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Issue Number 24, August 2004
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 24, August 2004
THE ATTACK ON MY
HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
IS PART OF US OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT
TO NATIONAL LIBERATION, DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
- Jose Maria Sison
Professor Jose Maria
Sison is the Chief Political Consultant for the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the coalition
of groups which has been waging an armed struggle for 35
years. Joma Sison was one of the founders of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its New
People's Army, in the late 1960s. He was captured during
the Marcos martial law dictatorship, and spent nine years
as a political prisoner, without charge or trial,
enduring torture. He was released after People Power 1
overthrew President Ferdinand Marcos, in 1986. That same
year he made a speaking tour of several countries,
including New Zealand (Helen Clark, who is now Prime
Minister, was among those who attended his Wellington
meeting). He has never been back to the Philippines,
going into exile in The Netherlands, where the NDFP has
its international headquarters.
In 2002, the US, The Netherlands, the European Union,
Australia and Canada declared the CPP/NPA and Sison
personally to be "foreign terrorists" (but not
the NDFP). This has caused Sison and his family all
manner of hassles in The Netherlands, and left him in
constant danger of being whisked away into the US gulag
of secret prisons filled with "terrorists" held
indefinitely without charge or trial and enduring torture
(Marcos would have approved). It is patently ridiculous
to include him and the CPP/NPA in the same category as
the Islamic obscurantist terrorists such as Osama bin
Laden's al Qaeda. The CPP/NPA has never conducted any
operations outside the Philippines, it is waging a civil
war. And it is the mortal enemy of Filipino al Qaeda
allies such as the Abu Sayyaf group, which is also on
that international list of terrorist organisations. The
whole thing smacks of the all-embracing designation of
any opponents of US client governments as
"terrorists".
A major international campaign has been mounted in
defence of Sison. This is his Keynote Address to the
conference On Laws, Labels and Liberation: The Case of
Professor Jose Maria Sison, held at the Universite de
Quebec a Montreal, in May 2004. Sison is prohibited from
travelling from The Netherlands, because of his
"foreign terrorist" status, so it had to be
delivered by video link. Many thanks to one of the
conference organisers, Marco Luciano, for sending it to
us, and to former PSNA committee member, Aziz Choudry,
who is now our man in Montreal, for arranging that. Ed.
First of all, I wish to thank the national organising
committee for holding this conference under the auspices
of the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS)
in order to focus on my case for study. I am highly
honoured and deeply pleased to be invited as keynote
speaker and given the opportunity to contribute my views
on the significance, implications and consequences of the
case.
I thank you for your solidarity and support in defending
me from the persecution arising from the unjust
"terrorist" listing initiated by Washington. I
appreciate that you are concerned not only with my human
rights and civil liberties as an individual but more
importantly with the right of the Filipino people and
other oppressed peoples for national and social
liberation.
I wish to express my views on the historical and current
global context of my case, my inclusion in the
"terrorist" list as a direct attack on the
Filipino people's right to national liberation, the facts
of my persecution and the violation of my rights and
certain courses of action that have been adopted and
undertaken to defend myself and oppose the malice and
inhumanity of the US, its imperialist allies and the
Philippine puppet government.
The Historical And Current Global Context
The terrorism and barbarism to which we are all witness
in the US imperialists' invasion and occupation of
Afghanistan and Iraq, we the Filipino people have
experienced from the start of the Filipino-American War
in 1899 to the end of the "campaigns of
pacification" in 1913. We should always remember the
blood debt of US imperialism, running up to 1.5 million
Filipinos killed. We should also keep in mind that the US
instigated and propped up the 14-year long Marcos fascist
dictatorship. This rule of open terror served US
economic, political and military interests.
