[OPE-L] Walden Bello

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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