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Why It Is Wrong and Unjust for the US to Label
Prof. Jose Maria Sison as a "Terrorist"
By the International Network for Philippine Studies
1 October 2002
It is absolutely wrong and unjust for the US
government to label and criminalize Prof. Jose Maria Sison as a
"terrorist". So is the Dutch government for
undertaking the repressive measures against him upon the bidding
of the US government.
- There is no factual basis whatsoever for the US government
to label Prof. Jose Maria Sison as a "terrorist".
Contrary to the claim of certain officials of the Macapagal-Arroyo
regime, there is also no basis for the US to request the
Dutch government for his extradition to the US. The national
security adviser of the regime, Roilo Golez, has announced
that the Philippine government will not object to Prof.
Sison’s extradition to the US. He has also indicated that
the Philippine and US governments are reinventing the
records of the investigation and findings in the 1989
killing of US Col. James Rowe in order to trump up a charge
against Prof. Sison.
- However, it would be difficult for the two aforesaid
governments to overcome the 1998 certification of the
Philippine government that there is no pending criminal
charge against Prof. Sison. The charge of subversion filed
against him in 1988 had been dissolved by the repeal of the
Anti-Subversion Law in 1992. The charge related to the 1971
Plaza Miranda bombing, which was belatedly filed against him
in 1991, had been dismissed by the prosecutors as something
based on sheer speculation. The certification was
practically an admission that the Manila authorities had
persecuted Prof. Sison. Since l998, there has been no
criminal charge against him anywhere in the world.
- It must be stressed that from the time of his arrest by
the Marcos fascist regime in 1977 to the time of his release
in 1986 he was subjected to various forms of torture while
he was under maximum-security detention. His human rights
were savagely violated. For this reason, he, together with
other victims of human rights violations, filed a case
against Ferdinand E. Marcos in the US in 1986. After a
decade of litigation, he won his case against Marcos and was
awarded by the court exemplary and compensatory damages
which remain unpaid. It is cruel irony that he is being
demonised as a "terrorist."
- After his release from military prison in early March
1986, he rejoined the faculty of the University of
Philippines as an associate professor in political science.
He was preoccupied with his academic duties and public
speaking engagements in the Philippines until the end of
August 1986. Then he went abroad for a university lecture
tour in the Asia Pacific region and Europe.
- If not for his overseas lecturing, he would have been
assassinated in Manila in November 1986 when Oplan "God
Save the Queen" was carried out by the ultra-Rightist
coup makers. Instead, Rolando Olalia, the chairman of the
Kilusang Mayo Uno and Partido ng Bayan, was kidnapped,
tortured and murdered. Other assassinations plots directed
against Prof. Sison were also frustrated. These included
Oplan Jericho and the offer of one million pesos for his
head under the Aquino regime in 1988-1990 and the sending of
a hit team to the Netherlands in 2000 under the Estrada
regime.
- While he was in The Netherlands in 1988, the Philippine
military charged him with subversion and President Aquino
cancelled his Philippine passport in order to force his
return to the Philippines. He applied for political asylum
in October 1988. He was subsequently recognized as a
political refugee by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
in 1991, the Raad van State in 1992 and 1995 and by the
Dutch government and the Law Unity Chamber in l997. As a
recognized political refugee, he is protected by the Refugee
Convention and the European Convention for the Protection of
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
- In l990, he had been approached by the Aquino regime for
exploratory talks on peace negotiations. He agreed but it
was President Aquino who backed out. But starting in 1992
during the term of the Ramos regime, the peace negotiations
developed within the framework of The Hague Joint
Declaration. Since 1992, Prof. Sison has been the chief
political consultant of the NDFP. He has actively
participated in the forging of ten agreements between the
Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines. The most
substantive of these is the Comprehensive Agreement on
Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.
- Since the time of Marcos, every president of the
Government of the Republic of the Philippines has
communicated with Prof. Sison by letter, phone conversation
and through intermediary. He has exchanged cordialities,
ideas and proposals with them. At the same time, he has
always frankly and transparently stood for his principles
and spoken out his views in a conscious exercise of his
freedom of thought and expression in the national and
democratic interest of the Filipino people.
- The US hates his guts for his commitment to the cause of
national liberation and democracy against imperialist and
feudal domination. Thus, it seeks to criminalize him as
"terrorist" without any kind of evidence and
without due process. It demonizes him and incites hatred
against him. It has pushed the Dutch government to follow
suit in persecuting him, to freeze his small joint account
with his wife, to deprive him of the basic necessities of
life and to violate his basic human right to life.
- The Bush administration must be seen as unjustly and
maliciously using the September 11 attacks as an excuse to
violate the national sovereignty and independence of
countries and launch wars of aggression and to demonize as
terrorist the movements of national liberation as well as
revolutionary and progressive forces and elements. The
strategy of the US is to stir up war hysteria, repress
dissent, step up military production and launch wars of
aggression in a futile attempt to deflect attention from the
grave economic and social crisis of the US and global
capitalist economy.#
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