We continue to recall and condemn the barbarities of the
US in the course of aggressive wars and military
intervention in China, Korea, Vietnam and the rest of
Indochina. We can never forget the 1965 massacre of
millions in Indonesia, perpetrated by General Suharto for
the benefit of US, British and Dutch oil interests. After
the success of the butchery committed directly by the US
or its puppets, the violence of daily exploitation by
monopoly capitalism follows and victimises the entire
subjugated nation one generation after another until the
national liberation movement wins victory.
It is in the very nature of the US as an imperialist
power to exploit and oppress the people of the world and
to oppose violently the national liberation movements and
the countries and governments that firmly assert national
independence. For the purpose of extracting superprofits,
the US has since the beginning of the 20th Century
acquired colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries
and turned them into sources of raw materials and cheap
labour, markets, fields of investments, spheres of
influence and strategic points of control.
It has used the superprofits from the exploitation of the
oppressed peoples and nations to augment the profits it
extracts from its own proletariat and to counteract the
tendency of profit rates to fall within its national
borders. But ever pressed to maximise profits, the
monopoly bourgeoisie keeps on raising the constant
capital for plant, equipment and raw materials and
reducing the variable capital for wages. The reduction of
incomes for the working people results in the shrinkage
of the market. Thus arises the crisis of overproduction.
This kind of crisis provides the conditions for
repression and wars by the imperialists as well as
intensified national and class struggles and successful
revolutions by the people.
The economic and financial crisis that recurs and spreads
in the world capitalist system has become more and more
severe in recent times and has intensified a series of
contradictions: those between the imperialist countries
and the oppressed peoples and nations, those between the
imperialist powers and some states that assert national
independence, those among the imperialist powers and
those between the monopoly bourgeoisie and proletariat
within the imperialist countries
Since the beginning of the 1980s,the US policy makers and
strategic planners have thought that the policy stress on
"neo-liberal globalisation" would solve the
recurrent crises of monopoly capitalism, particularly the
problem of stagflation* in the 1970s. The myth of
"free market" has been hyped to push
denationalisation of client economies, trade and
investment liberalisation, privatisation of public assets
and deregulation against the workers, women and the
environment. These have only served to accelerate the
concentration and centralisation of capital in the US,
aggravate the global crisis of overproduction in all
products and whip up financial speculation, hysteria and
collapses. * Stagflation = persistent high inflation
combined with high unemployment and stagnant demand in a
country's economy. Ed.
The Pipedream Of Pax Americana
Since 2000 the US itself has plunged into a severe
economic and financial crisis, aggravating the global
depression. Bush has come into this situation with the
notion of superimposing "military
Keynesianism"* on the "free market"
pretence of monopoly capitalism. He wants to stimulate
the US economy by promoting military production and
giving tax cuts, subsidies and bigger state purchase
contracts to the military-industrial complex.
Unfortunately, high-tech military production generates
capital growth for the monopoly capitalists but not jobs.
* Keynesianism = the economic theories of John
Maynard Keynes, who advocated government spending on
public works to stimulate the economy and provide
employment. Ed.
Bush and the "neo-conservatives" around him
find the situation favourable for pushing the Project for
a New American Century, a pipedream for a global Pax
Americana without challenge and beyond compare. Since
long before 9/11, 2001, they have calculated that they
can use the position of the US as sole superpower, with
overwhelming superiority in high tech weaponry, to expand
the economic territory of the US and grab the sources and
supply routes of oil by force of arms, or by the threat
thereof, and to use the doctrine of pre-emptive war in
order to destroy the challenge of any disobedient client
state or any potential rival. This is supposed to be the
way for the US to realise the peace, human rights, the
free market and democracy.
