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PRESS STATEMENTS & INTERVIEWS, 2001 - Present |
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CPP, NPA and NDFP Uphold Human Rights The constitutional Guide for Establishing the People’s Democratic Government sets forth the fundamental rights of the people. The constitutions of the CPP and other revolutionary forces define the rights and duties of their members and leading organs in consonance with democratic principles. The Basic Rules of the New People’s Army require respect for human rights and humanitarian law The CPP has carried out two major rectification movements since 1968. These are educational in character. They involve the summing up of experience in order to learn positive and negative lessons, criticize and and rectify major errors and shortcomings and clarify the new tasks. The Second Rectification Movement (SGRM) from 1992 onwards has been resoundingly successful, as proven by the tremendous growth in strength and advance of all the revolutionary forces and people under the CPP leadership in all forms of struggle. SGRM documents identify only a handful of renegades culpable for grave crimes. These few have collaborated with the Trotskyites and other rabid anti-communist propagandists since 1992 in misrepresenting the rectification movement as a “Stalinist bloody purge” worse than Kampanyang Ahos. But to this date, they can cite only the three cases of Filemon Lagman, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara as so-called purge victims. In fact, Lagman was killed by the ABB-RPA gang due to a row over 80 million pesos from the bribe money from Amari for the ejection of an urban poor community. CPP spokesman Ka Roger has declared to the public that Kintanar and Tabara were killed in the course of violently resisting arrest. They had been charged with grave crimes before the judicial organs of the people’s revolutionary government. According to information from the CPP, Ricardo Reyes is not criminally liable for being chairperson of Akbayan but he is criminally liable for having been an intelligence asset of Colonel Robert Delfin and for being one of the masterminds of Kampanyang Ahos that victimized hundreds of CPP cadres and members, NPA commanders and fighters and mass leaders and members in the period of 1985 to 1986. He also allegedly directs anti-NPA armed gangs in Bondoc peninsula and elsewhere. Consistent with the SGRM, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) promulgated the Unilateral Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I in 1996. It worked harder than the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) in forging the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) in the peace negotiations. Since the approval of CARHRIHL by the NDFP and GRP principals in 1998, the NDFP has vigorously pushed for the implementation of this agreement and for the organization of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC). The Joint Secretariat of the JMC was established in Manila in 2004, with the assistance of the Norwegian government. The GRP and NDFP Sections of the JMC are authorized to receive complaints against violations of CARHRIHL. So far, 275 cases of human rights violations have been filed against the GRP and only two against the NDFP. The Akbayan ringleaders know that the JMC or any of its two sections is the proper venue for receiving such complaints and related evidence. It is utterly wrong for them to address their complaints to the NDFP chief political consultant. In the first place, it is unjust and malicious of Walden Bello, Etta Rosales and other ringleaders of Akbayan to go to the press and misrepresent as a “hit list” a mere diagram of the state of fragmentation of several anti-communist grouplets and their ideological and political connections with Trotskyite and social democratic groups abroad. There is absolutely nothing in the diagram to prove or indicate that any or all those in the list will be killed by anyone or any organization. Philippine Daily Inquirer readers can visit www.philippinerevolution.org to examine the diagram in the December 7, 2004 issue of Ang Bayan. Akbayan is utterly malicious in spreading the lie that those who drop out of the CPP and criticize it are subject to execution. As founding chairman of the CPP, I know enough of revolutionary principles, policy and practice to say that Reyes cannot be punished for holding pseudo-progressive or even counterrevolutionary ideas or beliefs. But criminal charges involving espionage, Kampanyang Ahos and armed counterrevolution are an entirely different matter. I speak only in general terms. I do not know the precise status of the cases against Reyes. The ringleaders of Akbayan pose as protecting Reyes from the long reach of revolutionary justice. But they are after bigger game. They want nothing less than the destruction of the CPP and the entire revolutionary movement of the people. They use one baseless charge to slander and summarily condemn the CPP and this writer in the foulest old style of cold war witchhunts and in the new style of the so-called war on terror. And then, they pour out so many additional accusations without bothering to provide evidence. I leave these to be answered by others. The ringleaders of Akbayan like to present themselves as concerned with democracy and human rights. But they violate the rights of others to serve their selfish interests.. They wantonly slander me and try to incite the public in the Philippines and abroad to attack my character, physical integrity and life. In the most cowardly fashion, they are taking a ride on the Bush “war on terror” and on the “terrorist” listing initiated by the US. Walden Bello has gone so far as to blatantly violate my basic human right
by falsely accusing me of being responsible for the so-called hit list.
He tries to impress the public by claiming that he was once before a CPP
insider in order to buttress his self-presentation as an anti-CPP informer.
This highly-paid agent of the Ford Foundation and other imperialist funding
agencies is really overstretching himself. |
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