Het volgende bericht werd gepost op de Marxmail email-lijst. Het is niet de eerste keer dat leiders van de maoïstische Communist Party of the Philippines andere linkse activisten met de dood bedreigen. Als Reyes gedood wordt zou hij ook niet de eerste zijn. De vermoedelijke huidige leider van de CPP, Jose Maria Sison, woont in Nederland en werd enige maanden geleden opgepakt na aangiften van de weduwes van twee door de CPP vermoorde voormalige rivalen van Sison. Sison ontkent de leider van de CPP te zijn maar in Filippijns links -en ver daarbuiten – is er eigenlijk niemand die er aan twijfelt dat hij dezelfde persoon is als de partij-voorzitter ‘Armando Liwanag’. Alhoewel hij ondertussen weer op vrije voeten is loopt het onderzoek tegen Sison nog.
Ric Reyes is een voormalig lid van het politiek bureau van de CPP. Tegenwoordig is hij voorzitter van de links sociaal-democratische partij Akbayan waar ook de bekende andersglobalist Walden Bello (tevens bedreigd door de CPP) lid van is. De coalitie Laban ng Masa, Gevecht van de Massa’s, is een coalitie die bestaat uit vrijwel geheel non-stalinistisch links op de Filippijnen.
De bedreigingen en moorden vinden plaats in de context van een bloedige campagne tegen links op de Filippijnen. Nog afgezien van het feit dat ze sowieso veroordeelt moeten worden en angst zaaien in de progressieve bewegingen in het straatarme land komen ze de staat ook op een andere manier goed van pas; elke keer dat er weer een linkse activist vermoord is, wijst de regering met een beschuldigende vinger naar de CPP die immers bewezen heeft er niet voor terug te schrikken linkse activsten te vermoorden. Het is dan ook dubbel hypocriet als supporters van de CPP buiten de archipel discussie over deze moorden en bedreigingen proberen te dwarsbomen met het argument dat alleen de Filippijnse staat hier belang bij zou hebben en dat ‘het de revolutinonaire beweging verzwakt’. Het is juist de CPP die daar verantwoordelijk voor is en hoe sneller zij haar beleid van bedreigingen en moord staakt, des te sneller kan de linkse beweging haar strijd weer volledig richten tegen de corrupte regering van presidente Arroyo.
Naar verluid zou Ric Reyes bezig zijn met het schrijven van een boek over zijn tijd in de CPP. Misschien is dat een reden voor de Filippijnse wanna-be Beria’s om extra hun best te doen snel van hem af te komen…
Laban ng Masa supporters herdenken 20 jaar People Power
opstand tegen de dictator Marcos
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:11:18 -0500
From: “Fred Feldman” <ffeldman@bellatlantic.net>
Subject: [Marxism] Philippine Communist (and Stalinist) leader
threatens activist’s life at Australia conference
To: <marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu>,
<GreenLeft_discussion@yahoogroups.com>
Message-ID: <000001c86c18$b7dda3f0$6401a8c0@office1pc>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
The following item that John Riddell posted to the Socialist Voice list
serve some time ago strikes me as very important.
Fred Feldman
A disquieting incident regarding the Philippines occurred at the Melbourne
solidarity conference. This led Suzanne Weiss and me to make some tactful
inquiries in Toronto among those familiar with Philippines solidarity, and
what we learned was also of concern. We are no experts on the Philippines,
but we’d like to pass on what we heard and saw.
One of the most memorable aspects of the Melbourne solidarity conference was
the description by Ric Reyes, a leader of the Filipino liberation movement
Laban ng Masa (LnM–Struggle of the Masses) of how his movement had searched
for links in Latin America, with which the Philippines has strong historical
and cultural ties–looking first in Brazil and then discovering the
Venezuelan revolution. A commanding figure in the conference by virtue of
his experience, reputation, and political stature, Reyes spoke only after
the defeat of efforts by persons influenced by the Maoist Communist Party of
the Philippines (CPP) to deny him the platform.
