To: Communist Party of the Philippines

From: Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Dear Comrades,

It is with great sorrow that we learned of the passing of Comrade Jose Ma. Sison. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization extends our sincere condolences to Ka Joma’s many comrades, friends, Ka Julieta de Lima and his entire family. He will be missed wherever working and oppressed people are striving for their emancipation. We mourn the departure of a true titan in the world communist movement.

As a founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army, Comrade Sison made tremendous contributions to the people’s democratic revolution in the Philippines and helped bring closer the day when the burdens of imperialism, semi feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism are lifted off the backs of the Filipino people.

Ka Joma was an outstanding proletarian revolutionary whose life and work stands as example to communists everywhere. Enduring hardship and torture at the hands of the enemy, he embodied what it means to serve the people. He indeed feared neither hardship nor death.

Comrade Jose Ma. Sison made numerous contributions to Marxism – Leninism, thus enriching the content of scientific socialism. A relentless opponent of revisionism and opportunism, Comrade Sison’s thinking – his contributions to revolutionary theory – have an application internationally and deserve study by all serious communists.

Ka Joma was a true working-class internationalist, who took seriously the dictum “workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite.” As the leader of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, he spearheaded the building of international solidarity in practice.

The people of the Philippines and the people of the U.S. have a common enemy in the monopoly capitalists that rule Wall Street’s American empire. Comrade Sison stood in the front lines of those fighting to bring the empire down.

The leadership and members of FRSO appreciate the keen interest Ka Joma took in the development of a revolutionary movement in the United States, and warm friendship that he extended to our organization. When the U.S. government launched an attack on antiwar and international solidarity activists, and attempted to imprison key leaders of FRSO, he was among the first to speak out against the repression. His efforts helped to forge an unbreakable bond between the revolutionary movement in the U.S. and the revolutionary movement in the Philippines. We will miss him.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization shares the grief of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and we extend our solidarity at this difficult movement. We are also committed to learning from the life and work of Comrade Sison.

The contributions of Comrade Jose Ma. Sison will live forever!

With communist greetings,

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

#UnitedStates #Philippines #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippinesCPP #Asia

I wish to convey my sincerest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of my friend and legal counsel William Ramsey Clark who passed away last April 9, 2021. I have the highest regard for him as a champion of human rights, a staunch defender of the people’s right to national and social liberation, a fierce advocate of just peace and a resolute opponent to the imperialist policies and wars of aggression of the US.

While he was US Attorney General under the Johnson administration, he was well known for standing up for civil liberties and civil rights, fighting against racial segregation and discrimination and enforcing anti-trust laws. It was in certain cases involving the US war of aggression in Vietnam that he had to agonize as a prosecutor on behalf of the US government. But after he was out of government, he visited North Vietnam as a protest against the bombing of Hanoi.

Ramsey Clark used his knowledge of history, political wisdom and legal expertise to identify the major aggressions which the US committed after World War II. These victimized Korea from 1951 onward, Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Republic of the Congo in 1961, Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Nicaragua from 1981 to 1988, Grenada from 1983 onward, Libya in 1986 and again in 2011, Panama in 1989-1990, the Gulf War in 1991, Somalia in 1991-1992, Iraq from 1993 onward, Yugoslavia in 1999, Sudan in 1988, Afghanistan from 2001onward, Iraq from 2003 onward and Haiti in 2004.

From 1998 onward while I was the Chairperson of the International Preparatory Committee that founded the ILPS in 2001, I was in communication with Ramsey Clark as the chairman of the International Action Center (IAC) concerning US imperialism in global affairs. Our communications became more frequent when the IAC and ILPS cooperated in opposing the US war of aggression against Iraq and the ensuing the so-called global war on terror. The relations of the two major international organizations became stronger and more fruitful.

I became deeply indebted to Ramsey Clark when he publicly defended me and opposed the act of the US government in designating me as “foreign terrorist” in 2002. Likewise he opposed my being named in the EU terrorist list in line with the US precedent. My Filipino lawyer, the late Atty. Romeo Y. Capulong, had extensive consultations with him in New York concerning these lists.

And when I met Ramsey Clark in The Hague in February 2005, I expressed to him my gratitude

for his solidarity and support to me against the “terrorist” listing initiated by the US government since August 9, 2002. We discussed the implications and the consequences of the “terrorist” listing, the legal and physical threats posed by the US and the possible legal and political counter-measures.

We also exchanged views on the situation in the US, Philippines and the world at large, the criminal impeachable acts of US President Bush, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the forthcoming global mass protests, the escalating US military intervention in the Philippines and the US sabotage of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations through the “terrorist” listing”.

Ramsey Clark came again to my defense on September 1, 2007 when he declared that the murder charges against had been trumped up by the Philippine authorities, that they had already been dismissed by the Philippine Supreme Court and that the Dutch authorities had no competency over the issue. Ultimately, the Dutch authorities would finally dismiss the false murder charges against me in 2009. And within that year the European Court of Justice also ruled and ordered the removal of my name from the so-called EU terrorist list.

I mention the solidarity and support that Ramsey Clark extended specifically to me by way of showing concretely his readiness to help others. But the Filipino organizations in the US and the Philippines can say more about the various ways by which he has been in solidarity and support for the Filipino people in their struggle for national and social liberation even as he had to pay attention to many issues and struggles in many countries.

Ramsey Clark won the respect of the people of the world and from the most respected institutions. In 1992 he received the Gandhi Peace Award and the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award for his commitment to civil rights, his opposition to war and military spending and his dedication to providing legal representation to the peace movement. The United Nations awarded him in 2002 its Prize in the Field of Human Rghts for his steadfast insistence on respect for human rights and fair judicial process for all.