The 9/11 attacks have been extremely useful to the US,
particularly the Bush regime, in drumming up an
anti-terrorism hysteria to support a policy of war
production and aggression. They have been the pretext for
unleashing wars of aggression such as those against
Afghanistan and Iraq, turning the Philippines into a
so-called second front in so-called war on terrorism,
establishing forward stations of US military forces in
140 countries, imposing a draconian law like the USA
PATRIOT Act on the American people, requiring US allied
and puppet states to adopt similar repressive laws and
putting the national liberation movements and progressive
leaders on the same list with such small terrorist groups
(like Al Qaeda* and Abu Sayyaf**) previously trained and
used by the US for counterrevolutionary purposes. *
Al Qaeda - the nebulous, transnational Islamic terrorist
organisation supposedly headed by Osama bin Laden. **
Abu Sayyaf - murderous Filipino terrorist group which
operates in the southernmost part of Mindanao and the
islands between it and Borneo, best known for spectacular
kidnappings of foreigners for huge ransoms. It operates
under a veneer of Islamic separatism but is simply a
contemporary manifestation of the pirates and bandits
that have plagued the southern Philippines for centuries.
Ed.
Since 9/11 the US has once again proven itself to the
world as the biggest terrorist force in the entire
history of human kind. It has launched wars of aggression
in wanton violation of the UN Charter. It has maimed and
murdered tens of thousands of ordinary people and
destroyed entire communities and the social
infrastructure with the use of bombs and artillery fire.
It has arbitrarily arrested, humiliated, detained under
inhuman conditions, tortured and murdered hundreds of
thousands of people in violation of the international law
on human rights and humanitarian conduct in time of war.
It has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the
misery of millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq
alone. It has also encouraged the Israeli Zionists to
slaughter the Palestinian people and destroy their homes,
all in accordance with US imperialist plans.
"Terrorist" Listing As Blackmail
Against the NDFP
After Bush declared a new, permanent and borderless
"war on terror" in the wake of 9/11, the
Macapagal-Arroyo regime immediately expressed support and
offered the Philippines as a hunting ground and regional
base for US military forces. The US and the puppet
government dueted about going after the Abu Sayyaf, a
small terrorist band, previously organised and handled by
the US Central Intelligence Agency. The top military
officials of the puppet government loudly boasted that
the "war on terror" would induce the US to give
more financial and military assistance, would be extended
to the areas of the New People's Army* and would pave the
way for the US to build the infrastructure for the return
of US military bases. *New People's Army - NPA. The
army of the Communist Party of the Philippines - CPP. Ed.
The cabinet oversight committee, including the Defense
Secretary, the National Security Adviser, the Secretary
for Special Operations and the Presidential Adviser on
Peace Negotiations, prepared a proposal to the US
government to designate as "terrorist" the
Communist Party of the Philippines/New People's Army and
the chief political consultant of the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines*. The proposal was formally
presented by Macapagal-Arroyo to Bush when she made a
working visit to Washington on November 19-20, 2001. *Joma
Sison is the chief political consultant to the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines. The NDFP, headed by
the CPP, is the coalition of groups which have been
waging an armed struggle for the past 35 years. Ed.
It was on November 22, 2001 when Speaker Jose de Venecia
called me up from Mexico to inform me that the US would
include me in its list of "terrorists", unless
the NDFP agreed to sign a "final peace accord"
prepared unilaterally by the Cabinet oversight committee.
Thinking that it was best to have an interface, I told
the speaker to come over to The Netherlands to discuss
with representatives of the NDFP what he was talking
about.
Towards the end of November 2001, he came to The
Netherlands with the Presidential Adviser on Peace
Negotiations, the Chairman of the Negotiating Panel of
the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP)
and others. The NDFP representatives and I made clear to
them that the NDFP does not capitulate and does not yield
to blackmail. They asserted that The Hague Joint
Declaration provides a clear framework for the GRP-NDFP
peace negotiations. Then the chairpersons of the GRP and
the NDFP negotiating panels drafted a document of
understanding to resume the formal talks of the peace
negotiations, reaffirming The Hague Joint Declaration and
blocking what had loomed as blackmail.
