Bush-GMA Pressure on EU Seen to Scuttle Peace Talks

The recent decision of the European Union to cite Jose Maria Sison and the NPA as “foreign terrorists” may be the last nail that would irreversibly scuttle peace talks between the Philippine government and the NDFP. The EU decision, it has been reported, is a sign it has bowed to the machinations of the U.S. government which, along with the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, has renewed its drive to demonize and criminalize the revolutionary movement in the Philippines.

BY BULATLAT.COM

The Macapagal-Arroyo administration, along with the U.S. government, was accused of scuttling the peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) by pushing for the inclusion of the Front’s chief political consultant and the New People’s Army (NPA) in the European Union’s list of “foreign terrorist persons, groups and entities.”

In a news conference in Utrecht, The Netherlands Oct. 31, Jose Maria Sison, NDFP’s chief political consultant, and chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni said the EU move imperiled the peace negotiations between the Manila government and the NDFP.

Acting through its Council, the EU on Oct. 28 included Sison and the NPA in its updated list of “foreign terrorists.” The action was made on the heels of relentless lobbying by the Macapagal-Arroyo government, through Foreign Secretary Blas Ople, for European governments to consider the NDFP, its allied organizations and leaders as “foreign terrorist groups.”

In the news conference, Sison described the European Council decision as “unjust.”

“The European Council has unjustly put my name on the list of so-called terrorists in accordance with the request earlier made by the Dutch government upon the prompting of the US government,” the NDFP consultant said. “My democratic rights are viciously violated. I am criminalized as a ‘terrorist’ without due process. I am defamed and demonized. My life is being threatened. I suffer moral and material damages.”

Sison said he is “simply an unemployed teacher, prevented by the Dutch government from working for more than 14 years already and serving as the chief political consultant of the NDFP in its peace negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).”

“It is wrong to make me appear as if I were more powerful than such organs of leadership as the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the national military staff of the NPA and the National Council of the NDFP, which are all in the Philippines,” he further said.

Bowed down to US pressure

The inclusion of the NPA and his name to the EU list, Sison also said, shows that the EU presidency has bowed down to pressures from Washington. He said the new list indicates that the EU has also followed the line of the Bush administration with regards the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.

He warned that the NDFP leadership in the Philippines would find it untenable to continue with the peace negotiations if their negotiators, consultants and staff are put under duress with threats to their liberty and person.

Sison told reporters that the US wants the peace talks to collapse and intensify the civil war in the Philippines. He also cited information appearing in the Internet putting his life in danger as a result of the listing.

The EU list, he said, paves the way for his extradition and the ultimate scuttling of the peace talks.

Jalandoni, on the other hand, said the new EU list is prejudicial to the continuation of the peace negotiations.

As this developed, Sison’s lawyers have filed a civil rights case in the Netherlands against the Dutch government listing. Another battery of his lawyers are set to challenge the European listing before the European High Court in Luxembourg.

Jalandoni said that the Committee DEFEND would continue to spearhead the campaign for the defense of the democratic rights of Professor Sison and other progressive Filipinos.

The Amsterdam-based Committee DEFEND has been campaigning for worldwide support for Sison and has been raising funds for his legal defense.

Bush-GMA meeting

The move to include Sison and other revolutionary groups in the “terrorist list” was renewed during President Macapagal-Arroyo’s visit in Washington November last year. In a report cited by an Inquirer columnist, House Speaker Jose de Venecia says the plan was hatched in a meeting between the Philippine president and U.S. President Bush. A few months later, the U.S. state department came up with an updated list of “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs) which included the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA.

Taking the cue, the Dutch government froze the small bank account of Sison while stopping welfare benefits the Utrecht government had given him since his exile. Similar moves have also been taken by the Canadian government on what it alleged as “fronts” of the Philippine Left.

The “war on terrorism” in the Philippines, launched after Bush unleashed “Operation Enduring Freedom” in October last year, has since shifted to a total war against the NPA. Bulatlat.com

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