Long before his demise, William Ramsey Clark had won the love and respect of entire peoples of the world and received the honors in recognition of his greatness and concrete deeds in the service of the oppressed and exploited people in need of support and assistance.. He will always be remembered and will continue to inspire us to uphold, defend and advance the just cause of greater freedom, democratic rights, social justice, development, international solidarity and peace against imperialism and all reaction.

Prof. Jose Maria Sison, is the Chairperson Emeritus of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle

#UnitedStates #Remembrances #PeoplesStruggles #JoseMariaSison #RamseyClark

I wish to convey my sincerest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of my friend and legal counsel William Ramsey Clark who passed away last April 9, 2021. I have the highest regard for him as a champion of human rights, a staunch defender of the people’s right to national and social liberation, a fierce advocate of just peace and a resolute opponent to the imperialist policies and wars of aggression of the US.

While he was US Attorney General under the Johnson administration, he was well known for standing up for civil liberties and civil rights, fighting against racial segregation and discrimination and enforcing anti-trust laws. It was in certain cases involving the US war of aggression in Vietnam that he had to agonize as a prosecutor on behalf of the US government. But after he was out of government, he visited North Vietnam as a protest against the bombing of Hanoi.

Ramsey Clark used his knowledge of history, political wisdom and legal expertise to identify the major aggressions which the US committed after World War II. These victimized Korea from 1951 onward, Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Republic of the Congo in 1961, Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Nicaragua from 1981 to 1988, Grenada from 1983 onward, Libya in 1986 and again in 2011, Panama in 1989-1990, the Gulf War in 1991, Somalia in 1991-1992, Iraq from 1993 onward, Yugoslavia in 1999, Sudan in 1988, Afghanistan from 2001onward, Iraq from 2003 onward and Haiti in 2004.

From 1998 onward while I was the Chairperson of the International Preparatory Committee that founded the ILPS in 2001, I was in communication with Ramsey Clark as the chairman of the International Action Center (IAC) concerning US imperialism in global affairs. Our communications became more frequent when the IAC and ILPS cooperated in opposing the US war of aggression against Iraq and the ensuing the so-called global war on terror. The relations of the two major international organizations became stronger and more fruitful.

I became deeply indebted to Ramsey Clark when he publicly defended me and opposed the act of the US government in designating me as “foreign terrorist” in 2002. Likewise he opposed my being named in the EU terrorist list in line with the US precedent. My Filipino lawyer, the late Atty. Romeo Y. Capulong, had extensive consultations with him in New York concerning these lists.

And when I met Ramsey Clark in The Hague in February 2005, I expressed to him my gratitude

for his solidarity and support to me against the “terrorist” listing initiated by the US government since August 9, 2002. We discussed the implications and the consequences of the “terrorist” listing, the legal and physical threats posed by the US and the possible legal and political counter-measures.

We also exchanged views on the situation in the US, Philippines and the world at large, the criminal impeachable acts of US President Bush, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the forthcoming global mass protests, the escalating US military intervention in the Philippines and the US sabotage of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations through the “terrorist” listing”.

Ramsey Clark came again to my defense on September 1, 2007 when he declared that the murder charges against had been trumped up by the Philippine authorities, that they had already been dismissed by the Philippine Supreme Court and that the Dutch authorities had no competency over the issue. Ultimately, the Dutch authorities would finally dismiss the false murder charges against me in 2009. And within that year the European Court of Justice also ruled and ordered the removal of my name from the so-called EU terrorist list.

I mention the solidarity and support that Ramsey Clark extended specifically to me by way of showing concretely his readiness to help others. But the Filipino organizations in the US and the Philippines can say more about the various ways by which he has been in solidarity and support for the Filipino people in their struggle for national and social liberation even as he had to pay attention to many issues and struggles in many countries.

Ramsey Clark won the respect of the people of the world and from the most respected institutions. In 1992 he received the Gandhi Peace Award and the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award for his commitment to civil rights, his opposition to war and military spending and his dedication to providing legal representation to the peace movement. The United Nations awarded him in 2002 its Prize in the Field of Human Rghts for his steadfast insistence on respect for human rights and fair judicial process for all.

Long before his demise, William Ramsey Clark had won the love and respect of entire peoples of the world and received the honors in recognition of his greatness and concrete deeds in the service of the oppressed and exploited people in need of support and assistance.. He will always be remembered and will continue to inspire us to uphold, defend and advance the just cause of greater freedom, democratic rights, social justice, development, international solidarity and peace against imperialism and all reaction.

Prof. Jose Maria Sison, is the Chairperson Emeritus of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle

#UnitedStates #Remembrances #PeoplesStruggles #JoseMariaSison #RamseyClark

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement by Jose Maria Sison, National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Chief Political Consultant.

While it is frenziedly engaged in state terrorism and suppression of democratic rights in the Philippines, the Duterte regime has submitted to the UN Human Rights Office a 137-page report entitled “The Philippine Human Rights Situationer May 2020” to achieve two malicious purposes:

1) to make false accusations against the Communist Party of the Philippines, New People’ Army and the National Democratic Front; and

2) to slander and vilify the human rights organizations and the victims who have presented well-founded complaints of human rights violations against the regime.

The declared purpose of the malicious report is to accuse the revolutionary forces of committing “crimes and atrocities” against the very people whose support they are relying on and whom they are fighting for. But in fact the real main purpose of the report is to slander and vilify the human rights organizations and victims of human rights violations as mere instruments of the revolutionary movement that is also glibly accused of being adept at “exploiting human rights and democratic spaces.”

