From: Asfilho@AOL.COM
Date: Wed Jan 26 2005 - 02:14:57 EST
Further on this thread: A colleague from Utah, Erdogan Bakir, has sent me the email below, including five pieces posted on Doug Henwood's LBO list in the last month or so; the first two raising counter-arguments to those of Bello's, the third one asking for support for Bello, the fourth one written by Bello, presenting his case, and the last one another news on the issue. The diagram at the centre of the problem can be found in _http://www.philippinerevolution.org/angbayan/images/041207/konmatrixe.gif_ (http://www.philippinerevolution.org/angbayan/images/041207/konmatrixe.gif) alfredo. Red-baiting and Baseless Accusations have no place in the People's Movement Official Statement of the Regional Secretariat of the Asian Students Association January 17, 2005 We write this in the light of a statement released by the Focus on the Global South yesterday January 16, 2005, entitled "Assassination and violence have no role in civil society." We in the Asian Students Association regional secretariat respect the Focus's position with regards to the ongoing matter between Mr. Walden Bello and the Communist Party of the Philippines. Nonetheless, they could have just stopped there. But they did not. We find it amazing how the Focus suddenly dropped names of organizations towards the end of the statement (see second to the last paragraph) and appealed for their sense of decency. There is nothing decent in what is practically red-baiting. For did they not resort to red-baiting when they mentioned the Asian Students Association, among many other organizations? Is this in accord to their definition and objective of pluralism? Is this not toeing the line of US imperialist terrorist-listing? We will not leave the questions unanswered. In the spirit objectivity and critical bias, we shall explain each and every one of them here. On red-baiting Has the Focus thought what could possibly happen to the leaders and members of the ASA when it resorted to red-baiting? Is it not an historical fact that the United States government has used the same tactic in committing genocidal acts against open resistance movements in Chile, Vietnam, Indonesia and Korea, among many others? Is it not what the repressive governments of Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), Augusto Pinochet (Chile) and General Suharto (Indonesia) wielded to legitimize massive political crackdown on movements and peoples? We believe that the McCarthyist Era is over. Yet surprisingly, a group who professes to belong to the civil society and supposedly meets the challenges of the future with democratic debates has remained stuck up in it. By resorting to this, the Focus has subjected the regional secretariat and the whole membership of the ASA to open fascism and repression. Right now, many of our members are already living under repressive states and are fighting for the legality and legitimacy of their work and objectives under harsh conditions. Some states, until now, are using the tired old red scare to suppress legitimate student and youth organizations. One vivid example is the irresponsible tagging of the League of Filipino Students (which Focus also maliciously mentioned in their letter) and the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, both long-time members of the Asian Students Association, as communist fronts which led to the rapacious military crackdown and killing of their members without due process. In the current context of the hysteria against terror, many countries are already in the process of institutionalizing anti-terrorist laws such as Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In the experience of our members in Malaysia, the Internal Security Act has been used by the state to effectively suppress the people's dissent through warrantless arrests and illegal detentions. We ask then: has not Focus given the license and ammunition to the possible heightening of this attack on our members? Pluralism? Why is Focus selective in the forms of struggles when they profess to be pluralist? Does their version of pluralism exclude groups whose principles and forms of struggle are unacceptable to them? Civil society, we believe and we have learned, does not pass judgment on anyone or anything without sufficient information and bases. It is in the spirit of objectivity and critical thinking that we respect due process, research and collective analysis before coming up with a conclusion. I guess not one person in her right mind would violate this simple method. What of the Focus? What audacity has the Focus to determine which one is legitimate and which one is not? What gives them the right to pinpoint and accuse organizations without providing them the chance to speak up? Has not the damage been done even before we can possibly react? To our colleagues in the civil society, we ask for your objectivity. The History and Legacy of the ASA By putting us in the line of fire, did the Focus not attack the integrity and legacy of the ASA? Is this a civil act of a civil society organization? The ASA, since our establishment in 1969, has remained true to our tradition and principle of recognizing and respecting the right of our members and movements to determine their own form of struggle. We will not deny that some of our members, from then until now, have taken up arms to resist their respective repressive states. We shall not deny them