From the Netherlands, the GRP and NDFP delegations flew
to Oslo, with the common intention of signing the
aforesaid document before the then newly elected
Norwegian Prime Minister, on December 1, 2001. But,
according to the GRP delegation, word came to it from
Manila, specifically from the Defense Secretary, not to
sign the document. The meeting with the Norwegian Prime
Minister became a simple courtesy call. Since then, the
CPP, the NPA and the NDFP have more than ever intensified
their opposition to US imperialist domination in general
and to the increased US military intervention in
particular.
After his visit to Manila within the first week of August
2002, US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, designated the
CPP/NPA as a "foreign terrorist organisation"
on August 9, 2002. The US Treasury Department followed
suit by listing the same and the NDFP chief political
consultant as "terrorists" on August 12, 2002.
The following day the Dutch government issued its
"sanction regulation" against the CPP, NPA and
the NDFP chief political consultant. Other governments
like those of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and
eventually the European Council joined the
"anti-terrorist" lynch mob against me.
All these governments have been shamelessly responsible
for using the pretext of anti-terrorism in order to
slander and demonise the CPP, NPA and the NDFP chief
political consultant as "terrorists",
transgress the right of the Filipino people to fight for
national liberation, violate my rights under
international law and the principles of national
sovereignty and non-capitulation and the safety and
immunity guarantees in the GRP-NDFP agreements and
paralyse the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations for a long
while.
My Persecution: Violations Of Rights And Undue
Punishment
By virtue of two judgements (1992 and 1995) of the Raad
van State, the highest administrative court in The
Netherlands, I am a recognised political refugee under
Article 1a of the Refugee Convention and I am under the
protection of Article 3 of the European Convention on
Human Rights (ECHR) and consequently the entirety of this
Convention. Subsequently, the Dutch government (Justice
Ministry) accepted the aforesaid judgments but asserted
that it could refuse legal admittance even to one
recognised by the Raad van State as a political refugee.
When it decided, in 1997, that the Dutch government could
deny legal admittance, the Chamber of Legal Uniformity of
the Aliens Court paid lip service to the aforesaid Raad
van State decisions and deliberately ignored the specific
decision of the 1995 Raad van State judgment that if I
could not go to another country without putting me at
risk of losing the protection of Article 3 of the ECHR,
the Dutch government had no choice but to grant me legal
admittance and the residence permit.
In the meantime in the Philippines, one false charge
after another against me collapsed. The charge of
subversion was nullified by the repeal of the
anti-democratic Anti-Subversion Law in 1992. The charge
of multiple murder fabricated out of the 1971 Plaza
Miranda bombing* was dismissed by formal resolution of
the Manila prosecutors declaring that the charge was
based on pure speculation. Thus, the Secretary of Justice
of the GRP made a formal certification in 1998 that there
was no pending criminal charge against me. *This
bombing, in Metro Manila, which killed a number of
people, was blamed on the Communists by President
Ferdinand Marcos and used as a justification for his
declaration of martial law the following year. Ed.
Until now, there is no formal criminal charge against me
in the Philippines or anywhere else in the world,
including The Netherlands, where I have in fact resided
since 1987. And yet I am put on the list of
"terrorists" serially and indefinitely and I am
subjected to what are deviously described as temporary
restrictive sanctions but which in fact are indefinite
punitive sanctions.
All banks, insurance companies and other financial
institutions are prohibited from having any transaction
with me. My personal bank account has been frozen,
including the amounts which have all come from the social
welfare agencies. Previously, the social benefits for
living allowance, housing and health insurance were
provided because the Dutch authorities had prohibited me
(as an asylum seeker) from getting employment. Those
social benefits have been taken away completely since
October 28, 2002 when the European Council decided to put
me on its "terrorist" list after the Dutch
government repealed its own sanction regulation against
me. All border authorities are ordered to be on the look
out for me by way of calumny, as if I were a dangerous
criminal.
The Sword Of Damocles Hangs Over Me
The European governments have collectively and separately
adopted positions, decision and laws that are repressive
and fascistic. They can arbitrarily arrest and detain
anyone on mere suspicion of being a terrorist. They can
deprive him of access to counsel and evidence. They can
separate him from other detainees and keep him under
conditions worse than those accorded to other detainees.