The report carries a wild and wanton witchhunt list of alleged communist-created underground, front organizations, alliances, and networks. The list works on the malicious presumption of guilt by association, which makes the legal democratic forces and human right defenders as guilty of terrorism as the victims of human rights violations whom they defend against state terrorism.

The report goes so far as to accuse the human rights defenders of “weaponizing” human rights and using UN platforms and legal spaces to advance anti-human rights and anti-democratic political agenda, as the result of “communists” using sectoral-organizing work “for political manipulation and agitation, influence operations, and as a tool for launching diplomatic offensives against the state.”

The report lacks credibility because it comes from a regime that is accountable for gross and systematic violations of human rights and for crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court. This regime has not been honestly responsive to the complaints of human right violations and has allowed these to be violated with impunity and without letup. A new law of state terrorism has been adopted by the Duterte regime to realize a full blown fascist dictatorship.

The main line of attack of the report against the CPP, NPA and NDFP is that they are responsible for the “cost of 60,000 lives and destruction of billions of public infrastructure” in the civil war that has been going on between the revolutionary movement of the people and the reactionary government of big compradors, landlord and bureaucrat capitalists.

In fact, more than 90 percent of the lives lost in the civil war have been snuffed out by the reactionary armed forces and police in campaigns of military suppression waged against the civilian population in areas suspected of being under the people’s democratic government, especially after successful tactical offensives by the people’s army.

The people’s army is carrying out guerrilla warfare and is not destroying any public infrastructure. What is destructive to public interest and economic development is the pork barrel corruption involved in the overpricing of real or imaginary infrastructure projects by the office of the president and his political stooges in Congress.

Since the time of Marcos, the Duterte regime has been the most destructive to economic development because of its extreme corruption, military overspending, cheap sale of natural resources to foreign companies and the mounting foreign debt due to growing trade and budgetary deficits. Superprofits have been taken away from the country through the extreme exploitation of workers and through land seizures from poor peasants and indigenous peoples by logging, mining, plantation and real estate companies.

Duterte has terminated the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations despite the landmark Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law and the substantial advance in the drafting of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms, featuring mainly a program of genuine land reform and national industrialization that would have been financed by income expected from the development of oil and gas resources in the West Philippine Sea (with estimated value of at least USD 26 trillion) if not for Duterte’s sell-out of Philippine sovereign rights to China.

But the traitorous, tyrannical, genocidal and corrupt Duterte has been hell-bent on gunning for a fascist dictatorship, on getting US military assistance under the Operation Pacific Eagle-Philippines (beyond the human rights oversight of the US Congress), on laying aside the sovereign rights of the Filipino people over the exclusive economic zone in the West Philippine Sea and on obtaining graft-laden loans from China at high interest for overpriced infrastructure projects worth USD 24 billion. Thus, he has terminated the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations since 2017 by scapegoating the CPP, NPA and NDFP.

In its report, the Duterte regime boasts of being capable of destroying the revolutionary movement of the Filipino people but is anyway asking for the support from the international community for a scheme of state terrorism and fascist dictatorship, a brutal scheme that is now so notorious and well exposed to the people of the world. In fact, the regime is far more incapable of destroying the armed revolutionary movement than any previous reactionary regime.

Duterte has bankrupted the Philippine economy and his own government. His regime has aggravated the crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system. It imposes the most intolerable forms of oppression and exploitation on the people. Thus, it has incited the people to join the armed revolution at a time when the revolutionary forces are far stronger nationwide than during the Marcos fascist dictatorship which Duterte emulates in his futile drive to destroy the revolutionary movement.

#Philippines #InJusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #JoseMariaSison #PoliticalRepression #Antifascism #RodrigoDuterte #JunkTerrorBill

The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) notice of termination takes effect after 180 days. The people cannot be sure that Duterte will not change his mind within that lengthy period. Previously, Duterte postured about terminating the Visiting Forces Agreement but after a few months allowed Balikatan exercises under VFA.

In the meantime, there are other military treaties with the US: Mutual Defense Treaty, Mutual Logistics Support Agreement and Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. The EDCA allows the US military to rotate more of its troops in the Philippines and build facilities in Philippine military camps, using the Filipino puppet troops as security guards.

Duterte is beggarly dependent on US military supplies and advice. One telephone call from Trump can fix Duterte. His own pro-US military officers trained in US military forts and organized as assets of the US DIA and CIA will tell him to comply with US orders or else.

#Philippines #AntiwarMovement #OppressedNationalities #US #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #NationalDemocraticFrontOfThePhilippines #JoseMariaSison #Antifascism #RodrigoDuterte #DonaldTrump

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement by Jose Maria Sison, Chairperson Emeritus, International League of Peoples’ Struggle.

By ordering the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and the Iranian and Iraqi officials accompanying him at the Baghdad airport, U.S. President Trump has blatantly committed multiple murder as well as aggression against the sovereignty of Iraq and Iran in violation of international law as well as U.S. law which prohibits such aggressive act without the prior declaration of war by authorization of the U.S. Congress.

Trump himself has boastfully and arrogantly admitted the criminal act that he ordered the assassination of Soleimani and his Iranian and Iraqi companions in two cars. His crime of multiple murder is in line with the aggressive and terrorist character of US imperialism. As the No. 1 terrorist in world history and contemporary times, U.S. imperialism has committed acts of aggression, destroying the lives and properties of millions of people, even without the formal declaration of war. Imperialist aggression is the worst kind of terrorism which the people suffer and abhor.

