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Issue Number 22, January 2003
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 22, January 2003
THE GEORGE AND
GLORIA SHOW: Philippine Progressives Under Renewed Attack
- Aziz Choudry
This was originally published as a ZNet Commentary on
September 24, 2002.
"When an individual commits violence against
innocent civilians contrary to US interests, Bush calls
him a 'terrorist'. When an individual commits violence
against innocent civilians in furtherance of US
interests, Bush calls him a 'freedom fighter'. But Bush
never mentions the worst form of terrorism known as
'State terrorism'. Supported by the resources of the
State, it inflicts the worst crimes against humanity and
wanton destruction of a nation's infrastructure.
"The hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who
died during the Philippine-American war, in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan
were all victims of State terrorism. US authorities have
coined a euphemistic term designed to cover up the
gravity of the crime. They call it 'collateral damage'
(ex-Philippine Navy Captain and former political
prisoner, Danilo Vizmanos, letter to Philippine Daily
Inquirer [PDI], 26/8/02).
Sison, CPP & NPA Designated As Terrorists
A certain saying about a pot and a kettle came to mind
when I read the US State Department's August 9, 2002,
designation of the Communist Party of the Philippines/New
People's Army (CPP/NPA) as a "foreign terrorist
organisation". US Secretary of State Colin Powell
called this "another important step in our
continuing efforts to combat global terrorism".
The organisations, and their chief political consultant,
Jose Maria ("Joma") Sison, who is exiled in
Holland, join the list of individuals, groups and
entities covered by the US Executive Order 13224 of
September 23, 2001. This designation seeks to prevent
suspected CPP or NPA officers and members from entering
the USA, to prohibit and punish any kind of activity
suspected of assisting them, to freeze any suspect bank
account and to pressure other countries to act against
those designated as "terrorist". Both the CPP
and NPA are members of the National Democratic Front of
the Philippines (NDF), which is based in Holland;
likewise, Sison is the NDF's chief political consultant.
The NDF itself is not covered by the Executive Order. Ed.
Dutch authorities have already frozen assets of exiled
NDF members in Holland after approaches by the US and
Philippine governments. Other central banks, like the
Bank of England, have directed financial institutions to
freeze funds held on behalf of the CPP, NPA, and
Professor Sison. And that American pressure has resonated
in New Zealand, where the Reserve Bank posted the US
notice on its Website and stated: "Note that the
United States Order does not have legal force in New
Zealand. However the United States has indicated it will
penalise any institution that does not take action to
support the United States, if that institution has assets
in or links to the United States" (Reserve Bank of
New Zealand Website, 23/8/02). Ed.
Sison refutes claims that the CPP-NPA depends on foreign
support, saying that there are no foreign or Philippine
bank accounts to freeze. "The Macapagal puppet
regime and the puppet military forces are the ones that
are dependent on foreign financial and military
assistance from the United States," he told the PDI
(13/8/02).
He spent nine years as a political prisoner under the
US-backed Marcos regime. Serious concerns are held that
although Dutch courts have cleared him of accusations of
terrorism (levelled by Holland's secret service, the
BVD), and accepted that he is a political refugee, while
the Dutch government continues to deny him asylum status
(it argues that recognition does not mean admission as
refugee to the Netherlands), he could be nabbed and
extradited to stand trial in the USA. Sison's appeal to
the European Court of Human Rights on this issue is still
pending. Since this was written, the Council of the
European Union, in October 2002, has added Sison and the
NPA (but not the CPP) to its list of
"terrorist" persons, groups and entities. Ed.
For the past 33 years, the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) have fought the NPA in many parts of
the country. It remains outlawed, but membership of the
CPP was legalised under the 1992-98 Ramos regime.
Human Rights Violations Continue Apace
Since 1986, peace talks between the government and the
NDF -- an umbrella body of Left organisations -- have
taken place in a stop-start fashion. Meanwhile military
operations -- synonymous with gross human rights
violations -- continue. For example, in late August 2002,
according to human rights group Karapatan, in Barangay
Ginabucan, Catmon, Cebu, soldiers of the 78th Infantry
Battalion of the Philippine Army detained, tortured,
threatened and harassed locals affiliated to the Kilusang
Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), the legal peasant
movement, and killed Riza Concha, the wife of one of the
men.
