PRESS STATEMENTS

PRESS STATEMENTS & INTERVIEWS, 2001 - Present

Interview With Prof. Jose Maria Sison

By Sonny Mallari
Southern Tagalog Correspondent
Philippine Daily Inquirer
July 25, 2003

Channel 7 has reported in Manila that the Dutch government has ordered the freezing of all your bank accounts and has also deprived you of all social benefits due to you as a recognized political refugee.
Anyway, can you enlighten me on this? Was there really a new order by the Dutch government. What action did you take upon receiving the March 2003 orders? What do you plan to do now (with the new order)?

Reply: You must be referring to the July 15 ruling of the Utrecht municipal court that it does not have the power to grant to me provisional measures (i.e. the restoration of social benefits while the case about the validity of withdrawing these is being tried in court). I have instructed my Dutch lawyers to accelerate the consolidation of my complaints against the punitive measures taken against me and the violations of my rights.

The main case pertaining to the social benefits will soon be in court at a higher level. My chances of appeal reach up to the level of the Council of State in The Hague and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. I shall be in the main complaining against the violation of my human rights.

Would this affect the scheduled exploratory talks with the GRP peace panel?

Reply: There is yet no date for exploratory talks. In the first place, it is the GRP that is no longer interested in resuming the peace negotiations with the NDFP. The GRP is in cahoots with the US in trying to pressure not just the NDFP chief political consultant but the NDFP to capitulate by signing a "final peace agreement" onesidedly drafted by the GRP. However, the main interest of the US is in the termination of the peace negotiations and in the escalation of US military intervention in the Philippines. Bush and Gloria know that the NDFP will not capitulate. Both of them love to escalate war in order to cover up their wrongdoings and aggravation of the economic and social crisis.

The NDFP is always willing to resume the peace negotiations with the GRP in accordance with the framework mutually agreed upon in The Hague Joint Declaration in 1992 and reaffirmed in Manila and Oslo in March and April 2001. Under the mutually acceptable principle of national sovereignty , the GRP and NDFP should make a declaration against the malicious attempts of the US to claim jurisdiction over Filipinos who have never set foot in any US territory and to foul up the peace negotiations under the pretext of helping the GRP to intimidate and pressure the NDFP.

The Macapagal-Arroyo regime has come out as extremely puppet and servile by conceding to the US jurisdiction over Filipinos for alleged acts committed in the Philippines. The irony of it all is that the US is an imperialist power which claims jurisdiction over its military troops even when they kill Filipinos in the Philippines. The US has no ground whatsoever for listing anyone involved in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations as "terrorist" and subjecting him or her to punitive measures abroad.

The GRP officials are truly puppets by letting the US do as they please against Filipinos and by forgetting that there is the Hernandez political offense doctrine and that there are certain GRP-NDFP agreements like those on immunity and safety guarantees and on respect for human rights and international humanitarian law which should prevent the US from terrorizing NDFP panelists, consultants, staffers and volunteers with the trumped up charge of "terrorism".

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