Those who support the terrorist act of Trump try to depict Soleimani as a terrorist. But in fact the latter is well known as a master strategist against terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State, Al Nusra and the Al Qaeda, which US imperialism has employed at one time or another. Soleimani and his Iranian and Iraqi companions are well known to have fought the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, starting from the time the US and Israel had just created and deployed the Islamic State as a weapon for invading Iraq, Iran and Syria.

In committing his criminal act, Trump is short-sightedly motivated by his selfish desire to overcome his current impeachment and to win the next presidential elections through warmongering and arousing the jingoistic sentiments that favor U.S. imperialism. But the criminal act has serious consequences. The oppressed peoples and self-respecting countries in the Middle East are justly outraged, aroused and mobilized to fight against US imperialism. So are the people of the world, including the American people, who are against the aggressive and terrorist acts of U.S. imperialism.

In accordance with its own original intent, U.S. imperialism will commit further terrorist acts of aggression as in the Middle East. It will continue to lose trillions of dollars in military expenditures without being able to expand stable economic territory. The U.S. public debt will increase at an accelerated rate even as the U.S. military industrial complex profits. But in the Middle East, the combination of Iran, Iraq, Syria and other countries will further isolate the US and will avail of the support of China and Russia. Thanks to Trump’s hyper terrorism, the strategic decline and downfall of U.S. imperialism is accelerating.

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #Iran #JoseMariaSison

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) denounces in the strongest possible terms the US-Duterte regime for the issuance of a warrant of arrest on Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Chairperson Emeritus of the ILPS.

Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 32 Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina issued the arrest warrant last August 22 for Sison and 37 others in connection with the so-called “Inopacan massacre” supposedly committed by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) in 1985 in Leyte province and the discovery of mass graves in 2006. They are being falsely charged with 15 counts of murder. There is no basis for the allegations.

As a matter of fact, Sison was in maximum security detention by the reactionary state forces under Marcos in 1985. He was arrested in 1977 and was in no position nor authority over the CPP and NPA.

The so-called “massacre” and “mass graves” are actually fabricated by former national security chief Norberto Gonzales and retired General Hermogenes Esperon, now national security adviser. Esperon gathered the remains from various cemeteries and thus the issue was known as the case of “walking skeletons”.

The Philippine Supreme Court under Chief Justice Reynaldo Puno already dismissed the case in 2007. Former Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo was also charged with the same accusation and was granted bail.

Among the accused is Joe Luneta who is already dead and Leo Velasco and Prudencio Calubid who were both abducted by the military and forcibly disappeared. Former peace negotiator of the National Democratic Front Luis Jalondoni was also included in the case when in fact he was overseas since 1976.

Prof. Sison is a recognized political refugee under the Geneva Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights. His passport was cancelled by Philippine authorities in 1986 and has since lived as a political refugee in the Netherlands and has tirelessly promoted anti-imperialist solidarity among workers and oppressed peoples and nations.

While there is no formal extradition treaty between the Netherlands and the Philippines and progressive lawyers can easily refute the baseless and false accusations against Sison, the international community must remain vigilant and express their solidarity with the Filipino people against the on-going escalation of fascist attacks in the Philippines.

The United States has been proven to be the Number One terrorist in the world and Duterte is fast being isolated in the global community for his extra-judicial killings and other grave crimes against the Filipino people.

With this latest political persecution against Sison and Philippine activists, the ILPS calls on all members and allies to demand the immediate dropping of all trumped-up charges, release all political prisoners, and support the Philippine struggle for national liberation and democracy.

[signed]

LEN COOPER

ILPS Chairperson

#Philippines #OppressedNationalities #US #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #AsianNationalities #JoseMariaSison #ndfp #Antifascism #RodrigoDuterte #DonaldTrump

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following August 14 statement by Jose Maria Sison, National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Chief Political Consultant.

The proposal of General Ano, secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government, is one more manifestation of the frenzied drive of the tyrannical Duterte regime to impose a thoroughgoing fascist dictatorship on the people in a vain attempt to end the armed revolutionary movement as well as the broad legal opposition through red-tagging, harassments, threats, abductions and murders.

In line with the Duterte tyranny, the most vicious and bloodthirsty officials who love to kill people to solve problems are enamored of the long-discredited Anti-Subversion Law because it provides for the death penalty, for the prejudgment of people on the basis of guilt by association and for the arbitrary listing of people as “communists” for the purpose of extortions and mass slaughter.

Contrary to the view of the chief suspect in the abduction and forced disappearance of the young activist Jonas Burgos, the revival of the Anti-Subversion Law will not eliminate the Communist Party of the Philippines and the people’s democratic revolution. It will only serve to further violate the national and democratic rights of the people and will thus incite the broad masses of the people to rise up.

The fundamental cause of the armed revolution in the Philippines is neither the existence of the Communist Party in the Philippines nor the communist ideas of Marxism-Leninism but the exploitation and oppression of the Filipino people by imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism in a semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system now lorded over by the tyrant and plunderer Duterte.

The revival of the Anti-Subversion Law can give further license to Duterte’s armed minions to violate human rights and can further embolden them to witch-hunt, harass, threaten and kill those that they arbitrarily list as “communists” among the critics of the regime and the people in general. Such law can result in bigger mass murders than those perpetrated under Oplan Tokhang and Oplan Kapanatagan.

It must be recalled that the Anti-Subversion Law has long been discredited as an unjust and anti-democratic law by which anyone can be subjected to punishment on the basis of guilt by association, without the need to present evidence for the personal culpability of the accused for any crime.

Such law has long been condemned as a poison to the freedom of thought, expression and assembly.