for it is an affront to the young lives that have been sacrificed for freedom and democracy. Our members in Palestine, Burma, Laos and even East Timor before its independence have chosen to practice their right to rebel. Even the international community respects this right of the people. That is why there exist the rules of war and international conventions and protocols that guide the conduct of war. Solidarity is deeply rooted in the respect of independence and initiative of movements. That is why, until now, despite the difference in forms of struggles of our members â¤" from the tree-hugging activists to those who assert students' rights in schools to those who defend their sovereignty against occupation â¤" we remain united in the principles of anti-imperialism, democracy and social justice. This is why we believe that the Focus on the Global South does NOT have any right at all to infringe on the independence of any movement, organization or individual for that matter. You do not have any right to judge or label the Asian Students Association. If the Focus's brand of pluralism includes impinging on one's rights and independence, then it is fraudulent, dishonest, self-contradicting and self-serving. Mouthing the imperialist line Now that we have explained ourselves, we go now to the last. For did they not, with their statements, toe the line of U.S. imperialism when the latter high-handedly placed legitimate organizations, individuals and revolutionary movements in its foreign terrorist list without due process? By failing to provide their readers the arguments between the two concerned parties beyond their statement, they have deprived their network and their friends the opportunity to be critical and unbiased in their decision. They only provided one news item and not one from the statements they have mentioned of Mr. Fidel Agcaoili and Prof. Jose Maria Sison. Is this not uncritical bias? Is this not so like the U.S. imperialist hysteria on the war of terror? There is just one last question ringing in our heads: again, why the mention of organizations? Could it possibly be turning the tables against us, putting us at the defensive, discrediting our names in the global anti-globalization movement? Why waste seven lines of the statement to simply drop names of organizations? Do tell, could this probably be the Focus's own "hitlist", as mentioned by Norberto Gonzales, the chief national security of Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and who caused the killing of more than 40 coordinators of progressive party-lists tagged as communist fronts? Could it be an addendum as well to the U.S.' own foreign terrorist list? If it is so, where is the pluralism in that? Where is the civility in that? Tell us, does this undoing speak well of civil society? Note: In the interest of fairness, objectivity and democratic debate, we urge our serious colleagues in the civil society to read the statements of Mr. Agcaoili, Prof. Sison and even check the website of the "hitlist" they are mentioning at www.philippinerevolution.org, December 7 issue of Ang Bayan. We guess Mr. Bello knows the parameters of this debate, of his exchanges with Misters Agcaoili and Sison. ---------------------- WALDEN BELLO EXPOSES HIMSELF AS A PRO-US PSEUDO-PROGRESSIVE By Prof. Jose Maria Sison NDFP Chief Political Consultant In his column in Viewpoints of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 29, 2004, Bello persists in his canard that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is out to eliminate him and others physically just because they hold ideas counter to the CPP and the new democratic revolution. He uses this lie in order to accuse me of being “the one that literally calls the shots” and in order to reinforce the baseless “terrorist” listing made by the US, Dutch, European Council and other governments. The malicious attack made by Bello and others on my person is orchestrated with attacks unleashed by the psywar and intelligence agencies of Washington and the Manila government. In two press statements, one on December 26 and another on December 27, I made the observation that a diagram of the organizational fragmentation of petty bourgeois anti-communist groups in the Philippines and their ideological and political connections with Trotskyite and social democratic groups abroad cannot be a “hit list” (the pejorative term Walden Bello and Etta Rosales used in their December 26 open letter). I also commented that if Bello, Rosales and the like had complaints of human rights violations against any revolutionary force and/or personnel they could submit their complaints to the NDFP section of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC). The JMC has been created jointly by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in compliance with the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). False Accusations in Bello’s Anti-Communist Propaganda Since the establishment of the Joint Secretariat of the JMC in Manila a few months ago, with the active support of the Norwegian government, only two formal complaints of human rights violations have been filed against units and personnel of the New People’s Army (NPA) in sharp contrast to the 275 charges made against the reactionary armed forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police and related armed personnel of the GRP. Bello and Rosales are big liars in making the revolutionary