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INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER CONGRATULATES PEOPLE'S HERO JOSE MARIA SISON ON HIS LEGAL TRIUMPH
International Action Center
1 October 2009
The International Action Center, a proud member of the International League of Peoples'
Struggle, joins with people in the Philippines and democratic forces everywhere in
celebrating the removal of people's hero Jose Maria Sison from the "terror list" of
the European Union. We now call upon the government of the United States to
remove his name from its slanderous and unconstitutional "terror list" as well.
Jose Maria Sison has devoted his entire life to the freedom and well-being of the
Philippine people. For this he was imprisoned and tortured for 9 years by the
murderous U.S.-backed Marcos dictatorship, spending 18 months chained to a cot.
As founder and chair of the International League of Peoples' Struggle, he has
fought for the freedom and unity of oppressed and exploited people everywhere.
His branding as a "terrorist" by the United States and the European Union is more
than an injustice, it is an obscenity.
The United States has been carrying out terror against the people of the Philippines
since 1898, when U.S. troops invaded the Philippines and commenced the murder
of at least 1.5 million people. That terror continued through decades of colonial
occupation, the massacre of Hukbalahap resistance fighters after World War II
and the decades of U.S. support for the criminal Marcos dictatorship. It continues
today with the U.S. support for the terrorist regime of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo,
whose military death squads have murdered hundreds of union members, peasant
leaders, community organizers, womens' rights activists, progressive priests and
others guilty only of serving the people. Agents of the GMA regime have also
attempted to murder Chair Sison in the Netherlands, certainly an act of international
terrorism.
JoMa Sison's real "crime" was to try to free the Philippine people from this
century-old reign of terror as well as the poverty, unemployment, landlesseness
and superexploitation that have forced millions of Filipinos to emigrate from their
homeland. The results of this impoverishment can be seen vividly in the needless
suffering caused by Hurricane Ondoy.
The removal of Chair Sison's name from the EU "terror list" is a victory for people
everywhere who are fighting tyranny. We hope that he will soon be able to travel
and speak freely in the United States. And we look forward to the day he can
return to a just and democratic Philippines, whose people are free from imperialism,
poverty and state terror.
Long live the people's struggle! Long live international solidarity!
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