Violations of democratic rights under the Anti-Subversion Law will drive more people to further oppose the regime and rise up in arms against it. Threatening to kill and actually killing people for their political ideas will compel them to act in a revolutionary way in order to get rid of the regime of terror that deprives them of the basic freedoms of thought, expression and assembly.

In my personal experience, red-tagging or anti-communist witch-hunts under the Anti-Subversion Law of the past never deterred me from studying Marxism-Leninism and aspiring to become a communist. Whenever the great anti-imperialist and patriot Senator Claro Mayo Recto was castigated as a communist, I became even more inspired to study the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism and learn how to apply the theory on the concrete conditions of the Philippines.

When I became a student activist in the University of the Philippines in the late 1950s, I was never afraid of the death penalty under the Anti-Subversion Law but on the contrary this anti-democratic law challenged me to organize Marxist-Leninist circles for the noble and patriotic purpose of reestablishing the Communist Party and continuing the democratic revolution started by Andres Bonifacio and frustrated by the war of aggression launched by US imperialism in 1899.

When the anti-communist witch-hunt was carried out by the Committee on Anti-Filipino Activities from 1959 to 196i in order to suppress academic freedom with the use of the Anti-Subversion Law, we the students and teachers of the University of the Philippines stood up for academic freedom and all democratic rights. Ultimately, we organized the 5000 protesters that literally scuttled the anti-communist witch-hunt on March 15, 1961. A major part of the demonstrators flooded into the CAFA hearing hall and put a stop to the proceedings.

The Anti-Subversion Law did not stop the rise of Filipino proletarian revolutionaries and their mass work. They succeeded in rebuilding the Communist Party and carrying out the people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war. Fidel V. Ramos repealed the Anti-Subversion Law in 1992 after recognizing the failure of this anti-democratic law to stop the growth and advance of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the revolutionary movement,

In the concrete semicolonial and semifeudal conditions of the Philippines, the Filipino communists are of the view that neither socialism or communism is the current issue. Thus, they have excelled at leading the people’s democratic revolution, which strives to realize full national sovereignty, democracy, social justice, economic development through national industrialization and genuine land reform, a patriotic, scientific and mass culture and international solidarity and cooperation of peoples for peace and all-round progress.

#Philippines #InJusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #AsianNationalities #JoseMariaSison #PoliticalRepression #Antifascism #RodrigoDuterte

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following May 14 statement by Jose Maria Sison, National Democratic Front of the Philippines Chief Political Consultant.

As I have predicted, Duterte is successful in rigging the May 13 elections to deliver to his candidates a false victory in the crucial senatorial race. As I have pointed out, he has to rig the elections because he has the power and the criminal personality and motivation to do so because clean and honest elections would have allowed the opposition senatorial candidates to win and frustrate his greed for power and plunder.

The rigging included the deployment of huge amounts of public and private funds to generate propaganda in various forms in favor of the regime and against the opposition, the use of the military and police for redtagging, mass intimidation, selective murders and splitting the opposition, prolongation of martial law in Mindanao and declaration of trouble spots in Luzon and the Visayas and most important of all complete control of the Comelec and the deputization of military and police personnel for electoral functions.

Duterte is driven like crazy to rig the elections by all means within his power because of his scheme to establish a full- blown fascist dictatorship by scrapping the 1987 constitution under the pretext of shifting to federalism and to prevent impeachment and indefinitely his possible arrest and prosecution before the International Criminal Court for his gross and systematic human rights violations, especially the mass murder of suspects in his bogus war on drugs as well as in his war on the people’s revolutionary movement.

We can therefore expect that Duterte will use his false electoral victory to adopt and implement more draconian measures to suppress the legal democratic opposition as well as the people’s revolutionary movement. He gives no choice to the broad masses of the people but to unite and raise the level of their resistance. The certain worsening of the socio-economic and political crisis will further drive the Duterte regime to commit crimes against the people and will at the same time incite the people, especially the toiling masses of workers and peasants to fight back.

Duterte’s policies and acts of tyranny, treason, mass murder, plunder and swindling will eventually bring about the people’s resistance that is strong enough to end his rule. Elections are insufficient and ineffective in overthrowing a despotic monster like Duterte. By rigging the elections and continuing his tyrannical rule, Duterte has brought about the conditions favorable for the rise of the legal mass protest movement as well as of the more potent armed revolutionary mass movement.

#Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #JoseMariaSison #Duterte #Asia

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), which I represent as Chairperson of the International Coordinating Committee (ICC), hereby condemns in the strongest terms the attempt of the notorious Duterte regime to slander the ILPS and misrepresent it as the international network and International Department of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) for the purpose of intimidating the legal and patriotic and progressive organizations of Filipinos in the Philippines and abroad.

Contrary to the false claim of the Duterte regime, the ILPS is a broad alliance of hundreds of anti-imperialist and democratic mass organizations in scores of countries from all continents. The ICC, its supreme leading organ, is elected by the International Assembly and is restricted by the ILPS Charter from having more than three members from the same country, thus preempting control of the ILPS by any single country or organization.

The Duterte regime’s attack on the ILPS is an extension of the anticommunist witch hunt, state terrorism and fascisation being carried out by the regime in the Philippines. It is meant to attain certain malicious objectives, such as the following:

1) To red-tag and intimidate the ILPS and also to vainly reinforce its previous red tagging of legal patriotic and even religious organizations that are critical of the gross and systematic violations of human rights being perpetrated by Duterte.

2) To mislead world public opinion and deflect attention from the complaints on human rights violations already submitted to the International Criminal Court by aggrieved victims and survivors of human rights violations, who cannot obtain justice from Philippine courts which are now under the draconian control of the tyrant Duterte.