forces appear as human rights violators and the AFP and PNP regulars as not. So far, Bello, Rosales and Akbayan have not submitted any formal complaint and evidence to the JMC about their claims to being the subject of what they consider as grave threats to their lives related to the diagram. Neither have they made any formal complaint and presented any evidence for their claims that the revolutionary forces impose taxes on electoral parties and candidates. They are merely interested in spewing out anti-communist propaganda and trying to malign the Communist Party of the Philippines from the flanks. As exponent of civil society so-called, Bello is a well-behaved and obedient citizen of the violent state of the US-lining comprador big bourgeoisie and landlord class. He is also a highly paid hack whose air miles of traveling and hotel bills can compete with those of high ranking officials of the US State Department. He can sell ideas for conferences on a wide range of topics in quick succession in different capitals of the world. Thus, I am not at all surprised that he is vigorously and stridently opposed to the organized forces and people waging the new democratic revolution through people’s war. Bello has a purpose for inventing the canard that the revolutionary forces are out to get him and others merely for talking and writing against the revolution. He calculatingly obscures the fact that Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara were publicly accused of grave crimes like murder, gross malversation of funds, robbery and the like so many years before the NPA sought to arrest them. His real purpose is to gain another platform for attacking the CPP and its revolutionary line. He goes so far as to claim that he was once a CPP insider in order to present himself as a credible informer. He asserts that I am not just a consultant but something else worthy of the orchestrated attacks unleashed against me by the US, the local reactionaries and their special psywar agents. Bello started to openly attack the CPP in 1986. That was nearly two decades ago. He cannot be a reliable source of current information about the internal affairs of the CPP. In trying to do a witchhunt and make me appear as one deserving of the imperialist attacks inflicted on me, Bello states, “While you have been busy drawing diagrams of your perceived opponents and dreaming of your of world revolution in the safe confines of Utrecht, your so-called counterrevolutionaries have actually been engaged in helping create a truly global movement for change…” He has absolutely no factual basis for accusing me of drawing.the diagram, which he has misrepresented as a “hit list” of the CPP. Personally, I would have preferred to draw a diagram of his anti-communist US connections, especially with certain institutes and agencies that manufacture new slogans for glossing over the extremely oppressive and exploitative character of US imperialism. Bello’s bravado comes from his being bankrolled by US-controlled conduits and from assurances of protection by the coercive apparatuses of the state in the US, Thailand and the Philippines. The Second Great Rectification Movement of the CPP has criticized, repudiated and rectified the ideological and political errors, including those that led to the bloody witchhunt Kampanyang Ahos. It has condemned the vicious crimes associated with Kampanyang Ahos. But Bello has the temerity to blame these on the CPP even as he protects and collaborates with Ricardo Reyes and Nathan Quimpo. In CPP publications, these two have been identified as among those most responsible for the unjust killings and torture of some hundreds of CPP cadres and members, NPA commanders and fighters and mass activists.. According to the CPP, all those who were chiefly responsible for Kampanyang Ahos and other criminal outrages have fled the CPP and have formed various pseudo-progressive groups connected with the GRP and big compradors and landlords as well as with Trotskyite and social-democratic groups abroad. Bello and Rosales are in one of these groups (Akbayan) and are allied to others on the common ground of opposing the CPP and the revolutionary movement. However, I would not say that those who belong to these small groups are all criminally liable. Bello’s vile anticommunism drives him to a frenzy of ranting in accusing the CPP of having given a bad name to the left because of “fanaticism”, having “degenerated into an Al Qaeda type fundamentalist sect”, being “an ally of US hegemony”, having “murderous behavior”, being responsible for deforestation and the floods, and making “left wing fascism” “one of the basic problems”, “along with feudal landed structures, transnational capitalism and US imperialism.” Bello as Phoney Progressive and as Pro-US Propagandist After his vicious outburst of invectives, he concludes triumphantly that he and his ilk have gained the world with their happy wishes for “pluralism”, “democratic debate” and “nonviolence” and that in the 21st century under conditions of US dominance as sole superpower, ever worsening crisis and ever escalating plunder and war, the CPP and all revolutionaries are “fossils left behind in the mud of the 20th century”. But why would the political and ideological masters of Bello consider the CPP as the biggest threat to the ruling system? Are not the revolutionary people and the forces of national liberation and socialism on the rise again