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PRESS STATEMENTS & INTERVIEWS, 2001 - Present |
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Press Statement THE US AND ITS PUPPETS CANNOT TERRORIZE THE NDFP By Jose Maria Sison Under the mutually acceptable principle of national sovereignty in The Hague Joint Declaration, both the Government of the Republic of the (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) can ignore the current US list of so-called terrorist organizations and move forward in implementing the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and in proceeding with the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. This is not the first time that the New People’s Army (NPA) is included in such a US blacklist. The NPA has been in that kind of list since several years ago but the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations have been able to proceed. In this connection, I urge the signing of the Joint Statement, the Operational Guidelines for the Joint Monitoring Committee and the Document of Understanding by the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels in order to accelerate the peace negotiations. We must criticize certain officials of the GRP who are so used to being servile to US imperialism that they openly interpret the inclusion of the NPA in the US blacklist as a ban on the GRP peace negotiations with the NDFP. The worst among such GRP officials go so far as to speculate that the blacklist can terrorize the NDFP into capitulation within a few months’ time. To try to rush the peace negotiations beyond a realistic and reasonable pace might only delay or even scuttle it. The entire GRP should be reminded that the revolutionary forces, represented by the NDFP negotiating panel, have been successfully waging a protracted people’s war for more than 32 years. The revolutionary forces and the people were able to prevail over a 14-year long fascist dictatorship and to grow in strength against every form of US intervention and assistance to prop up the local reactionaries and attack the revolutionary movement. The costly high-tech weaponry of the US is effective for attacking city-based governments and their fixed physical structures as in the case of Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. But it is not as effective against a highly motivated and battle-tested people’s army waging guerrilla warfare in accordance with the strategic principle of encircling the cities from the countryside. At any rate, the US would be further overstretching itself and causing its own isolation by recklessly unleashing terrorism against peoples waging revolution, nations fighting for liberation and countries asserting national independence. At this point, may we remind everyone that so far the US has not in any way paid for its colossal terrorist act of massacring and causing the death of one-tenth of the Philippine population during the US war of aggression from 1899 onward. US imperialism continues to oppress and exploit the Filipino people and thus challenge them to fight for national liberation and democracy. The US will only aggravate the crisis of the world economy and will only cause further disorder and turbulence in the world by promoting war production, grabbing more economic territory for exploitation and unleashing wars of aggression and other violent acts of intervention under the pretext of making a "global assault on terrorism". The rapidly worsening crisis of the domestic ruling system and the world capitalist system provides favorable conditions for the Philippine revolution. The GRP is a bankrupt and beggarly government that is already being opposed by several armies. If the GRP wants to end the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, the NDFP is ready to fight the further escalation of state terrorism. The NDFP cannot be terrorized into capitulation by the state terrorism of the US and its local puppets. In the past, the open rule of terror by the Marcos fascist regime under the instigation of the US merely served to outrage the people and strengthen the armed revolution. At this stage of the civil war in the Philippines, the revolutionary forces and the people are endowed with rich experience and with hard-won political and military strength and are bound to advance more rapidly in their revolutionary struggle. The smarter move on the part of the GRP would be to engage in peace negotiations with the NDFP within the framework of The Hague Joint Declaration of 1992 rather than to try to terrorize the NDFP into a framework of capitulation. The further escalation of state terrorism will only serve to fan the flames of the armed revolution. By having a people’s army, the people have something to defend themselves with and to strive for victory in the revolution. The GRP should disabuse itself of the illusion that it can evade the necessity of addressing the root causes of the civil war in the peace negotiations and can achieve its reactionary objective of pacification so easily. # |
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