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Press Statement
27 December 2004
Complaints Should
Be Submitted to the NDFP-JMC
and Not to the NDFP Chief Political Consultant
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
It is only
today that I get the full text of the open letter of Walden Bello and Etta
Rosales, reported on by Juan Sarmiento in the December 26, 2004 issue of
the Philippine Daily Inquirer and others in other Manila newspapers. My
press statement dated December 26, 2004 has already countered the main
line of attack against me.
I have
exposed as a lie the claim that a diagram, exposing the fragmented status
and international connections of certain anti-communist petty bourgeois
grouplets, is a “hit list”. I have pointed out that the malicious
objective of the lie is to slander me and all the revolutionary forces on
the occasion of the 36th anniversary of the Communist Party of
the Philippines (CPP). I have spoken from experience that the
revolutionary forces respect the freedom of thought and expression and do
not punish anyone for expressing pseudo-revolutionary or even blatantly
counterrevolutionary ideas.
Let me begin
to answer certain false claims in the open letter that were not covered by
the previous report of Sarmiento.
1. False
claim: Those who drop out of the armed struggle are targeted for killing
just for dropping out.
Answer: The CPP Constitution guarantees the right to every CPP member the
right to voluntarily enter or leave the CPP. Leaving the CPP is not a
criminal offense that is subject to administrative disciplinary action by
the CPP and to judgment by the people’s court or court martial. There has
to be prima facie evidence for a criminal offense for the people’s court
or court martial to issue a warrant of arrest for the NPA to carry out.
2. False
claim: The 36 years of armed struggle led by the CPP is merely obsessive.
Answer: Because they are anti-CPP, the letter writers can easily scoff at
the resoluteness of the CPP and the people in revolutionary resistance as
mere “obsession”. They profit from being reformists and well-behaved
citizens of the oppressive state. They deprecate the armed revolution of
the people and in effect celebrate the fact that the oppressors and
exploiters never tire of oppressing and exploiting the people.
3. False
claim: Because the CPP regards armed struggle as the principal form of
struggle, it regards all other forms of struggle as inferior and
threatening to this.
Answer: The national democratic movement led by the CPP has always
developed and excelled in all forms of political struggle, even as
Marxism-Leninism teaches that it takes an armed revolution to topple
bourgeois state power. The pseudo-revolutionaries and reformists should
not imagine that they are more successful than the national democratic
movement in various forms of legal struggle. The CPP has always
considered both the legal and the armed forms of struggle as necessary and
helpful to each other.
4. False
claim: The revolutionary armed struggle has not at all empowered the
communities under the CPP leadership.
Answer: The CPP has aroused, organized and mobilized millions of people,
built itself as the party of the working class, the people’s army,
organs of political power, mass organizations and alliances of various
types. It has thereby led the people in struggles to empower themselves
in urban and rural areas. The accomplishments of the CPP and the people
in revolutionary struggle are described in the 36th anniversary
message of the CPP Central Committee. This can be read at
www.philippinerevolution.org
5. False
claim: The NPA behaves as badly as the paramilitary units of the AFP.
Answer: The letter writers try to put down the NPA by equating it with the
paramilitary units of the AFP. They also imply their high regard for the
AFP and PNP regulars. They are indeed good citizens of the reactionary
state. The AFP and PNP regulars and their paramilitary adjuncts commit the
grossest human rights violations on the widest scale. These are well
documented.
The letter
writers, Walden Bello and Etta Rosales, can talk and write as much as they
want against the CPP and other revolutionary forces. And they can be sure
that these targets of their malice will always respect their right of free
speech and will answer with the facts and well-reasoned arguments in order
to win the ideological and political struggle through debate.
But it is
another matter if for example there is a criminal complaint with
sufficient evidence that Bello is receiving imperialist funds not only for
holding conferences and issuing publications but for organizing groups
dedicated to intelligence and psywar for the imperialists against the
patriotic and progressive forces. Also, it is another matter if for
example there is a criminal complaint against Rosales for stealing funds
from her congressional committee, covering up human rights violations or
conniving with Imee Marcos in blocking the indemnification of the winning
plaintiffs in the US court judgment against the Marcos estate.