Then, on the last day of the conference, a leaflet appeared on the
conference site entitled, “Reyes is criminally culpable for Kampanyang Ahos
[Campaign garlic]” referring to a murderous purge carried out in the CPP in
the mid-1980s. The leaflet was signed by Jose Maria Sison, the CPP’s central
leader. The leaflet demanded that Reyes surrender himself to a tribunal in
which his accusers would also be judge, jury, and executioner. Should he not
surrender, the leaflet said, he would be regarded as “an armed and dangerous
criminal suspect who is open to battle” and noted that the “arresting team
is authorized to act in self-defense” against him, “especially under the
current conditions of civil war.”
We read this as a statement that the CPP intends to send a death squad
against Reyes.
Sison’s letter was originally published in a Philippines newspaper in 2005,
and the CPP has never repudiated it. Together with it was published a
response by Reyes, which pointed out that in fact he had been already
condemned by a CPP tribunal back in 1994, when he was in jail. The same
judgment was made against three other former CPP leaders. “Of the four so
accused, I am the only one remaining alive.”
In fact, there is strong evidence that the CPP is carrying out a systematic
program of death threats and killings against prominent opponents in the
Philippines liberation movement. Substantial documentation of this has been
gathered by Pierre Rousset, a prominent figure in European solidarity
activities see HYPERLINK
All this occurs in the context that the CPP is a deeply rooted liberation
organization, the strongest in the Philippines, and is carrying on a
guerilla struggle against the government. It is the main victim of the
murderous violence that the governent deals out to all sectors of the
progressive movement. The CPP, like other Filipino progressive
organizations, deserves our solidarity against the government killings. A
few weeks ago, I supported the appeal for the releast of Sison from arrest
in the Netherlands. Laban ng Masa also defended Sison, who has now been
released.
The CPP’s death threats and killings against other progressive tendencies
disorganize and weaken its defense against government violence. For example,
Rousset’s website records that a Filipino “fair trade” organization was
recently targeted for attack by the CPP. The “fair trade” organization’s
business partner in Germany became aware that their Filipino trading partner
was in danger of being wiped out by the CPP. The German business wrote to
the Filipino president, demanding that she protect their trading partner
against CPP violence. The end result is that efforts to highlight the
government as the real source of the violence are frustrated, and the
government’s campaign to murderously suppress liberation movements is made
much easier.
CPPers, Rousset tells us, argue against discussion of their killings of
leftist activists on the grounds that making the facts known strengthens the
government’s hand and exposes CPP cadres to government reprisals. This line
of argument was the stock-in-trade of Stalinism at the peak of its murder
campaign against revolutionary cadres in the 1930s. Then as now, it is the
fratricidal killings that weakens the people’s cause, not the action of
those who call for end to such attacks.
Many victims of these attacks, Reyes among them, are accused of
responsibility for a tragedy that shook the CPP in the 1980s. The CPP was
then at the peak of its influence, with some five million adherents. During
the 1980s, the CPP was shaken by a series of party campaigns to root out
government agents in its ranks. According to Reyes, these campaigns got out
of hand and almost wrecked the party in 1988. Hundreds of loyal party
members were killed.
In the early 1990s, after substantial forces left the CPP, the party said
that leaders among those had left bore responsibility for these killings. In
fact, Reyes says, these actions been “collectively affirmed, appproved,
reaffirmed, and undertaken by the CPP leadership, national and regional.”
Today the CPP, although weakened, remains a mass organization, and is
somewhat larger in adherents and voting strength than Laban ng Masa. The CPP
enjoys substantial international support today, especially through its trade
union arm, the KMU. In Canada, it dominates Philippines solidarity work.
I had seen no evidence of the CPP in Toronto in recent years. But recently,
its supporters have been active in seeking backing from other solidarity
organizations. They are conducting educational work and recruiting among
young activists, winning them to a hardline version of Maoism that includes
support for Stalin’s and Mao’s murder campaigns against communist cadres.
(cut)
