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PRESS STATEMENTS & INTERVIEWS, 2001 - Present |
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Complaints should be submitted to the NDFP-JMC and not to the
NDFP Chief Political Consultant It is only today that I get the full text of the open letter of Walden Bello and Etta Rosales, reported on by Juan Sarmiento in the December 26, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and others in other Manila newspapers. My press statement dated December 26, 2004 has already countered the main line of attack against me. I have exposed as a lie the claim that a diagram, exposing the fragmented
status and international connections of certain Let me begin to answer certain false claims in the open letter that were
not covered by the previous report of Sarmiento. Answer: Because they are anti-CPP, the letter writers can easily scoff at the resoluteness of the CPP and the people in revolutionary resistance as mere “obsession”. They profit from being reformists and well-behaved citizens of the oppressive state. They deprecate the armed revolution of the people and in effect celebrate the fact that the oppressors and exploiters never tire of oppressing and exploiting the people. 3. False claim: Because the CPP regards armed struggle as the principal form of struggle, it regards all other forms of struggle as inferior and threatening to this. Answer: The national democratic movement led by the CPP has always developed and excelled in all forms of political struggle, even as Marxism-Leninism teaches that it takes an armed revolution to topple bourgeois state power. The pseudo-revolutionaries and reformists should not imagine that they are more successful than the national democratic movement in various forms of legal struggle. The CPP has always considered both the legal and the armed forms of struggle as necessary and helpful to each other. 4. False claim: The revolutionary armed struggle has not at all empowered the communities under the CPP leadership. Answer: The CPP has aroused, organized and mobilized millions of people, built itself as the party of the working class, the people’s army, organs of political power, mass organizations and alliances of various types. It has thereby led the people in struggles to empower themselves in urban and rural areas. The accomplishments of the CPP and the people in revolutionary struggle are described in the 36th anniversary message of the CPP Central Committee. This can be read at www.philippinerevolution.org 5. False claim: The NPA behaves as badly as the paramilitary units of the AFP. Answer: The letter writers try to put down the NPA by equating it with the paramilitary units of the AFP. They also imply their high regard for the AFP and PNP regulars. They are indeed good citizens of the reactionary state. The AFP and PNP regulars and their paramilitary adjuncts commit the grossest human rights violations on the widest scale. These are well documented. The letter writers, Walden Bello and Etta Rosales, can talk and write as much as they want against the CPP and other revolutionary forces. And they can be sure that these targets of their malice will always respect their right of free speech and will answer with the facts and well-reasoned arguments in order to win the ideological and political struggle through debate. But it is another matter if for example there is a criminal complaint with sufficient evidence that Bello is receiving imperialist funds not only for holding conferences and issuing publications but for organizing groups dedicated to intelligence and psywar for the imperialists against the patriotic and progressive forces. Also, it is another matter if for example there is a criminal complaint against Rosales for stealing funds from her congressional committee, covering up human rights violations or conniving with Imee Marcos in blocking the indemnification of the winning plaintiffs in the US court judgment against the Marcos estate. Even as the Akbayan and related groups assert that they have the right to engage in any activity, the revolutionary forces will not allow them to use imperialist funds to intrude into the territory of the revolutionary government, undermine the people’s government and use the AFP, PNP and official and unofficial paramilitary units against the people and the people’s army in Bondoc Peninsula and certain parts of Mindoro and Mindanao. The earlier false claims of Akbayan and others against the revolutionary movement are being answered by the appropriate organs of the people’s government. However, Anak ng Bayan, a progressive party in the party list, is still waiting for a satisfactory answer to its a complaint against the criminal connivance of Akbayan, the national security adviser, the AFP and PNP in committing electoral fraud and terrorism. The NDFP, as representative of the revolutionary forces, is firmly committed to the implementation of the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and has cooperated with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) in establishing the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) of the GRP and the NDFP. Complaints against any side in the current civil war between the revolutionary government and the reactionary government can be submitted by any entity to the appropriate section of the JMC. If Bello, Rosales, Akbayan have any complaints, they should make the
appropriate submission to the NDFP-JMC and not to the NDFP chief political
consultant. Their claims about the death of Nong Boy Ocmen in Agusan del
Norte and another unnamed person in Nueva Ecija are specific enough. They
should bring up the complaint with NDFP-JMC and present the facts. But
shotgun allegations should be avoided, like the following: Answer: Since a long time ago, the CPP, NPA and NDFP have declared and implemented the policy of recruiting and deploying for offensive combat operations young men and women who are not younger than 18 years and for self-defense training those not younger than 15 years of age. During their offensive attacks on communities under the governance of the revolutionary forces, the AFP, PNP and CAFGU kidnap children below 18 years of age, misrepresent these as NPA soldiers, detain them and display them for psywar in violation of the Geneva Conventions. 2. False claim: The NPA engage in gross human rights violations and destruction of property in much the same way as the police and military. Answer: This claim is not at all borne out by the complaints and facts submitted to the JMC and to the human rights organizations. The letter writers are misusing the name of the Amnesty International in this regard. 3. False claim: The NPA extorts money from electoral candidates in exchange for the “permit to campaign”. Answer: The clerico-fascists in the GRP negotiating panel made in early 2004 big accusations against the NPA for supposedly extorting money from the electoral candidates early this year. But they never presented any facts. They simply demanded with utmost arrogance that the NDFP submit to the GRP negotiating panel the list of candidates who were supposed to have paid extortion money, state the amount collected per entity and return the money to the said candidates. The clerico-fascists shut up as soon as the NDFP panel countered that the GRP panel was offering neither a single witness nor documentary evidence and demanded an accounting by Macapagal-Arroyo of how much bribe money she was collecting from so many projects and how much government money she was using for her electoral campaign. The truth of the matter is that every election time candidates and parties approach the revolutionary movement for alliance and cooperation, truce or safe conduct and they make offers for the benefit of the people and the revolutionary movement. Whenever there are terms of agreement for the benefit of the people and the revolutionary movement,the revolutionary leaders concerned exercise all necessary prudence. The clerico-fascists and military psywar experts have systematically misrepresented the revolutionary leaders as imprudent and indiscreet and the NPA as extorting money from the electoral candidates and parties and imposing a tax on their right to speak and campaign. I conclude this press statement by challenging Bello, Rosales and Akbayan to submit their complaints and evidence of human rights violations to the NDFP-Joint Monitoring Committee and not to the NDFP chief political consultant, unless their real exclusive intention is merely to demonize me and set me up for physical attack in line with the “terrorist” labeling done by the US and other governments. The CARHRIHL provides for the NDFP and the revolutionary forces and people it represents to arrest suspected violators of human rights and international humanitarian law, investigate them and , if the evidence warrants, to prosecute and try them.###
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