Now, the Philippines' President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
is not only using the designation as a pretext for an
intensification of the war against the NPA in the
countryside, but for a campaign of renewed demonisation
and attacks on a range of legal, progressive
organisations in the Philippines. These include
organisations and movements strongly opposed to
neoliberal policies at home, and the international
institutions, corporations and foreign governments,
especially the US, which promote this economic model
globally.
Gone are hopes that Arroyo's Presidency might herald a
better future for the majority of Filipinos after she
replaced former B-movie star, Joseph "Erap"
Estrada in the "Peoples Power II" popular
revolt of January 2001. An ardent neoliberal, she moved
quickly to assure the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund (IMF) that the privatisation, deregulation
and liberalisation policies imposed by previous
administrations -- to which there has been massive
opposition from many sectors of society - would remain in
place.
The Secretary General of the militant trade union centre,
the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU -- May First Movement), Elmer
Labog, says: "Arroyo is bringing back to life the
'ghosts of Martial Law'. She is using all instruments of
repression and fascism that were used by Marcos 30 years
ago to quell the people's broad discontent".
It is a century after the genocidal Philippine-American
war when an estimated one-tenth of the population was
wiped out by US forces, during their bloody conquest of
the Philippines. It is more than ten years since the
Filipino people kicked the US military bases out. Yet now
the Bush Administration, through joint exercises
involving the deployment of several thousand American
troops, clearly sees the country as a strategic platform
in South East Asia once again. Meanwhile it is pressuring
Manila to implement the Mutual Logistics Support
Agreement (MLSA), which would let US military use
Philippine support facilities anywhere in the country.
Since this was written, the MLSA has been signed, in
November 2002. Ed.
US military advisers and troops involved in "war
games" on Mindanao and Basilan, were purportedly
providing support and training for the Philippine
military's fight with the Abu Sayyaf Group. That was
ironic in itself given that this small bandit group is
really a creation of the Philippine military, designed to
split and discredit the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,
fighting for self-determination for Moro people. Abu
Sayyaf only survives thanks to help from the same
military which is fighting it.
US Military To Join War Against NPA?
While Arroyo herself has said that there is no evidence
to link the group with al-Qaeda, her office has also
explicitly stated that US training and equipment will be
put to use against the NPA. Critics of the Balikatan
US-Philippine joint military exercise -- and there are
many - have pointed out that US troops were also deployed
in areas such as Central Luzon where the NPA is active.
Arroyo's Defense Secretary, Angelo Reyes, told the PDI
(7/8/02) that US$25 million of the $55 million which
Powell handed over in August would go to train and equip
elite "Light Reaction Companies" to fight the
NPA. National Security Adviser Roilo Golez claimed:
"Now that the Abu Sayyaf problem has eased
dramatically we can now shift our forces to the areas
where communist insurgents are very strong".
The portrayal of Abu Sayyaf and the CPP/NPA by the
US-backed Arroyo regime as being birds of a feather is as
disingenuous as it is malicious, especially when the
Philippine government still claims to be committed to a
peace process with the NDF.
Writing about Operation Balikatan (which translates as
"shoulder to shoulder". Ed.), Gary Leupp,
Associate Professor of History at Tufts University says:
"The justification of the operation, hinging upon
the al-Qaeda connection, is weak. But a much larger US
counterinsurgency role in the Philippines, and other
nations where liberation movements threaten
US-backed-governments, is altogether likely. In that
event, the rhetoric of the 'war on terrorism' will be
employed against rebels more akin to the Viet Cong
(Communist guerillas in the former South Vietnam, who
fought the US during the 1960s & 70s Vietnam War.
Ed.) than al-Qaeda. Are such rebels our enemies? I don't
think so".
Central Intelligence Agency director, George Tenet, told
Congress on February 6, 2002, that various
"terrorist groups" that have no al-Qaeda
connections may also be future US targets. The NPA,
deemed to be a threat to US interests, had already
featured on the US State Department's "terrorist
list". "The CPP-NPA are rebels, not
terrorists," said Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a former
Armed Forces chief who once fought against the NPA.
