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ILPS Welcomes and Supports
Second Session on the Philippines
by the Permanent People's Tribunal
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
30 October 2006
We, the International League of Peoples" Struggle (ILPS), welcome and support the convening
of the Second Session on the Philippines under the auspices of the Permanent People's Tribunal
(PPT) of the Rome-based Lelio Basso International Foundation for the Rights and Liberation of
Peoples.
We are deeply pleased with the related proceedings which are organized by the International
Coordinating Secretariat in The Hague, Netherlands and by the Philippine initiating organizations
through the Philippine Coordinating Secretariat in Metro Manila, Philippines for the purpose of
convening the session on 30 October 2006.
We stand in solidarity with the PPT, the Philippine initiating organizations, members of the jury,
the complainants, prosecutors, witnesses, experts, amici curiae, the sponsors, supporters, the
Philippine Coordinating Secretariat and International Coordinating Secretariat in the case of the
Filipino people against the Arroyo regime and its foreign accomplices headed by the US and
US-controlled agencies.
We agree that the cause of justice is served by charging and trying the accused for the following
three grave criminal offenses:
1. Extra-judicial killings, massacres, abductions and enforced disappearances, torture, arson,
bombings, mass intimidation, forced mass evacuation and other gross human rights violations
against individuals, organizations and communities. (Most brazen of these crimes against civil
and political rights are those victimizing unarmed political activists, workers, peasants, women,
youth, church people, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders and peace advocates).
2. Economic plunder, including the imposition of the US policy of neoliberal globalization", the
violation of Philippine economic sovereignty by foreign monopoly capitalism, the sell-out of the
national patrimony, unscrupulous superprofit-taking by the US and other multinational firms,
debt bondage to the imperialist banks and bureaucratic corruption of the Arroyo regime.
3. Transgression of Philippine national sovereignty, including treason by the Arroyo regime,
all-out war policy and use of state terrorism to keep the Arroyo puppet clique in power and
to align with the US global war of terror and aggression, the culpability of the Arroyo regime
and the US for war crimes and crimes of humanity, the encroachment on Philippine territory
by US military interventionist forces and surrender of jurisdiction to the US over criminal cases
in the Philippines.
The above three charges are closely and necessarily interrelated. The violations of the human
rights of specific individuals, groups and communities under charge No. 1 constitute the bulk
of the concrete and vivid cases against the Arroyo regime and its foreign accomplices. At the
same time, the motive of greed for the attacks on civil and political rights must be exposed.
Economic plunder on its own account is a colossal crime and thus charge No. 2 is leveled against
the accused. Under charge No. 3, the use of state terrorism to serve the political survival of
the Arroyo regime and the hegemony of US imperialism involves the transgression of Philippine
national sovereignty and the commission of crimes under international law.
We wish all the various participants in the Second Session of the PPT on the Philippines the
utmost success in preparing for their respective parts in the public trial to be held in The Hague,
The Netherlands in March 2007. They have a highly important responsibility in upholding,
defending and promoting the rights and liberation of the Filipino people in accordance with
the Algiers Declaration and international law on human rights and the rights of nations. We
hope that the PPT Second Session will be a resounding success as a result of conscientious
hard work dedicated to the extremely and intolerably oppressed and exploited Filipino people.
The First Session of the PPT on the Philippines, which tried in 1980 in Antwerp the case of
the Filipino people at the suit of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the Moro
National Liberation Front against the Marcos fascist regime and its foreign accomplices headed
by the US, was a signal event. It was a nodal point not only in the struggle against the US-propped
Marcos fascist dictatorship but also in the long-term struggle against the rotten semicolonial and
semifeudal ruling system in the Philippines.
We hope that the Second Session of the Permanent People's Tribunal on the Philippines attains
the utmost success in exposing and opposing the colossal crimes of the Arroyo regime and its
foreign accomplices against the Filipino people, in illuminating the road for achieving national liberation,
democracy, social justice, progress and peace and in inspiring the Filipino people to fight ever more
resolutely and militantly for their rights not only against the current regime but also against the
US-dominated system of the comprador big bourgeoisie and landlord class in the Philippines.###
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