after all the failed attempts of US imperialism and its camp followers to wipe them out completely with the use of ideological, political, economic and cultural offensives in the wake of the temporary success of modern revisionism in destroying socialist systems from within and likewise the effectiveness of neocolonialism in coopting the nominally independent countries? Bello exposes himself as a phoney progressive and as a phoney anti-imperialist by mocking at the revolutionary forces of national liberation and socialism and showing off his Philistine sense of comfort within the confines of the imperialist system. Could he have been able to gather large amounts of funds from imperialist agencies through various conduits for holding international conferences were these not for countering the anti-imperialist movement? His Focus on the Global South is well connected to the imperialist-funded conduit Transnational Institute and the Trotskyite and reformist ATTAC of France (begging for a percentage of cross border currency transactions as Tobin taxes supposedly for funding priorities such as the prevention of global warming, disease, and poverty). The funds flowing into the projects of Bello can be traced ultimately to foundations and institutes linked to the US government and the US monopoly bourgeoisie. Bello’s usual tack is to pretend at criticizing “globalization” and “war”, with the objective of trying to head off real progressives and anti-imperialists and then to swing the conferences he organizes into reformist channels for improving the imperialist system. In the style of the Jesuits in the Counter-Reformation, he employs the time-worn tactics of semantically appearing to be anti-imperialist and yet being in essence for the preservation of the imperialist system by attacking the revolutionaries and harping on reformism against the revolution. It is absolutely untrue that Bello and his kind were ever genuinely cooperative with the patriotic and progressive forces in the Philippines. While the Filipino people were struggling to overthrow the Marcos fascist dictatorship in the period of 1984 to 1986, he was spreading the line that Marcos ought not to be overthrown because the US considered him not only as part of the problem but also as part of the solution. He was also trying to conjure the illusion that ”popular democracy” could replace “elite democracy” without armed revolution and that low-value added semimanufacture were the “cutting edge of industrialization”. After the overthrow of Marcos in 1986, he started to attack the CPP in a series of articles. He used the criticism of the militarism and Kampanyang Ahos and the 1986 boycott policy to call for the liquidation of the CPP and the end of the revolutionary armed struggle in favor of reformism. He spread the line that the armed revolution in the Philippines was unnecessary and hopeless because the US and World Bank were determined to help the Aquino regime to carry out land reform. He also harped on the line that the revolutionary movement should shift to opposing Japan as the main target because this was supposedly displacing the US as No. 1 power in East Asia. What he meant in fact was to tout as the better option keeping US hegemony with the assistance of Europe. In the struggle against the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in the 1990s, he positioned himself against the national democratic mass organizations. He relished being the loyal and friendly critic and consultant of the US and the multilateral agencies like the IMF, World Bank and WTO. In the days and nights of the Battle in Seattle in 1999, imperialist funding afforded Bello and his kind expensive hotel billeting The mass activists in the streets denounced him and his ilk as tools of the WTO for his role as a subsidized pseudo-critics of US imperialism. Now, Bello once again claims to have fought and frustrated the WTO in Cancun. But no imperialist conduit-funded entity could have done better than more than 20 third world countries (including such big countries as China, India and Brazil) that resisted the excessive US impositions. After the massive anti-war mass actions of 2003 by tens of millions of people in hundreds of cities, coordinated by ANSWER, Not in Our Name, United for Peace and International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), Bello belatedly managed to raise the funds for conferences to misrepresent himself and his kind as leaders of the movement against the US war of aggression in Iraq and as defenders of the peoples of Iraq and Palestine. In fact, the futile objective of the pseudo-progressives, who are in the pay of conduits of US imperialism, is to seize the initiative from the genuine anti-imperialist forces and put up a platform for opposing wars of national liberation, condoning the official violence of reactionary states and broadcasting reformist slogans in support of imperialism and its puppet states. These pseudo-progressives spread counterrevolutionary notions, such as that “transnationalism”, “globalism” and “environmentalism have invalidated the struggle for all-round national independence, that national industrialization is “environmentally unsustainable” and that “civil society” and “culture of nonviolence” are the politically correct expressions. The primary objective of all these expressions is to discredit armed revolutions and to uphold the “legitimate” monopoly of violence by