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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS |
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Dear friends, participating organisations of the ILPS, all democratic and anti-imperialist organisations and grassroots peoples movements, this is an urgent call to action in support of the person of our Chairman Prof. Jose Maria Sison and the condemnation of the sinister imperialist-backed plots against the cause of national and social liberation in general. In late December 2004, as the world witnessed one of the worst natural disasters in Southeast Asia that led to the death of hundreds of thousands of the poorest, most exploited and marginalised people on earth and that also left even more people destitute and in danger of disease and hunger across the region and as the imperialist powers were clambering to use this opportunity as a public relations exercise to portray a humanised image of the barbarism and savagery perpetrated in Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions by US imperialism and its allies, another sinister plot was being hatched against the oppressed peoples of the world. A group in the Philippines led by one Walden Bello issued a calculated attack through an open letter that was published in the Filipino mainstream media, accusing the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its founding Chairman, Prof. Jose Maria Sison of targeting him by putting him on a fictitious “hit list”. This sinister attack commenced only a few weeks after the holding of the Second International Assembly of the ILPS, that ratified its general declaration entitled “Strengthen worldwide solidarity and support for national and social liberation!” and unanimously elected Prof. Jose Maria Sison as the Chairman of the ILPS. Walden Bello basing his attack on a diagram published in a CPP publication, claiming there is enough proof and evidence of intent to eliminate him, initiated a dirty campaign of character assassination and demonisation, singling out and targeting Prof Jose Maria Sison as the author of this diagram. The diagram is not unusual and merely attempts to graphically sketch the Filipino family tree of some of the counter-revolutionary and reformist tendencies, naming some existing and some no longer active individuals fronting such entities or trends. In fact no one, not even Mr. W. Bello is disputing the facts in the diagram. He not only does not oppose this diagram as wrongfully categorising him and his tendency as a counter-revolutionary but goes beyond subtlety to express his utter contempt for revolution and revolutionaries – past, present and future. In late December, the ILPS Information Bureau, as a matter of norm circulated documents and response from Prof. Sison and other progressive and revolutionary sources from the Philippines to ILPS’s own lists and other lists open to us informing the movement of these issues. Almost everyone considered this as unquestionably suspicious and expressed amazement that anyone claiming to be working for social justice let alone its “ideologue” and “leader” would choose to launch such a vividly sinister campaign. Yet this persistence to sell a lie continues till today. Later in January, when the first attacks seemed to have slowed down, a bunch of civil society activists based in Thailand, Global Focus on the South close to W. Bello, began a signature campaign to condemn Prof. Jose Maria Sison and the Philippine revolutionary movement for this alleged “hit list”. But this time they went even further in their anti-people project naming and identifying some of the foremost and active anti-imperialist and legal mass organisations as “fronts of CPP”. They included the ILPS and some of its participating organizations such as the KMU, KMP and IBON This reactionary provocation designed to intimidate and threaten progressive and democratic organisations can only be the work of political delinquents and carries all the trademarks of US imperialism, the Philippine government and the intelligence agencies with the only difference that this time it carries signatures of W. Bello’s “civil society” partners. Clearly, this attack is part and parcel of the US imperialist agenda in Southeast Asia and against the rising tide of the national and social liberation struggles worldwide. We are all aware, that Prof. Sison and the CPP were put on the US state department’s “terror” list soon after the US declared the Philippines as the “second front” in the US’s “war on terror” that was launched using the pretext of the September 11. Since the beginning of this reactionary plot and the European collaboration with it, the ILPS and all its participating organisations have stood shoulder to shoulder with Prof. Jose Maria Sison and the people’s movement in the Philippines to defend his democratic rights, condemn the demonisation of the cause of national and social liberation and continue to fight the so-called terrorist listing. We call on all ILPS members to once again rally to the support of Prof. Jose Maria Sison and condemn the reactionary attempts by Walden Bello and his cohorts to curry favour to the enemies of the people. We call on all progressive, democratic and anti-imperialist organisations and individuals to participate in the struggle to expose this menace and to disassociate themselves from the perpetrators of this dirty campaign designed to intimidate and threaten progressives and revolutionaries. We regard this attack against Prof. Jose Maria Sison, the chairman of ILPS Initiative committee, General Consultant and presently the elected chairman of ILPS, as an outright attack on the ILPS and our common cause and struggle against imperialism and all reaction. |
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