IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

A Statement of Concern
Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) May First Movement Labor Center
National Executive Committee
January 25, 2005

A signed statement by the staff of Focus on Global South (Focus), dated 15 January 2005, expresses concern over a so-called “hit-list” of the CPP-NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army) which supposedly includes Focus executive director Walden Bello and others.

The statement points at KMU as one of those groups “that are associated or working closely with the CPP” and urges us to denounce “and apply moral suasion on Sison and other leaders of the CPP and NPA to refrain from the threat and use of force and assassination.”

First of all, we can not denounce something which does not even exist. The CPP, NPA and Sison have made it clear that there is no such “hit-list”. Why be concerned about this?

Surely the (self-proclaimed) heroes of a great global movement which claim they have toppled WTO ministerials in Seattle and Cancun have nothing to fear.
Focus said they refrained from issuing the statement “in deference” to the victims of the recent natural disaster in South Asia but had to do so due to the “alarming development” about the well-being of its executive director a recipient of a prestigious award (known as the Alternative Nobel Prize).

KMU commiserates with the victims of the tsunami tragedy and have expressed our sympathies to their families, but we do not give a hoot about award recipients. The Hacienda Luisita masssacre where seven farm workers were killed and a peasant leader assassinated deserves our full focus and attention. Pardon our myopic view but this too has its “global” implications. We don’t explicitate much about “corporative globalisation” that Bello is focusing on, but we care too much about the violence in our country that is an agrarian adjunct of imperialism. We wonder if Focus can really focus on present realities.

KMU is turning 25 this year. All these years, the US and its puppet fascist regimes had pointed at KMU as a “communist front organization”. We paid for this dearly with the lives of our workers. But why is Focus holding on to this old American-style of old red-baiting, a witch-hunting campaign dating back half a century ago? Today the US has tagged the CPP, NPA and Sison as “foreign terrorists”. Is Focus now saying that KMU, being “associated or working closely” with the CPP-NPA, is also a “terrorist”? This is perfectly in tune with the anti-terrorism of Bush and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo whose government is responsible for the killing of Hacienda Luisita strikers in cold-blood.

KMU denounces violence. More so, we denounce the unjust social order which breeds it many times over. Hence, we denounce the malicious statement of Focus that endangers the lives of leaders and members of KMU and other progressive organizations in the Philippines. We appeal to you for what you called “sense of decency” if ever there remains a glimmer of it in your spurious “statement of concern”.

Finally, we denounce all the reactionary efforts to scuttle peace negotiations between the
government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines to which Prof. Jose Ma. Sison is serving well as political consultant. ###