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Migrante response to Focus on the Global South
By Migrante International Executive Committee
February 2, 2005

As an alliance of people’s organizations composed of overseas Filipinos and their families, Migrante International slams Focus on the Global South’s recent attacks on Migrante and other progressive organizations.

Bello and his band of pseudo-progressive and obscure groups, like Focus on the Global South, launched a baseless tirade against Prof. Jose Maria Sison and in the process, yanked other groups into their dragnet.

In Global South’s statement, “Assassination and violence have no role in civil society”, they imply Migrante and other organizations are communist fronts by alleging that we “are associated or working closely with” the Communist Party of the Philippines.

This statement stems from Bello and Etta Rosales’ earlier erroneous rant to Prof. Sison against their inclusion in an alleged “hit list” released in a Communist Party of the Philippines publication. Instead of sticking to the facts and filing their objection with those responsible for the diagram – Bello and Rosales twisted information to validate their groundless assault against Sison and other legitimate anti-imperialist organizations.

By doing so, they and their groups expose themselves as mere mouthpieces of the local Arroyo regime and US imperialism. It is a fact that the Ford Foundation and other US-based groups fund Bello and his gang because they serve imperialism’s desire to douse cold water on the raging people’s movement against imperialist globalization.

They are nothing but poseurs who are only too willing to aim the gun at
legitimate organizations engaged in the daily fight for genuine freedom and justice.

In the line of fire

By linking our and other organizations to the CPP, Bello and Global South know full well that by doing so, they put our members and the other groups in the fascist state’s line of fire.

In countless cases, the Arroyo regime engages in the cold-blooded murder and summary execution of activists based on little more than anti-communist black propaganda. The blood of peasant and worker martyrs they murdered still seeps through soils across our archipelago.

The people’s organizations Bello and the Focus on the Global South maliciously paint as communist fronts are legitimate groups with a long history of valiant struggle for national democracy in the Philippines.

We are among the ranks of the people braving state bullets, facing fascist police and fighting against oppressive systems that force our continued exploitation. Systems that Bello and his band directly and indirectly work to serve and protect.

Contrary to the lies that Bello, the Global South and their ilk peddle, Migrante International is a legal organization with no links to the Communist Party of the Philippines. We also question why Global South would deem it necessary to even name organizations such as ours.

Red-baiting progressive organizations
Clearly, although Global South claims it is not in the practice of drawing attention to the status of its members – it willingly or unwittingly engages in the practice of using red-baiting tactics geared towards discrediting legitimate organizations deeply rooted among the peoplel.

We reiterate that Migrante International’s thrust is to forward the rights and welfare of overseas Filipinos and their families. From Flor Contemplacion in 1995 to Angelo dela Cruz in 2004, Migrante consistently upholds and advances the rights of the sector the Philippine government calls “modern heroes” even though our reality is that we are treated as “modern slaves”.

We arouse, organize and mobilize overseas Filipinos and their families within the national democratic struggle because history teaches us that our struggle is intertwined with the workers and peasants demand for national industrialization and genuine land reform. For it is only when our people are free from the stranglehold of imperialist globalization that the root causes of why more than 3,000 Filipino workers are forced to go overseas is addressed.

Migrante International is an active member of numerous regional and international organizations. We are also among the groups at the forefront of creating an international migrants alliance that will be capable of launching coordinated anti-imperialist campaigns on a global level.

Regarding the claim of Bello and others about the Ang Bayan diagram, it is best if one examines the diagram at <http://www.philippinerevolution.org/>www.philippinerevolution.org in order to ascertain for themselves the veracity of allegations that the diagram is indeed a “hit list”.

To conclude, we remind Bello and his gang that such red-baiting and witch-hunt like tactics further expose whose interests they truly serve – especially since historically, such schemes are used to silence those that dare mount and forward a genuine anti-imperialist struggle. ###


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MIGRANTE INTERNATIONAL
[email protected]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/migrante-news-monitor/
http://www.migrante.org
49 Mayaman corner Matahimik Streets,
UP Village, Quezon City, Philippines
telefax: (632) 926-2838
telephone: (63-2)425-1259
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