U.S. Plot vs Joma Bared

The U.S. plot to label the NDF as "terrorist" appears to have been hatched during or after the meeting between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and U.S. President George Bush in Washington last November. The plot included the freezing of the bank accounts of NDF Chief Political Consultant Jose Ma. Sison and his extradition to the United States.

By D.L. MONDELO
Chief Correspondent for Europe, Bulatlat.Com  

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – Speaker Jose de Venecia of the Philippine House of Representatives told Filipino exile Prof. Jose Maria Sison of U.S. plans to scuttle the peace talks between the Arroyo government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

Sison, speaking at a press conference held in Utrecht with a Dutch archbishop Sept. 18, revealed that as early as November last year after Philippine President Arroyo and U.S. President Bush met in Washington, De Venecia confided to him about a plot hatched by Bush officials. The plot included extraditing him from The Netherlands to the United States, he said.

The Arroyo and Bush governments had agreed “to put a squeeze play on the NDFP panel and myself as chief political consultant,” Sison told reporters.  

He (Prof. Sison) said no less than House Speaker Jose De Venecia expressed to him, during one of their telephone conversations and in the presence of others such as Filipino columnist Belinda Olivares Cunanan (who wrote about the same matter in her column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer), that the U.S. would take a series of steps up to the point of extraditing him from the Netherlands.

The steps to be taken included: 1) listing him as “terrorist” and a freeze on his assets by the Dutch government; 2) deprivation of benefits and adverse chain reaction on Sison’s living conditions; 3) publicized raid on Sison’s apartment and possible arrest to degrade him before the Dutch public; 4) “terrorist” listing at the European level; 5) provisional detention upon request of the U.S. government; and 6) extradition to a U.S. territory.

Citing De Venecia, Sison said that the U.S. government is ready to fabricate records of investigation and findings and to gather new testimonies as basis for a criminal complaint against him and lay the ground for a U.S. request for his extradition. The first two steps have already happened, Sison stressed.

De Venecia, during the Ramos presidency, had brokered the resumption of peace negotiations between the two parties. The talks resulted in the signing of several agreements. The agreements, NDFP leaders have charged, are yet to be honored by the Arroyo administration.

Sison further explained that the Arroyo government’s pushing for so-called “back channel talks” and a so-called 15-day negotiation to produce a final peace settlement are actually the codewords for capitulation.

Defend Sison

At the press conference, two prominent Dutch church leaders supported the call to defend the civil and democratic rights of Sison and called on the Arroyo government and the NDFP to resume the peace negotiations.

Archbishop Joris Vercammen of the Dutch Old Catholic Church of Utrecht said that what the Dutch government did to Sison, such as freezing his bank account, cutting off his welfare subsidies and demonizing him as a “terrorist,” were unjust and immoral.

“We will support Sison’s appeal for justice, and join in the defense of his democratic rights,” the Archbishop told the media.

Dominee Visser of the Pauluskerk of Rotterdam, for his part, said he found it ridiculous for the Dutch government to put Professor Sison in the same league as Osama bin Laden. Visser, who has consistently supported Sison’s fight for asylum and residence in the Netherlands, also said he disapproved of the Dutch government’s persecution of the Filipino exile by depriving him of his welfare benefits despite the fact that he is a recognized political refugee, and its continued denial of a residence permit for Sison.

“It is simply not acceptable. I support Sison’s fight for the right to the basic necessities to live,” Visser said.

On the peace negotiations

Both church leaders strongly expressed support for the resumption of the peace talks between the Manila government and the NDFP. “If the Dutch government is aware of the importance of the peace negotiations, then it should take a different position and not follow the agenda of the United States because the U.S. has its own interests,” Archbishop Vercammen emphasized.

The Archbishop, who visited the Philippines recently, further said the problem of poverty must be seriously addressed in the peace talks. The Dutch Old Catholic Church of Utrecht has played the third party role as depository of the documents of the peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP, since the peace talks formally began in 1992.

As leader of the church, Archbishop Vercammen holds the key to the safe holding the documents that are kept in Switzerland.

Terrorist label unjust, prejudicial to talks

In the press conference, Sison also stressed that the designation by the U.S. government of the CPP, NPA and himself as “terrorist” was unjust and is a prejudice to the resumption of the peace talks. He said the actions of the U.S. government “throw fuel into the flames of civil war in the Philippines.”

“By following the baton of the U.S. in designating the CPP and NPA as ‘terrorists’ and taking punitive measures against those suspected of belonging to the CPP and NPA, the Dutch government is running counter to its own commitment to facilitate and support the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and to the 1997 and 1999 resolutions of the European Parliament which endorse and support these negotiations,” Sison said. Bulatlat.com

We want to know what you think of this article.