[NYTr] Intvw w/Philippine Revolutionary Jose Maria Sison

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Monthly Review story about Sison's arrest in the Netherlands follows
the interview.]

sent by The Freedom Archives - Sep 10, 2007


Peace Reporter (Italy) - Aug 20, 2007
http://josemariasison.org/inps/PiovesanaJMS.htm

Interview With Prof. Jose Maria Sison

By Enrico Piovesana
Peace Reporter

Enrico Piovesana (EP): Prof. Sison, could you please tell us briefly 
about your personal and political history, from your childhood up to 
becoming an "International terrorist"?

Professor Jose Maria Sison (JMS): I am not a terrorist. I stand for 
principles and actions that are for the benefit of the people 
fighting for national liberation, democracy and socialism. I am a 
Filipino patriot and a proletarian internationalist, not an 
"international terrorist" by any suggestion. Communists are not 
terrorists. European governments are wrong for following the Bush 
line that communists, progressive mass leaders, national liberation 
movements and anti-imperialist governments are terrorists. The 
imperialist powers are engaged in fascisation on a global scale.

By my writings and political acts, I am well-known for opposing 
policies and actions that harm or work against the interests of the 
people. I stand up for the rights and interests of the people and 
support their revolutionary struggles. I have strongly opposed 
micro-terrorists like Al Qaida and Abu Sayyaf and macro-terrorists 
like the US and other imperialist powers that kill large numbers of 
people through the daily violence of exploitation, state terrorism 
and wars of aggression.

You can get the biographical information about me from the book, At 
Home in the World: Portrait of a Filipino Revolutionary. At any rate, 
here are a few facts. I was born on February 8, 1939 in Cabugao, 
Ilocos Sur, Philippines. I took my grade school in this town and high 
school in Manila. I took my bachelor and masteral courses at the 
University of the Philippines and I taught English literature and 
political science subjects in two universities. I was active in the 
anti-imperialist and anti-feudal mass movement. I became the chairman 
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines 
from 1968 to 1977. I was arrested, tortured and detained by the 
Marcos fascist dictatorship from 1977 to 1986.

I was released from military detention after the fall of Marcos in 
1986 and rejoined the faculty of the University of the Philippines. I 
went on a university lecture tour in the Asia-Pacific region and then 
in Europe from late 1986 onwards. When my Philippine passport was 
cancelled in 1988, I applied for political asylum in The Netherlands. 
I am now the chief political consultant of the National Democratic 
Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in peace negotiations with the 
reactionary Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP). 
Ironically, it is in connection with the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations 
that the CPP, New People's Army NPA) and I have been blacklisted as 
"terrorists" by the US and other foreign governments upon the 
lobbying of the GRP in order to pressure the NDFP towards capitulation.

EP: How would you describe the nature of NPA struggle: history, 
strength, spread, activities, social support, mid-term and long-term
goals?

JMS: The Communist Party of the Philippines describes the New 
People's Army as the main weapon for protracted people's war and 
seizure of political power along the line of the new democratic 
revolution under the leadership of the working class in the concrete 
conditions of the Philippines. The NPA was established on March 29, 
1969, a few months after the reestablishment of the CPP in 1968. It 
has carried out fighting, political, productive and cultural tasks 
for more than 38 years. It is deeply and widely based among the 
people, mainly the peasantry.

It has more than 120 guerrilla fronts. It operates in 70 of the 81 
provinces of the Philippines, 800 out of 1500 Philippine 
municipalities and in more than 10,000 out of the 42,000 Philippine 
villages. It has been instrumental in the establishment and 
development of mass organizations and organs of political power. It 
has generated and supported social programs and mass campaigns for 
the benefit of the people in mass education, land reform, production, 
health, defense, cultural activities and settlement of disputes.

The goals announced by the NPA are to seize political power in order 
to complete the new democratic revolution and establish a people's 
republic and then to become the main component of state power and 
defender of the people in socialist revolution and construction in 
the Philippines.

EP: What's your reply to those who say that nowadays a Maoist 
guerrilla fighting for a socialist state is anachronistic?

JMS: The NPA cannot be anachronistic by fighting for national 
liberation and democracy against US imperialism and the local 
exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords. It is the new 
democratic force that is striving to defeat such anachronistic 
monsters as imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism which 
exploit and oppress the broad masses of the people.

By the time that the NPA succeeds in defeating these anachronistic 
monsters, then the people shall have accumulated the strength 
necessary for building socialism under conditions of an imperialism 
much weakened by accelerated crisis under such policies as "free 
market" globalization and global war of terror spearheaded by US 
monopoly capitalism. The world capitalist system has a growing 
tendency to implode because of the increased number of competing 
imperialist powers and the growing resistance of the people of the
world.