3) To blame the legal patriotic and progressive organizations and even religious organizations for supposedly causing the self-generated notoriety of the tyrannical, murderous and corrupt Duterte regime.

In the first place, the Duterte regime must be aware of its own crimes. Since he became president, Duterte no less has been publicly inciting and ordering the police to frame up and kill suspected drug users and peddlers in the thousands and assuring his armed minions of presidential protection and rewards in cash and promotions. Thus, more than 30,000 people have been extrajudicially killed in the fake war on illegal drugs undertaken by Duterte to monopolize the illegal drug trade.

The international and human rights agencies and organizations have been factual and truthful in their reporting of the mass murders and other human rights violations. Thus, Duterte is the subject of complaints to the International Criminal Court in The Hague by aggrieved Filipinos who cannot seek justice from the Philippines state because of Duterte’s unbridled brutality and tight grip on the judicial system.

Those being red-tagged by the Duterte regime include highly and widely respected Philippine organizations, like the IBON Research Foundation, GABRIELA, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, KARAPATAN, and the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), and religious formations like the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines and the Iglesia Independiente Filipina (Philippine Independent Church).

The Duterte regime is maliciously spreading the big lie that its criminal ill repute or notoriety is because of the advocacy and social activism of the aforesaid organizations in support of the poor, exploited, and oppressed people and that these are merely CPP “front” or dummy organizations, which are used for raising funds abroad.

On their own account, the CPP and New People’s Army have time and again asserted and manifested their political, organizational and financial self-reliance because they enjoy the vigorous participation and abundant support of the people in the revolutionary struggle for national liberation, democracy, social justice, and all-round development.

Acting as the psywar agent of the Duterte regime, AFP Major General Parlade has gone to several countries in Europe and Southeast Asia to red-tag and slander the ILPS as a conduit of foreign funds for the CPP and revolutionary movement. He has done so at a time that the AFP is applying the brutal methods of Oplan Tokhang in Oplan Kapayapaan and escalating the selective and mass murders of people suspected of being linked to the New People’s Army.

Previously, it was another Duterte running dog, PNP General Albayalde who red-tagged the patriotic and progressive organizations on the outright lie that I identified them as CPP “front” organizations by maliciously misrepresenting a 1987 video, in which I sharply differentiated the forces of the armed revolutionary movement from the legal patriotic and progressive forces that had directly brought down the Marcos fascist dictatorship in 1986.

#Philippines #OppressedNationalities #US #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #JoseMariaSison #ILPS #Antifascism #RodrigoDuterte #DonaldTrump

Utrecht, Netherlands – Hundreds of cultural workers, youth, human rights and political activists, artists, academics, Filipino and other migrant nationalities and representatives of political parties and formations from all over the world, jampacked the auditorium of center for art and culture in this central Dutch city, December 29, to celebrate “Fifty Years of Art and Culture in the Filipino People’s Struggle for National and Social Liberation” and the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on December 26, 1968.

The celebration was organized by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) International Information Office in Utrecht, together with the Linangan Art and Culture – a network of young cultural workers and artists in the Netherlands. The Basis voor Actuele Kunst (BAK) – a leading international platform for theoretically-informed, politically-driven art and experimental research, hosted the event.

The celebration which began in the morning, was highlighted with an exhibition of art works, performances and publications, video installations and film-showings produced in the course of the struggle of the Filipino people for national and social liberation.

The celebration was capped with speeches by Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Founding Chairman of the CPP, and NDFP chief political consultant, who spoke on the achievements of the revolutionary movement in the past 50 years; Luis Jalandoni, NDFP peace panel senior adviser, who gave a speech on building the third weapon of the revolution, the united front, and Coni Ledesma, NDFP peace panel member, who spoke on the road to a just and lasting peace.

A one-minute video on “What is Peace” preceded Ledesma’s speech. A choral singing of “Martsa ng Bayan” (March of the People) preceded Jalandoni’s talk, and a dance interpretation of the poem and song “NorthStar” preceded Sison’s input.

Earlier during the day, Julieta De Lima, NDFP peace panel member, gave a premier lecture on the role of art and culture in the struggle of the Filipino masses for national and social Liberation, and the role of the masses in the development of revolutionary art and culture.

The solidarity program included heartwarming and revolutionary performances by young militant cultural workers from the Philippines, Netherlands, the U.S., Canada, Belgium, Turkey, and Italy. They rendered revolutionary songs, dances that included the contemporary and traditional lumad (indigenous) dance, choric reading, and theater performances depicting the triumphs of the people’s army in the Philippines. These performances were always accompanied by visual presentations on the people’s struggle.

Representatives from many organizations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Iceland, Norway, Peru, United Kingdom, Switzerland, the U.S. and Canada, India, Mexico, Turkey, and Indonesia attended. The Embassy of Venezuela in The Hague also sent a representative.

Solidarity messages from political parties and formations from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Turkey, Kurdistan, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Norway, Indonesia, the U.S. and Canada. Chants of “Viva CPP-NPA-NDF!” and “Mabuhay ang CPP!” interspersed the reading of the solidarity messages from the friends of the Filipino people.

The film “Revolution Selfie: The Red Battalion” by American filmmaker Steven De Castro who tackled the portrait of the 48 year-old people’s army in the Philippines, and the documentary film “Moving Mountains” which tackles the life stories of the pioneers of the Philippine Revolution and the future of the protracted people’s war, were also shown earlier in the day.