The Arroyo government's campaign of Redbaiting and
attempts to paint legal mass organisations on the
Philippine left as CPP/NPA fronts threaten to seriously
shrink the political space won by popular struggles for
justice and genuine democracy.
Everyone's A Terrorist, Apparently
Militant workers, and trade unions like those in the KMU
are also terrorists according to Arroyo, who railed at
"trade unions that terrorise factories that provide
jobs". On the contrary, it is workers who continue
to be terrorised. Human rights abuses against workers
have increased under Arroyo, with numerous strikes and
legal pickets viciously attacked by armed police and
private security guards. Union organisers are routinely
harassed and fired. The violent demolition of urban poor
communities continues, as do price rises of basic
commodities and public utilities despite Arroyo's
promises to give security of land tenure and housing to
urban poor families and to curb commodity prices.
KMU spokesman Sammy Malunes says that KMU leaders and
staff are being watched, "our national office is
kept under surveillance and our telephone lines are
bugged. We already alerted our ranks for possible
military raids and abductions".
I have been privileged to work alongside a number of
militant Filipino organisations and activists in
struggles against the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), transnational
corporate power and the neoliberal agenda in the
Asia-Pacific region. Their analysis, commitment and
capacity to mobilise is inspiring.
Most recently, in August 2002, I was invited to a Manila
conference by the IBON Foundation (www.ibon.org) which Arroyo and tabloid media
in the Philippines have dubbed a Communist front group.
Its crime? Producing excellent, independent research
critical of the Arroyo administration.
BAYAN (Bagong AlyansangMakabayan), to which Danilo
Vizmanos belongs, is a legal alliance of 14 mass people's
organisations. On August 28, 2002, the Army colonel in
charge of military operations on the island of Negros
accused Bayan's Negros chapter of links with the CPP-NPA.
The evidence? Copies of the CPP's newsletter, Ang Bayan
(The People) were found in recent clashes with the NPA.
Bayan-Negros secretary general, Julius Mariveles, pointed
out that Bayan was not founded until some 16 years after
the CPP began publishing Ang Bayan. He warned that such
claims by the military might herald a crackdown on
progressive organisations in Negros. Meanwhile street
posters attacking leaders and organisations of the
militant Left are going up in various cities.
The progressive Bayan Muna (People First) party topped
party list votes in the 2001 election for the House of
Representatives lower chamber, and has three members
sitting in Congress. Dozens of party workers and members
have been killed, wounded or disappeared. Karapatan pins
the blame for many of these attacks squarely on the
Philippine National Police, the Armed Forces of the
Philippines, and government-backed paramilitaries. The
military labels Bayan Muna as a "Communist
front" while, with her eye on re-election in 2004,
Arroyo sees political mileage in attacking the party and
other above-ground militant organisations.
The Cold War is supposedly over, but the absurdly named
"war on terror" feeds a climate where
"Communist" and "terrorist" are
conveniently interchangeable terms to be applied to
anyone opposed to unjust government policies and the
continuing neo-colonial role of the US in the affairs of
the Philippines.
We should all be outraged when organisations like Bayan
Muna, Bayan, the KMU and IBON are attacked and vilified.
They are engaged in legitimate struggles for radical
social economic and political reforms in the Philippines
and deserve our solidarity and support. And we should
expose and oppose any attempt to remove Joma Sison from
the Netherlands.
Back in February 2002, Arroyo dubbed anyone opposed to
the US military presence as "not a Filipino...If you
are not a Filipino, then who are you? A protector of
terrorists, a cohort of murderers, an Abu Sayyaf lover.
You care more for terrorists than for your own soldier
who defends you. You care more for bandits and the camp
of Osama bin Laden than your own country, which seeks to
help you...We're either for or against democracy, freedom
and prosperity. There can be no bystanders" (PDI,
9/2/02).
We have heard that speech somewhere before, Gloria. In
the distance, I think I hear the song "Puppet on a
string".
Aziz Choudry is a former PSNA committee member who
lives in Montreal, Canada. He most recently visited the
Philippines in 2002.
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