So far, the Dutch authorities have not yet made a move to
arrest and detain me. But the sword of Damocles hangs
over me. I am constantly under threat of being charged
with the crime of terrorism and being subjected to a US
request for my detention prior to extradition or
extradition straight to a place like Guantanamo or Abu
Ghraib (the notorious US hellholes in Cuba and Iraq,
where it holds "terrorists" indefinitely
without trial or charge, and subject to repeated torture.
Ed.).
My rights under the European Convention on Human Rights
are so brazenly violated. I am deprived of the essentials
of human needs. The basic right to human life is put at
risk by seizures of property and deprivations which
amount to punishment worse than that imposed on convicted
murderers who are provided with the essentials of human
needs in prison. The punitive measures have been applied
on me without due process. I have been ordered to leave
the house where I stay with my wife and son. Thus, my
right to private and family life is violated.
When my lawyers cite Resolution 1450 of the UN Security
Council, allowing transactions related to essential human
needs and professional fees, we are told by the lawyers
of the Dutch government and the European Council that no
benefit comes to me from said resolution because it is
applicable only to those suspected of belonging to Al
Qaeda. Thus, my lawyers protest that even the suspected
perpetrators of 9/11 have more rights than I have.
I am subjected to worse material and damage due to the
official efforts of the US and other governments to
demonise and stigmatise me as "terrorist".
Opportunities to share my knowledge and experience as a
teacher or to earn income commensurate to my professional
training and competence have been taken away. Potential
employers and partners are discouraged. For instance, a
book-publishing project has been delayed several times.
But the loss of income is nothing compared to the grave
threats to my life and physical integrity due to the
official incitement of hatred and violence against my
person.
And yet nowhere in the world can I be held liable for the
heinous crime of terrorism for the simple reason that
there is no basis whatsoever for starting a criminal
investigation. Not in the Philippines, because up to now
the political descendants of Marcos have failed to push
the passage of their anti-terrorism bill. The most
reasonable and democratic-minded jurists know that there
are more than enough laws to handle the most heinous of
common crimes. Philippine jurisprudence upholds the
doctrine of political offence, which differentiates
rebellion or revolution from common crimes. But with
overweening arrogance, the US and its imperialist allies
seek to impose its hysteria on the Philippines and usurp
jurisdiction over entities and events in the Philippines.
At this point, you might ask why the US and the Dutch
governments are collaborating so closely to persecute me.
They have always collaborated in opposing national
liberation movements and in controlling the oil and other
natural resources in Southeast Asia. They are the major
partners in the Malampaya Sound* project, involving the
exploitation of gas resources and the operation of the
long pipelines to Luzon. They are accomplices in many
current acts of aggression and plunder in the Balkans,
Middle East and elsewhere. *Malampaya is an offshore
natural gas project, near the island of Palawan. The gas
is piped to the Philippines' main island of Luzon. Ed.
The matter of my being listed a "terrorist" by
the imperialist monsters is so serious because it
involves not only my life but also the integrity of the
national liberation movement in the Philippines. But
sometimes I get a big laugh out of the fact that I am not
in any way linked with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda,
unlike the Bush family which has close relations with the
Bin Laden family through the Carlyle group of investors,
which have big investments in military production, oil
and other enterprises dependent on State intervention and
State contracts.
Courses Of Action
My compatriots, friends and I have acted resolutely and
vigorously to expose and oppose the use of the false
charge of terrorism against me in particular and against
the national liberation movement, the patriotic and
progressive forces and their leaders and members in the
Philippines. We are also conscious of contributing
thereby to the struggle of the national liberation
movements in other countries.
We have adopted and undertaken several courses of action.
These include educational work, political action, legal
action and negotiation. The International DEFEND
Committee and its country committees and the
International League of Peoples' Struggle and its
national chapters have been the most active in
undertaking campaigns and activities to arouse, organise
and mobilise the people and to raise resources in my
defense and in fighting back.