During the solidarity program, youth organizations in the Netherlands gave a special recognition to Prof. Sison and Julie de Lima, for being among the most outstanding pioneers of the Philippine revolutionary movement and a guiding inspiration for young revolutionaries, particularly young guerrillas of the people’s army. They gifted Joma and Julie with bouquets of flowers and a Mao pen and Mao’s original classic “Red Book”. Youth activists in the audience chanted “ang karit at maso, dudurog sa estado” (the peasant sickle and worker’s hammer, will crush the state) as the couple received a standing ovation.

As a tribute, a moving video collage of contemporary Filipino revolutionaries – poets, human rights workers, cultural activists, writers, movie directors, academics, militant priests and nuns, solidarity workers, and NPA guerrillas who have passed on, became missing, killed by the Philippine military or died as guerrilla fighters and combatants, was shown.

The evening of celebration concluded with the community singing of the workers’ anthem “Internationale” while a video of exiled NDFP leaders singing the same song was also played, and was followed by a celebratory dance with indigenous music participated in by the Filipino migrants and their children who were garbed in indigenous attire from the Cordilleras and Mindanao.

#Utrecht #Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Asia

In view of certain recent acts of the tyrant Duterte, he is accelerating the realization of his scheme to declare martial law nationwide and impose a full-blown fascist dictatorship on the people.

Duterte is closing all doors to peace negotiations. He has caused OPAPP Secretary Dureza to resign in order to put OPAPP under total military control in line with Duterte’s policy of militarizing his cabinet. He is giving way to the demands of the military.

The military want to control OPAPP to prevent serious GRP peace negotiations with the NDFP by imposing the precondition of surrender on the New People’s Army (NPA). They also want to place the billions of pesos of OPAPP and Pamana funds under the control of the military. The issue of corruption against Dureza’s undersecretaries is a mere pretext because the Office of the President itself is the stinking center of corruption.

The military officers and some mayors have become notorious for pocketing privately E-CLIP funds for fake surrenders. Now, they want to take over the PAMANA under OPAPP. The racket in PAMANA is also in the invention of fake beneficiaries and in favoring political favorites among local officials.

In a flagrant expression of lawlessness and barbarism or even madness, Duterte has announced the formation of death squads with the license to kill just anyone who is suspected of being or still becoming NPA. He has specified as targets of the death squads any istambay (idler), any critic, any activist or just anyone whom the death squads suspect or think of becoming or being NPA.

He wants Oplan Kapayapaan to compete with Oplan Tokhang in murdering thousands of people. He is obviously becoming desperate because Oplan Kapayapaan has failed to defeat the NPA in the guerrilla fronts. Not a single guerrilla front has been destroyed even in Mindanao where he has concentrated 75 of his total of 98 maneuver battalions under conditions of martial law.

Now, the NPA is increasingly carrying out tactical counteroffensives in the countryside of Mindanao, Visayas and Luzon. But the NPA is not yet fielding commando teams to urban areas in consideration of the CPP policy that the character the urban mass struggle is legal and defensive.

It is only Duterte who has conjured the illusion that the urban areas are already swarming with “sparrow units” in urban areas in order to have the pretext for forming his death squads to threaten and use against his urban-based legal opponents.

Duterte has gone out of his mind. As Catholic Bishop David has observed, he is mentally sick. He needs psychiatric help and should be removed from his position.

#Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #NationalDemocraticFrontOfThePhilippines #JoseMariaSison #Asia

Fight Back! interviewed Jose Maria Sison, the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, August 18, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Fight Back!: What has the Duterte regime meant for the people of the Philippines?

Jose Maria Sison: Well, the Duterte regime is seen as a tyrannical, corrupt and overspending kind of government. What now outrages the people most is not so much Duterte calling God ‘stupid,’ but it's a more mundane thing, like the rising prices. The soaring prices of basic commodities and services have come about because of the increase of the tax burden at the expense of the consumers. There is tax cut-backs for the big bourgeoisie and other exploiters, but the taxes in the form of excise taxes, which is put into the price of commodities, so it's something inescapable – and this causes inflation. The inflation rate is going up.

Then of course, people are already cognizant of the fact that Duterte is simply killing the poor people in this war on drugs, in order to intimidate the people with mass murder and with impunity – and the presidential protection that the police are given, no? And then the cash rewards, too. It's now well known that Duterte's favoring his own group of drug lords. He's practically the supremo of the most dominant group of drug lords, including his son, who has been exposed as smuggling, smuggling illegal drugs in a big way.

Fight Back!: So, what's the state of the resistance?

Sison: There is a broad united front that has come about. The best-known manifestation of that broad united front is the movement against tyranny. The issue of human rights is the issue that has brought people together, and the people are concerned with the use of the Tokhang [extrajudicial killings] methods against the poor. Also, the use of practically the same methods in Oplan Kapayapaan [a counterinsurgency campaign of the government], which is directed against the revolutionary forces.

Now what are those methods? People are asked to surrender themselves, as in the case of the war on drugs, as drug addicts or pushers, so that they would be cleared, no? And they could even get rehabilitation. But the list is a death list. Because the police officers are given orders to kill a number of people from day to day.

And the same methods are used in the Oplan Kapayapaan. You know, you read from the newspapers about mass surrenders and killings and encounters, but those are fake surrenders and fake encounters. Now, a list is drawn up of people who belong to the revolutionary movement. They say, well, some of the NPA (New People’s Army) full-timers, live in the community, or they belong to the People's Militia, or they belong to the self-defense units of the mass organizations, or they are related to NPA full-timers, so they are encouraged to surrender, to have themselves listed down as NPA. They are misrepresented as surrendering. But the list is also used for killing. It's also a death list.

