STREETWISE
All-out Failure
What Malacañang wishes
to pass off as a renewed resolve to stamp out the armed revolutionary
movement within a much abbreviated timetable of two years is more likely
the product of presidential pique, braggadocio and her public relations
handlers' spin.
BY CAROL
PAGADUAN-ARAULLO
BusinessWorld
Posted by Bulatlat
Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's declaration
two weeks ago in Cauayan, Isabela of all-out war against the communist-led
New People's Army is reminiscent of her pugnacious pronouncements against
crime -syndicates, the Abu Sayaff bandit group and, yes, the same old
CPP-NPA that she is again threatening to annihilate with the promise of P1
billion additional taxpayers’ money to boost her regime's so-so
counter-insurgency program.
What Malacañang wishes to pass off as a renewed resolve to stamp out the
armed revolutionary movement within a much abbreviated timetable of two
years is more likely the product of presidential pique, braggadocio and
her public relations handlers' spin.
Mrs. Arroyo gave the order after learning about the 14 AFP soldiers
killed-in-action in a recent encounter with the NPA in Jones, Isabela. She
outboasted her own defense secretary who, in yet another international
anti-terrorism pow-wow, had given his fearless forecast of 10 years for
crushing the rebel movement. In the process, she exposed her overweening
arrogance about the remaining capabilities of her embattled regime as well
as profound ignorance of the history of failed counterinsurgency programs
of previous regimes that includes that of the 14-year Marcos fascist
dictatorship.
The government's current counterinsurgency campaign codenamed Oplan Bantay
Laya was launched, according to leaked AFP documents, in 2002 and to date
has failed to achieve its objective of decisive defeat of the CPP-NPA,
despite the fact that it is already on the fourth year of its five-year
plan.
In truth and in fact, the Arroyo regime has been going all-out, has been
decidedly hawkish both in word and deed, against the revolutionary
movement and its perceived supporters and sympathizers, soon after Mrs.
Arroyo came to power in 2001.
There has been no let-up in the massive deployment of troops and in
ruthless military campaigns to dislodge the NPA from rebel strongholds,
dismantle the political infrastructure of local cadres and activists and
terrorize rural folk into submission. This has resulted in the
displacement of thousands of peasants and minority peoples as well as
murder and mayhem against civilians and non-combatants euphemistically
dismissed by government as "collateral damage".
The Arroyo regime had broken off peace talks since August 2002, campaigned
in tandem with the Bush government to place the CPP-NPA-NDF and NDF chief
political consultant and CPP founder, Prof. Jose Maria Sison, in the
terrorist listings of the US, European Union and several other countries
and has since then flagrantly violated agreements inked in the course of
the peace negotiations such as that on the observance human rights and
international humanitarian law and safety and immunity guarantees for
CPP-NPA-NDF personnel involved in the peace talks.
An intensified crackdown on what has been termed the "legal Left" or
leaders and members of progressive people's organizations leading the
fight for nationalism and democratic reform, as well as their perceived
allies in the movement to oust Mrs. Arroyo from power, has been ongoing
for the past several years marked by the unprecedented rise in the number
of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, warrant less arrests,
trumped-up rebellion charges and brutal dispersals of mass protest
actions.
Propaganda and psywar campaigns turn things upside down and blame the
revolutionary movement for all the woes of the country from poverty to
underdevelopment, to the corrupt and rotten political system, to
"unpatriotic", "undemocratic", "counter-productive", "divisive" values and
the pre-occupation with ousting GMA rather than focus on moving the
country forward to "enchanted kingdom-hood".
Sustained and vicious mass media campaigns to vilify the Left are not just
the usual red-scare tactics meant to divert the people from the insolvable
political crisis and the deteriorating economic situation that Mrs.
Arroyo's rule has exacerbated, they have the bloodthirsty component of
inciting the fascist forces in the AFP/PNP and death squads to continue
the regime's "dirty war" of terror against both the revolutionary armed
movement in the countryside and the legal democratic movement in the
cities.
Through all this, Mrs. Arroyo's official statements and political body
language constitute a virtual green light to more of the same grievous
human rights violations and even worse atrocities and will reinforce the
culture of impunity that has become the hallmark of her rule.
Mrs. Arroyo will justify her despotism as an indispensable link in the US
"war on terror". She will whip up anti-communist hysteria among the
soldiers and police to cover up the restiveness over rank opportunism and
corruption within and outside the AFP and PNP. She will substitute
"all-out war" for genuine economic and political reforms and call it
development.
Indeed, this is the kind of authoritarian glue that binds the selfish
interests of Mrs. Arroyo's ruling clique, her US and military backers and
those who think -- wrongly and foolishly that this time she can succeed
where all others have failed. BusinessWorld / Posted by Bulatlat
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