Even as the
Akbayan and related groups assert that they have the right to engage in
any activity, the revolutionary forces will not allow them to use
imperialist funds to intrude into the territory of the revolutionary
government, undermine the people’s government and use the AFP, PNP
and official and unofficial paramilitary units against the people and the
people’s army in Bondoc Peninsula and certain parts of Mindoro and
Mindanao. The earlier false claims of Akbayan and others against the
revolutionary movement are being answered by the appropriate organs of the
people’s government. However, Anak ng Bayan, a progressive party in the
party list, is still waiting for a satisfactory answer to its a complaint
against the criminal connivance of Akbayan, the national security adviser,
the AFP and PNP in committing electoral fraud and terrorism.
The NDFP, as
representative of the revolutionary forces, is firmly committed to the
implementation of the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for
Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and has
cooperated with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) in
establishing the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) of the GRP and the NDFP.
Complaints against any side in the current civil war between the
revolutionary government and the reactionary government can be submitted
by any entity to the appropriate section of the JMC.
If Bello,
Rosales, Akbayan have any complaints, they should make the appropriate
submission to the NDFP-JMC and not to the NDFP chief political consultant.
Their claims about the death of Nong Boy Ocmen in Agusan del Norte and
another unnamed person in Nueva Ecija are specific enough. They should
bring up the complaint with NDFP-JMC and present the facts. But shotgun
allegations should be avoided, like the following: .
1. False
claim: The NPA is as bad as Citizens Armed Force Geographical Units of the
AFP (CAFGU) for recruiting child soldiers in violation of the UN Covenant
on the Rights of the Child.
Answer: Since a long time ago, the CPP, NPA and NDFP have declared and
implemented the policy of recruiting and deploying for offensive combat
operations young men and women who are not younger than 18 years and for
self-defense training those not younger than 15 years of age. During
their offensive attacks on communities under the governance of the
revolutionary forces, the AFP, PNP and CAFGU kidnap children below 18
years of age, misrepresent these as NPA soldiers, detain them and display
them for psywar in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
2. False
claim: The NPA engage in gross human rights violations and destruction of
property in much the same way as the police and military.
Answer: This claim is not at all borne out by the complaints and facts
submitted to the JMC and to the human rights organizations. The letter
writers are misusing the name of the Amnesty International in this regard.
3. False
claim: The NPA extorts money from electoral candidates in exchange for the
“permit to campaign”.
Answer: The clerico-fascists in the GRP negotiating panel made in early
2004 big accusations against the NPA for supposedly extorting money from
the electoral candidates early this year. But they never presented any
facts. They simply demanded with utmost arrogance that the NDFP submit to
the GRP negotiating panel the list of candidates who were supposed to have
paid extortion money, state the amount collected per entity and return the
money to the said candidates. The clerico-fascists shut up as soon as the
NDFP panel countered that the GRP panel was not offering neither a single
witness nor documentary evidence and demanded an accounting by Macapagal-Arroyo
of how much bribe money she was collecting from so many projects and how
much government money she was using for her electoral campaign.
The truth of the matter is that every election time candidates and parties
approach the revolutionary movement for alliance and cooperation, truce
or safe conduct and they make offers for the benefit of the people and the
revolutionary movement. Whenever there are terms of agreement for the
benefit of the people and the revolutionary movement,the revolutionary
leaders concerned exercise all necessary prudence. The clerico-fascists
and military psywar experts have systematically misrepresented the
revolutionary leaders as imprudent and indiscreet and the NPA as extorting
money from the electoral candidates and parties and imposing a tax on
their right to speak and campaign.
I conclude
this press statement by challenging Bello, Rosales and Akbayan to submit
their complaints and evidence of human rights violations to the NDFP-Joint
Monitoring Committee and not to the NDFP chief political consultant,
unless their real exclusive intention is merely to demonize me and set me
up for physical attack in line with the “terrorist” labeling done by the
US and other governments. The CARHRIHL provides for the NDFP and the
revolutionary forces and people it represents to arrest suspected
violators of human rights and international humanitarian law, investigate
them and , if the evidence warrants, to prosecute and try them.
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