the imperialist and puppet states. Even in the most glittering phrases, the reformist and counterrevolutionary notions cannot gloss over the fact that the biggest tragedies of the 20th century are those arising from monopoly capitalism or imperialism. US imperialism has been responsible for the worst tragedies, such as the unbridled plunder and wars of aggression, in the latter half of the century. These continue to this day because imperialism .persists as the scourge of humankind. The proposals of Bello and his ilk for the 21st century would continue to mire the Filipino people in the same tragedies they experienced under the US empire of the 20th century. However, the proletarian revolutionary movement and the broad anti-imperialist movement of the people of the world are resurgent and are growing in strength through revolutionary struggle. ### ------------------ <http://qc.indymedia.org/news/2005/01/2366.php> In solidarity with the Filipino progressive and revolutionary movements by Pierre Rousset Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 at 7:43 PM What is at stake? The security and the lives of many activists, who are going to be forced into exile or killed if nothing is done. The future of the whole Filipino Left, which remains quite rich and active in spite of past and present odds. The dynamics of the international movements we are engaged in, laying new foundations for radical change. The very legitimacy of our fight: how to give a second breath to socialist alternatives if we prove unable to defend our most basic principles? In more than one way, the solidarity with the Filipino progressive and revolutionary movements threatened by the CPP is a death or life question. In solidarity with the Filipino progressive and revolutionary movements threatened by the CPP A new Letter of Concern Pierre Rousset, January 18, 2005 January 15, 2005. Focus on the Global South issued a "Statement of Concern" in response to the publication by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) of a list of "counterrevolutionary" organizations and individuals where Walden Bello, its Executive Director, and fourteen other activists are singled out. (1) This issue has to be taken very seriously. For more than ten years now, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has "condemned" to death and actually assassinated cadres from other revolutionary and progressive Filipino organizations. In January 2003, this policy took a sharp turn to the worst, prompting me to circulate a first "Letter of Concern". (2) The situation aggravated continuously in 2004, with an increasing number of legal political activists and mass movement organizers killed or threatened. In the December 7, 2004 issue of its central publication, Ang Bayan, the CPP published a "diagram" of Filipino "counterrevolutionary groups" and their supposed international links. (3) In another situation, or in another country, we could dismiss such a publication as a usual _expression of ultra-sectarianism with limited implications. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. It announces a new stage in the CPP's policy of threats and assassinations. [...] --------------------- Why We Have been Marked out for Elimination By Walden Bello, Chairman Emeritus, Akbayan (Citizens'Action Party) Jose Maria Sison must take us for fools. He and the Communist Party leadership compile a list of living and assassinated "counterrevolutionaries," disseminate it among CPP members, then claim this is simply a harmless exercise in information dissemination! Prof. Sison has a really low opinion of the public. Does he really think ordinary readers are so stupid as to believe that he is just a consultant to the CPP and not its chairman, its pontifex maximus, the one that literally calls the shots? Is he so out of touch as not to realize that the informed reader need not be a card-carrying party member to know that in fundamentalist Marxist Leninist parties like the CPP, being branded "counterrevolutionary" is practically a death sentence, with the only question being the time and place when the party will carry it out? This is the hideous truth that Sison tries to cover up by his verbal acrobatics, which attempt to cover up the CPP's mistake of having made the hitlist public by cooking up the canard that we are part of a plot to discredit the CPP and "assassinate" his character. The CPP has long discredited itself, a process which began with the party's internal massacre of over 1,000 of its best cadres in Operation Ahos and other purges carried out in the mid-eighties. In his desperate effort to set us up for elimination, Mr. Sison implies we receive "imperialist" funds to hold conferences and write books. Yes, Mr. Sison, we have organized international conferences to formulate strategies to drive the US out of Iraq and Israel from Palestine, but with funds raised from progressive, not imperialist, sources. Yes, Mr. Sison, we plead guilty to having written books - but books documenting the depredations of US and other transnational corporations and exploring alternatives to corporate-led globalization. While you have been busy drawing up diagrams of your perceived opponents and dreaming of world revolution in the safe confines of Utrecht, your so-called counterrevolutionaries have actually been engaged in helping create a truly global movement for change - a pluralist and democratic enterprise that has, among other