LJ: To name the most notorious, Benjamin de Vera, Secretary of the CPP Mindanao Commission, member of the CPP Executive Committee and Political Bureau and Ricardo Reyes, Deputy Secretary of the CPP Mindanao Commission, Member of the CPP Political Bureau. They approved the catastrophic policies formulated by the other members of the CPP Mindanao Commission, which they constituted into the “Caretaker Committee” of the Mindanao Commission, while they left Mindanao to attend the 1985 Plenum of the CPP Central Committee. The aforementioned catastrophic policies prescribed “hard tactics,” meaning torture, in interrogating suspected enemy agents and extracting self-incriminating confessions. While the CPP Central Committee was meeting during its Plenum in 1985, de Vera and Reyes received reports on “Kampanyang Ahos,” but they kept it secret from the Central Committee. Nathan Quimpo and Frank Gonzales were key members of the so-called “Caretaker Committee” that formulated the policies that were inherently a violation of due process and the basic rights of the suspects.
JE: The NDF and the GRP have approved the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. However, until now there is no consensus on how to implement this agreement. In a scenario where the GRP and the NDF finally agree on the implementation of the rights agreement, is the NDF ready to submit to an independent body who will investigate on the bloody purges? How will the NDF handle a situation wherein the independent body declared that the crimes committed during the bloody purges were similar to the “crimes against humanity”, like genocide?
LJ: Both the NDFP and GRP refuse to fall under an “independent body”. As far as the NDFP is concerned, it is willing to receive complaints from any source and take due process on the meritorious complaints. The judicial and legal processes of the revolutionary movement will be carried out.
JE: In case the “bloody purge” is declared a “terrorist act” to lend credence to the U.S. government’s classification of NDF-CPP-NPA as a “terrorist group”, would this affect the NDF International Office in The Netherlands?
LJ: U.S. classifications are not always followed by European governments. The right to due process is more followed in Europe than in the U.S. The NPA was classified as “terrorist” by the U.S. in the early 1990s. But such classification had no adverse consequence to the NDFP International Office.
JE: Would this add to the existing pressure on the Dutch government to expel Joma Sison from the Netherlands? And how will NDF confront the damaging effect of such accusation?
LJ: The NDFP as well as Joma Sison have much experience in legally and politically combating campaigns of demonification. Bush is becoming more unpopular, because the U.S. engages in protectionism against European steel and grabs for itself all the oil sources and routes. The European countries are noticing that the U.S. is using the anti-terrorist slogan to take advantage of its own imperialist allies. They are becoming more critical of the unilateral actions of the United States. (Bulatlat.com)
