, and a Filipino near an U.S. air base on Wednesday and authorities immediately urged tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen and dependents in the Philippines to stay indoors.

The four were killed hours after the U.S. moved to settle a diplomatic row by withdrawing a military attache.

They were the first apparently politically-motivated killings of American servicemen in the Philippines in recent years.

An American pilot was wounded In another attack, police said.

The four were killed within the space of an hour while travelling separately near Clark Air Base 80 km (50miles) north of Manila, base spokesman Major Thomas Boyd said.

The base television station beamed half-hourly warnings to residents on the 140,000-acre (56,650-hectare) complex not to go outside unless it was absolutely essential.

Servicemen were urged to use main roads where police patrolling had been stepped up.

A Clark spokeswoman said personnel at other U.S. bases had been warned against travelling. She said two or three servicemen had been killed in isolated incidents of crime in recent years “but not anything of this nature.”

Boyd said the four were shot in residential areas three km (two miles) from the base. A police spokesman at Angeles City said the attackers were riding in two groups in a passenger van and a motorcycle and sidecar. He said police had seized the abandoned van.

“As far as I know this is the first time something like this has happened,” Boyd said.

He said the dead included a retired U.S. serviceman and a Filipino bystander who went to his aid.

He said investigators were probing all angles, including the possibility that the gunmen were communist guerrillas.

Four Philippine policemen and soldiers have been shot dead in separate attacks by suspected communist assassins over the past 24 hours in Manila.

The U.S. embassy said it was official policy not to divulge the names of dead servicemen unless permission was obtained from next of kin.

The murders coincided with a plunge in relations between Manila and Washington sparked by charges that Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Raphael, an assistant army attache at the U.S. embassy, had meddled in an August 28 coup attempt by rebel Philippine troops.

Two senators from Aquino’s ruling coalition demanded an Inquiry into alleged U.S. involvement in the coup attempt, saying Raphael’s actions amounted to “blatant meddling.”

U.S. Under-secretary of State Michael Armacost, now visiting Manila, has reaffirmed Washington’s strong support for President Corazon Aquino.

Earlier on Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy said Raphael would depart within the week but added that his withdrawal was no reflection on his performance.

A Philippine colonel accused Raphael earlier this week of having tried to persuade government forces not to deploy artillery against rebels holed up at military headquarters during the August uprising.