EP: The CPP program states that the future socialist State will have 
special relations with the People's Republic of China. Many people 
say that NPA is even armed by China. Why do you still consider China 
a revolutionary state, even if it has become a completely capitalist
country?

JMS: At the time that the CPP program was formulated in 1968, the 
People's Republic of China was still a socialist state and was 
practically the center of the world proletarian revolution through 
the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. But since then, especially 
after 1976, CPP documents and publications have been criticizing the 
revisionists and capitalist restorationists that have prevailed over 
the Marxist-Leninists in China. As you say, China has become 
capitalist and is no longer a revolutionary state. I refer you to CPP 
documents and publications criticizing and condemning "free market" 
globalization in sharp contrast to China's conformity to this policy 
pushed by the US and other imperialist powers.

EP: Could you explain what the 'Oplan Bantay Laya' is and its effects 
on civilians and political activists?

JMS: Oplan Bantay Laya is a "national internal security plan" 
patterned after Oplan Phoenix of the US in Vietnam during the late 
1960s. It seeks to destroy the political infrastructure and the 
guerrilla fronts of the armed revolutionary movement. It is 
instigated by the US in the context of its policy of global war of 
terror. The US has described the Philippines as the second front of 
such global war. It has introduced thousands of US military troops in 
the Philippines and increased military supplies to its Filipino 
puppets to push them on a counterrevolutionary rampage in the name of 
anti-terrorism.

Oplan Bantay Laya has brought about the extrajudicial killing, forced 
disappearance and torture of more than a thousand progressive legal 
activists, including leaders of progressive mass organizations, 
journalists, lawyers, religious leaders and other activists who 
advocate human rights, social justice and just peace. It has also 
brought about the brutal displacement of more than one million people 
mainly in the countryside, in addition to a previous level of two 
million internal refugees. The forced displacement of the people is 
calculated to divest them of their land and to deliver this to 
foreign mining, agribusiness and recreation companies.

Oplan Bantay Laya aims to destroy the armed revolution and legal 
opposition and to intimidate the people. But it has failed to destroy 
a single guerrilla front of the NPA. It has only served to fuel the 
flames of the armed revolution. The gross and systematic violations 
of the human rights of the progressive legal activists have outraged 
the Filipino people and the people of the world. The progressive 
legal mass movement has risen up to a new level against the 
escalating acts of violence against the people by the US and the 
local reactionaries. Even international human rights organizations 
and human rights agencies of the UN have pointed to the criminal 
responsibility of the Filipino puppet rulers headed by Arroyo.

EP: The situation will get worse from now on with the new anti-terror 
law: the Human Security Act enforced on July 15?

JMS: Indeed, the human rights situation will get worse with the 
anti-terror-law, which is deceptively called Human Security Act of 
2007. The definitions of "terrorism" and "conspiracy to commit 
terrorism" are vague and overly broad. It becomes very easy for the 
Arroyo regime to take punitive actions against any individual,, any 
organization and any party in the opposition. The punitive actions 
include limitless surveillance, warrantless arrests, indefinite 
detention without bail, proscription as "terrorists" and seizure of 
properties and financial assets.

EP: Do you think that under Arroyo's leadership, Philippines is going 
backward to the Marcos dictatorship era?

JMS: In many respects and to a great extent, the Arroyo regime is 
already very much on the fascist road of the Marcos dictatorship. 
Especially with the HSA of 2007, the Arroyo regime has gotten a 
license for martial rule without having to declare martial law and 
comply with requirements set by the anti-fascist provisions of the 
1987 constitution

EP: What is the role of US military in supporting Philippines troops? 
Only training and logistical support or something more?

JMS: The role of the US military in supporting Philippine troops is 
not limited to weapons training and logistical support. It is to 
indoctrinate the puppet officers and troops and enhance their 
subservience, mercenary character and puppetry to US political and 
military plans in East Asia and the world at large, It is to gain 
intelligence from the puppet forces against the Filipino people as 
well as to provide intelligence to the puppet forces in order to 
condition their thinking and operations. It is to lay anew and 
develop the infrastructure for direct US military presence and 
operations in the Philippines and for US military intervention and 
aggression in Southeast Asia, East Asia and farther afield.

EP: Official figures put at 40 thousand the death toll of the 'People 
War'. Do you confirm this number? Is it true that the conflict is now 
in an escalating phase?

JMS: It is wrong for anyone to ascribe the death toll of 40,000 or 
whatever number to the people's war .. We must make clear that this 
number refers to the people killed by the military, police and 
paramilitary forces of the reactionary government in the course of 
anti-NPA campaigns of suppression as early as during the time of the 
Marcos fascist dictatorship. Since after the fall of the Marcos 
regime, the number would have significantly increased to 60,000 with 
the count of victims in the brutal campaigns of anti-communist 
military suppression under the regimes of Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and
Arroyo.