· Educational work. We have done various types of
information and educational work on the case and its
various aspects. We have published the pertinent
materials in leaflets and pamphlets, in e-mail circulars
and on several Websites, including the following: www.defendsison.be and sisonlegaldefense.250free.com. We have held study meetings,
conferences and seminars. We have encouraged
organisations to do so. I am happy that this conference
is being held. We have carried out cultural activities
that defend me and support the call for national
liberation of the Filipino people from US imperialism. We
are urging further research, especially legal research,
to aid both legal action and political action.
· Political action. We have collected signatures on
petitions from the organised masses as well as the
spontaneous masses at public places on ordinary days and
during marches and rallies. We have also solicited the
signatures and support of parliamentarians, trade union
leaders, academics, jurists, religious leaders, human
rights luminaries and other prominent personalities in
order to encourage more people to join us. We have
carried out pickets and demonstrations for the purpose of
making protests and demands on the case. We have
successfully requested other organisations to take up the
case. We have joined international conferences and huge
marches and rallies against war and imperialism in order
to condemn the US as a terrorist force and to raise the
issue of the "terrorist" listing.
· Legal action. We have filed complaints in
administrative processes against Dutch agencies mainly
for terminating my social benefits and violating my
rights. We have laid the ground for legal action in the
courts, up to the level of the European Court of Human
Rights in Strasbourg (France). We have filed a complaint
before the European Court of Justice (First Instance) in
Luxembourg against the European Council for putting me on
its "terrorist" list. In this case, the NDFP
negotiating panel is an intervenor in my favor. In each
case going to a European court, I have an international
battery of lawyers. The Amsterdam Clinic of International
Law based in the University of Amsterdam is assisting me.
The Philippine-based Public Interest Law Center is a
participant or cooperator in all the cases. It stands
guard against whatever legal mischief the GRP might do in
collaboration with the US and Dutch governments. There
are also lawyers ready to fight any attempt to use
against me the US-Dutch extradition treaty.
· Negotiation. There have been several opportunities for
availing of the method of negotiation. The NDFP has asked
groups of parliamentarians to uphold the 1997 and 1999
resolutions of the European Parliament in support of the
GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. It has also asked the third
party facilitator, the Norwegian government, to deal with
the obstacles posed by the European Council and certain
governments to these negotiations. The NDFP has required
the GRP to comply with solemn agreements and to join the
NDFP in reaffirming the following: the mutually
acceptable principle of national sovereignty in the 1992
Hague Joint Declaration in order to frustrate the
usurpation of jurisdiction by the US and other
governments, the safety and immunity guarantees in the
1995 Joint Agreement of Safety and Immunity Guarantees
and the Hernandez political offence doctrine in the 1998
Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and
International Humanitarian Law. The formal talks in the
GRP-NFP peace negotiations have been resumed recently
upon the premise that effective measures are sought and
realised to remove from the "terrorist" listing
the CPP, NPA and the NDFP chief political consultant.
· Fundraising. We consider fundraising important because
we need funds for publications and other necessities.
Even as my lawyers provide their services pro bono, there
are certain unavoidable expenses that must be met. The
legal defence fund is under the care of religious leaders
in a foundation based in The Netherlands. There are
various ways of raising funds: passing the hat among the
people in meetings, selling tickets to cultural affairs
and to lunch or dinner lectures and marking up the prices
of books, CD Roms and campaign paraphernalia (T-shirts,
pamphlets and buttons) for the sake of solidarity and
support. Recently the fundraisers have asked me to record
my songs and poem recitations on video clips and CDs. I
have agreed, in order to take on one more form of
struggle, which is instructive and yet entertaining.
In concluding, I express my deep gratitude to all
compatriots and friends who have joined or supported the
campaign to defend me as well as the struggle for
national liberation, democracy and social justice in the
Philippines.
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