things, brought about the collapse of the ministerials of the World Trade Organization, the main agency of corporate-driven globalization, in Seattle and Cancun. That the CPP is an agent of progressive change is a bad joke, indeed a sick joke. Today's CPP is not the party of brave but open-minded revolutionaries that we were once part of in the dark days of the Marcos dictatorship. Today's CPP has degenerated into an Al Qaeda- type fundamentalist sect that that is simply concerned with imposing its terrible vision of the future on the Filipino people. Because the CPP's fanaticism has given the left such a bad name, paradoxically enough it serves objectively as an ally of US hegemony locally. Indeed, what better ally can the US have than the CPP-NPA? Anti-communists and US operatives do not need to cook up propaganda campaigns to discredit the left. They simply have to point to the murderous behavior of the New People's Army. They simply have to point to the system of "revolutionary" taxes that has made the NPA complicit with the big loggers in the environmental rape of the Sierra Madre that led to the deaths of over 5,000 people in Real and Infanta. Along with feudal landed structures, transnational capitalism, and US imperialism, leftwing fascism of the CPP variety has, unfortunately, become one of the basic problems of the Filipino people. It is because progressives in Akbayan and other organizations have opted for a pluralist road to change, one based on vigorous democratic debate and on non-violent means, one that sees opponents as people to be won over, not eliminated, one that regards different political traditions as a source of strength rather than as poisons to fundamentalist purity, that we have become anathema to Mr. Sison. Mr. Sison and the CPP are fossils stuck in the mud of the 20th century, with all its tragedies. We in Akbayan and other progressive organizations have moved on to confront the challenges facing the Filipino people in the 21st century. That is the real reason we have been marked out for elimination. ----------- <URL: http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=22362 Communist Party 'hit list' denounced Akbayan leaders fear for their lives Updated 00:10am (Mla time) Dec 26, 2004 By Juan Sarmiento Inquirer News Service Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the December 26, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer INDIVIDUALS and groups listed as "counterrevolutionaries" in a December issue of the official publication of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) have denounced the roster as a "hit list." "We're fair game," Walden Bello, a University of the Philippines professor who is on the CPP list, told Inquirer editors. "We don't think this is an arbitrary listing." In an open letter to CPP founder Jose Maria Sison on the 36th anniversary of the CPP today, Bello and Akbayan Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales said: "The party which you founded 36 years ago views them as ideological and political enemies -- class enemies, as can be 'gleaned from their international links."' In its Dec. 7 issue, the Ang Bayan identified the "counterrevolutionaries" in a diagram of individuals and organizations and their links to so-called Trotskyites and social democrats abroad. The diagram was prepared by the CPP's International Department. "Some personalities involved with some of these groups are already dead, like Popoy Lagman, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara. Lagman, reportedly -- and the latter two admittedly -- in the hands of your armed wing, the New People's Army. Another person on the list, Ricardo Reyes, is already in your order of battle," Bello and Rosales said. "Outside of Ric Reyes who currently chairs Akbayan, we, Walden Bello, chair emeritus of Akbayan and Loretta Ann P. Rosales, first Akbayan representative, are also among the individuals listed. Does this mean you intend to kill us one by one?" the two said. Lagman and Tabara were assassinated on Feb. 6, 2001, and on Sept. 26, 2004, respectively. Ang Bayan identified Lagman as someone from the PMP [Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino], BMP [Bukluran ng Mangagagawang Pilipino] and Sanlakas, and Tabara was identified with RPM [Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Mangagawa]-Pilipinas. Besides Bello, Boy Morales and Gani Serrano were tagged as Pop Dem (popular democrats) and part of IPD (Institute for Popular Democracy); Rosales and Reyes of Padayon; Manjette Lopez and Liddy Nakpil of PPD (Partido Proletaryo Demokratiko); Sony Melencio of SPP [Socialist Party of the Philippines]; Nilo de la Cruz of RPM/RPA [Revolutionary Proletariat Army]-ABB [Alex Boncayao Brigade]; Ike de los Reyes of RPM-Mindanao; and Tito de la Cruz and Caridad Pascual of MLPP [Marxist-Leninist Party of the Philippines] and RHB [Rebolusyonaryong Hukbong Bayan]. "These are the people who left� the CPP and its allied organizations, Bello said when he and Rosales visited the Inquirer on Dec. 15. CPP spokesperson Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal strongly denied the existence of an "NPA hit list." Figment of imagination "That supposed NPA [New People’s Army] hit list was only a product of the malicious figment of imagination of military propagandists. It only aims to besmirch the popular image of the Red fighters from among the masses," Rosal said in a mobile-phone