Being the army of the people, the NPA strictly directs its fire 
against the military, police and paramilitary forces of the 
oppressive regime. There is an estimate that since 1969 the NPA has 
killed more than 30,000 enemy troops and wounded many more and the 
reactionary military and police have killed around 10,000 Red 
fighters and more than 50,000 civilians. These figures exclude the 
casualties in the fighting between the reactionary armed forces and 
the Moro liberation forces.

EP: What about the peace negotiations started in Brussels in 1995?

JMS: The peace negotiations between the National Democratic Front of 
the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the 
Philippines (GRP) have made some progress in the form of agreements 
within the framework of The Hague Joint Declaration of 1992. The most 
significant of the agreements is the Comprehensive Agreement on 
Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, which is 
the first item in the substantive agenda of the peace negotiations.

But under various pretexts, the GRP has blocked the further advance 
of the peace negotiations by repeated attempts to require the NDFP to 
capitulate and by repeated declarations of prolonged recesses, 
suspension of talks and even the termination of the negotiations. The 
peace negotiations become paralyzed every time the GRP demands the 
surrender of the revolutionary forces and stops the negotiations as a 
process for addressing the roots of the armed conflict and agreeing 
on social, economic and political reforms for the benefit of the people.

EP: What do you think about the other Philippine armed conflict: the 
one between goverment and Moro Islamic Liberation Front? And what is 
your opinion about the Abu Sayyaf Group?

JMS: The Moro people have the right to national self-determination, 
democracy, development and peaceful enjoyment of their ancestral 
domain. They have the right to secede from an oppressive state and to 
demand regional autonomy in a nonoppressive state. The Moro Islamic 
Liberation Front (MILF) is waging a just revolutionary armed struggle 
along the line of upholding, protecting and promoting the national 
and democratic rights and interests of the Moro people.

The Abu Sayyaf is different . It was originally organized by the CIA 
and Philippine military intelligence in 1991 in order to make trouble 
on the flanks of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). But when 
the MNLF capitulated to the GRP in 1996, the Abu Sayyaf appeared to 
run out of control of the CIA and Philippine reactionary military. 
Now, it is being used by the US as pretext for the continuing 
presence of US military forces in Mindanao and the entire Philippines.

PEACE REPORTER
Via Meravigli, 12
20123 Milano, Italia

[For the writings of jose maria sison, go to http://josemariasison.org
follow the defense campaign, go to http://www.defendsison.be
For a chronology of the persecution and harassment of JMS over the
years before the arrest of August 28, 2007, see 
http://josemariasison.org/inps/ChronoPersProfSison.htm ]

                           ***

[See original at Monthly Review for numerous links to more info.-NYTr]

Monthly Review - Sep 6, 2007
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pugh060907.html

Philippine Revolutionary Leader Arrested in the Netherlands

by Dave Pugh

Jose Maria Sison has been a leading figure of the Philippine national
democratic revolution for almost 40 years.  He is one of the pioneers
who revived the anti-imperialist movement in the Philippines in the
early 1960s, and he was elected chairman of the Communist Party of the
Philippines in 1968 when it was refounded on the basis of
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.  For nine years, he was the most
prominent political prisoner of the U.S.-supported dictator, Ferdinand
Marcos.  After living for nearly twenty years in the Netherlands as a
political refugee, Sison is in prison again.

On the morning of August 27, 2007,  Sison was arrested in Utrecht, the
Netherlands, on trumped up murder charges.  The Dutch police kicked
down doors and ransacked Sison's apartment.  The Dutch police also
raided the houses of several staff members of the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and confiscated computers and files in
an attempt to shut down the NDFP's international solidarity work.

Sison has been in the crosshairs of successive U.S. puppet Philippine
regimes since his release from prison in 1986 as a result of the
"people power" uprising that brought down the Marcos regime.  While
Sison was on a university lecture tour in Europe in 1988, the
Philippine government of Corazon Aquino stripped him of his passport.
A year later, the military offered a one million peso bounty for his
"arrest, capture or neutralization."  Sison has remained a political
refugee in the Netherlands since 1988 because of continued threats to
his life by the Philippine authorities.  As recently as 2000, a special
unit was sent to the Netherlands to murder Sison.

In 1992, Sison was invited by the NDFP to be its Chief Political
Consultant in peace negotiations with the Philippine government.  The
NDFP is composed of the CPP, the New People's Army (which has
established more than 120 guerilla fronts on all eleven major islands
of the archipelago), and 15 groups based among workers, peasants,
women, youth, the religious sector, the Muslim Moro people, and the
many indigenous groups in the Philippines.  The NDFP's national
democratic program calls for the uprooting of imperialism, feudalism,
and bureaucrat capitalism in the Philippines, leading to the socialist
stage of the revolution.

Over the course of a decade, the NDFP has held peace talks with the
Philippine government.  The two sides have signed ten bilateral
agreements, including the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human
Rights and International Humanitarian Law in 1998.  The CARHRIHL
requires both sides in the armed conflict to refrain from acts of
terrorism against the civilian population and soldiers who are hors de
combat.  However, the Philippine government has undermined the
agreement by objecting to setting up enforcement mechanisms.

More importantly, the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has
violated the CARHRIHL and international humanitarian law by
orchestrating the murder and disappearance of more than 1,000 civilian
political activists during the last six years.  These activists have
included workers and peasants, priests and pastors, and members of the
Bayan Muna (People First) party that recently elected three
representatives to Congress in spite of massive voter fraud.

While the Philippine army sends out squads of motorcycle-riding masked
soldiers to assassinate those whose only crime is opposition to a
corrupt, brutal regime, the revolutionary forces strongly oppose
terrorist actions and terrorism as a strategy.  The NDF, the CPP, and
the NPA recognize that they must gain and maintain the active
participation and support of the people in the revolution.  They use
their limited weapons judiciously and precisely only against the
military and those guilty of serious offenses against the people.
Nevertheless, the U.S. and the European Union have listed the CPP and
the NPA as "terrorist organizations" and have tried to blacken the
reputation of Sison by designating him as a terrorist.

In response to a question on this issue at a press conference in 2002,
Sison replied,  "Terrorism is usually associated with the assassination
of innocent civilians, the wanton destruction of property, the
maltreatment of captives and the like.  These are precisely the kinds
of things that the New People's Army never does.  The NPA is treating
the people humanely and is respecting their human rights.  It abides
strictly by its own Rules of Discipline, and the organs of people power
follow the Guide for Establishing the People's Democratic Government,
which serves as the Constitution for the areas under NPA control."

The Dutch police claim that in 2003, Sison ordered the murders of two
ex-leaders of the CPP, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara.  At that
time, the New People's Army, based in the Philippines, announced that
Kintanar and Tabara were killed resisting arrest and were slated to be
tried by people's courts for serious crimes committed after they left
the CPP.  Kintanar had been working for Philippine army intelligence,
and Tabara was charged with the murder of an elderly peasant leader.
The CPP publicly took credit for administering "revolutionary justice"
to  Kintanar and Tabara.  For over 20 years, the CPP has stated that
Sison is no longer involved in operational decisions and that he serves
the revolutionary movement in an advisory capacity in Europe.

Why Now?

Why has Sison come under attack now?  Over the past year, the
Philippine government has been on the defensive for its human rights
violations.  Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN
Special Rapporteur for Human Rights have issued reports harshly
critical of the Philippine government and army.  After hearings in the
spring of 2007, 48 U.S. Senators and Representatives sent a letter to
the Arroyo government expressing concern that U.S. military equipment
was being used to commit human rights abuses.

In July 2007 the Philippine Supreme Court dismissed a long list of
charges against Sison and 50 other progressives, including the murders
of Kintanar and Tabara,  that spanned the period from the founding of
the CPP in 1968 to 2006.  This legal defeat for the Philippine
government may have prompted it to request that the Dutch government
file the murder charges against Sison, which mean he will be tried in
the Netherlands instead of the Philippines.

The Netherlands has a long and notorious colonial past in Southeast
Asia (Indonesia) and South America (Surinam and the Dutch Antilles).
Today, it is the third largest trading partner and the second largest
investor in the Philippines.  Dutch conglomerates such as Royal Dutch
Shell (oil), Unilever (consumer products), and Phillips (electronics)
are well entrenched.  Their exploitation of the labor and natural
resources of the Philippines is administered by the Arroyo government
and guaranteed by U.S. military equipment and advisors.

The U.S. government was quick to respond to the Dutch police action.
American ambassador Kristie Kenney offered to extend support to the
Dutch government to prosecute Sison.  While the U.S. seems to allowing
the Dutch government to take a lead role at this point, Sison could be
kidnapped by the CIA or U.S. Special Forces.  According to the CPP in
the Philippines, the U.S. government has had standing plans to subject
Sison to extraordinary rendition and to imprison him in Guantanamo Bay
or a secret U.S. detention facility.

At present, Sison, 68, is being held in solitary confinement in the
Dutch National Penitentiary, which was used by the Nazis during World
War 2 to imprison and torture Dutch resistance fighters.  He is being
denied warm clothing and medicines for a heart condition.  However,
Sison is familiar with prison, and his voice will not silenced easily.
On August 30, a march on the Dutch embassy in Manila was attacked by
truncheon-wielding police, injuring dozens of people.  In the last
week, demonstrations have been held at Dutch embassies, consulates, and
government offices in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Sydney, Taipei,
Vancouver, B.C., Montreal, New York City, and Los Angeles, with more
actions planned. 

[Dave Pugh lives in San Francisco and works with Bayan USA.]