interview when asked about the Ang Bayan diagram. Rosal said the perennial resurrection of the alleged NPA "hit list" was part of the demolition job against the NPA being orchestrated by the military. He scoffed at some former members of the revolutionary movement, who, according to him, were spreading wild tales on their supposed inclusion on the NPA list of people targeted for assassination. "Probably, they are now in fear because they have committed crimes against the people and the revolutionary movement," Rosal said. "If they have nothing to fear, then why live in fear?" Rosal said other people also left the movement, "but since they have done nothing against the movement, they just go on with their lives." He reiterated that the NPA had nothing to do with the murder of Lagman. "Popoy was killed by his former comrades in the ABB [the former urban unit of the NPA] because of his treachery when he turned himself as partner of Ping [Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former chief of the Philippine National Police] and Erap [former President Joseph Estrada]," Rosal said. Deep sadness, anger Activist Liddy Nakpil is also worried of the possible implications of the Ang Bayan diagram. She said she knew what it means to be labeled "counterrevolutionary" by the CPP. "Several former leaders accused of being counterrevolutionaries and agents of the state have been killed by the CPP while others are harassed and pursued," Nakpil said in a statement. “But former colleagues are not the only targets-organizers and activists from people's organizations and movements not within the sphere of influence of the CPP are also being threatened and attacked.� She added: "Many of us who have given our youth and much of the best years of our lives in advancing the national democratic struggle, many of us whose loved ones have died for that struggle, and those of us who dare follow a different path toward revolutionary change witness what the CPP leadership is doing with a mixture of deep sadness, frustration and anger. They are squandering whatever gains and successes achieved in all these decades of struggle." Nakpil, widow of Lean Alejandro, secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan when he was assassinated on Sept. 19, 1987, allegedly by government agents, said the CPP accusations and actions "have caused loss of lives and danger to individuals, as well as terrible harm to the socialist cause." Erroneous information Nakpil said the diagram and an accompanying short article were another pathetic attempt of the CPP to discredit Philippine progressive groups in its effort to project itself as the only true revolutionary movement. "The article and diagram are based on patently erroneous information, outrageously biased judgments, antiquated analysis and sheer malice,� she said. “More than pathetic, this is tragic for a movement claiming itself scientific and revolutionary and seeking to be a governing force." Bello and Rosales said they were puzzled and a little annoyed because "while we were all once national democrats, our movement was part of a much broader based anti-dictatorship united front that sought the end of one-man rule through the ouster of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos." They noted that social democrats and Trotskyites marched side by side with national democrats, church groups and ordinary citizens who loved the country and wanted an end to the dictatorship. "In the international arena, our combined ranks actively led in strengthening the social movements against the ill effects of globalization on struggling economies of the Third World." Rosales chairs the committee on human rights in the House of Representatives, while Bello is the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Noble Prize. "Against which standards does the national democratic movement judge such efforts as counterrevolutionary?" they asked Sison, who is based in Utrecth, The Netherlands. Universal human rights Bello and Rosales said Sison would once again stand pat on his claim that he was waging an armed and just war in defense of the Filipino people's national and democratic interests. "Considering that we are no longer part of your protracted war, does this make us class enemies and fair game as enemy targets?� they said in the open letter. “It bothers us that your 36-year-old obsession over armed warfare asserts that all other forms of struggle are inherently inferior and a threat to the primacy of the over-arching goal of a violent upheaval. "Even more deadly, it is justified to eliminate such a threat since your concept of revolutionary justice not only excuses but necessitates it." The Philippine Left is a much, much bigger community than the CPP wants it to be, Bello and Rosales said. "We want to impart upon Sison that if the party he founded is truly interested in upholding universal human rights, it has to reassess its role in the progressive movement -- as an agent of discourse and peaceful co-existence, not as a fascist harbinger of violence, hatred and murder," they said. Rosales earlier told Inquirer editors that the CPP was angry at Akbayan because the party-list group, which has won three seats in the House, was taking a role that the CPP thinks it should do alone. "And we're doing it without guns," she said. With a report form Delfin T. Mallari Jr., PDI Southern Luzon Bureau
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