Fight Back!: Okay, so, there were huge demonstrations at State of the Nation Address (SONA), so there's a huge mass outpouring against Duterte, no?

Sison: Yes, the People's United SONA is a signal event. Despite the inclement weather in the stormy Philippines, 40,000 people were assembled in order to demonstrate against the SONA of Duterte, the State of the Nation address, no? All over the country, thousands also made their demonstrations, so you can say hundreds of thousands on a nationwide scale, and this is just the beginning. So, we expect in due time the mass actions will grow until such time that military and police officers would express dislike or even withdraw support from Duterte.

Fight Back!: So, will Duterte be overthrown or pushed out of office?

Sison: There is a high probability, there is a high probability within this year or next year. The important thing is to have demonstrations of hundreds of thousands in Manila. That would be enough to encourage Duterte's own military officers to withdraw support. You know, Duterte is becoming more and more notorious among military officers. He's considered a traitor for selling out Philippine sovereignty or sovereign rights over the exclusive economic zone and letting the Chinese build the artificial islands in the West Philippine Sea. Then another thing where Duterte makes a big mistake, you know, he's going crazier by the day. There are also symptoms of his possible physical illness and also mental illness. But anyway, the big mistake that he has made, which the military, his own military, don't like is encouraging the violation of their constitution. He said, Duterte said, “I wish to resign! But I do not like the vice president to take over, Robredo,” no? He would prefer someone else. Then, at first, he said, “I could be replaced by military junta, or Marcos, Bongbong Marcos, or Chiz Escudero.” You know, the military and police are always indoctrinated to follow the constitution and the law, no? [laughs]

Fight Back!: How is the people's war progressing?

Sison: The people's war is progressing. So, there is a national spread reaching the three big island groupings in the Philippine archipelago. The NPA is operating in 110 guerrilla fronts – at least 110 guerrilla fronts. They are in 73 out of 81 provinces. The enemy thinks 40% of the strength of the movement is in Mindanao. So there is a concentration of enemy forces in Mindanao. 75% are in Mindanao. That's a total of 75 maneuver battalions in Mindanao. 44 are against the NPA, and 31 are against the Bangsamoro groups.

Now, only some 25 maneuverable battalions are spread on the wider scale of Luzon and the Bisayas. They are thinly spread here. So it's easy for the NPA to launch offensives where the enemy is more dispersed and spread thinly. But even in Mindanao, there is a lot of experience for the NPA there in dealing with concentrated forces.

The encircling forces have big gaps. So points in the encirclement – can be hit, no? Or the NPA can just win, no? And if the encircling forces send into the NPA area small units, platoons, let's say, they can be ambushed. So the NPA in the Mindanao knows how to do counter-encirclement against outposts in the perimeter as well as troops, small units sent into the areas of the NPA. They have been so good – the NPA has been so good in this kind of warfare because during the last 15 years, they were able to create new guerrilla fronts outside of the area being concentrated on, no? Northeast Mindanao. So they were able to create in north, central Mindanao and in southwestern Mindanao and southern Mindanao.

By themselves, the NPA in Mindanao has been able to beat, to frustrate and beat the enemy, and they succeed in creating new guerrilla fronts. So Duterte has practically been a big help to the NPA. He's wearing out his troops in Mindanao. [laughs] First, he wore them out in Marawi. Now in Mindanao that he is trying to attack and defeat the NPA, he is wearing out the troops, so that the NPA in the Bisayas and Luzon should have a fiesta in launching offensives. [laughs]

Fight Back!: Okay. So the NPA is growing stronger, more people are living in the revolutionary areas, and basically the red political power is expanding.

Sison: Yeah, the NPA has a mass base of some millions of people. You see the NPA does not only have its auxiliary and reserve forces – like the People's Militia per village and the defense, self-defense units within mass organizations. Then you have the mass organizations enveloping those forces with some amount – at least with some amount of arms, you know? Related to the NPA, no? Then the unorganized masses, they are the targets of expansion work. So there's a people's government with several committees to make sure that there is effective governance involving mass organizing, mass education, production, finance, self-defense, health, and sanitation, environmental protection and settlements of disputes.

Fight Back!: Very good. So finally, and by way of a conclusion, what message would you have for progressive people and revolutionaries in the United States?

Sison: I would appeal to the progressive forces in the United States to continue and amplify their solidarity and support for the Filipino people's struggle for national liberation and democracy against U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. I think support from the imperialist country which props up the puppet regime in the Philippines is very important. This was demonstrated during the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam. The U.S. was using all kinds of military force in order to beat the Vietnamese people, but they could not succeed because the self-reliant struggle of the Vietnamese people was supported and augmented by the anti-imperialist and democratic mass movement in the U.S. which opposed imperialism, as well as the wars and plunder that imperialism unleashes.

#UtrechtNetherlands #Utrecht #AntiwarMovement #Philippines #Opinion #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #Interviews #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Socialism #Antifascism

Fight Back New Service is circulating the following May 1 statement by Jose Maria Sison, Chairperson, International League of Peoples´ Struggle.

Warmest greetings of solidarity! The International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS) stands with our member-organization, Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), and the broad masses of workers and people celebrating the International Day of Labor and joining the mass protests this May 1.

This day closely precedes the 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx on May 5. The ILPS recognizes that there is no more fitting tribute to Marx, the great thinker and founder of the theory and practice of proletarian revolution, than to adopt a theme from his great work, the Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.”

The strong internationalist theme is demanded by the major problems that confront and inflict grave suffering on the workers of the world, including those of the Philippines. These include unemployment and underemployment, job insecurity, low wages, repression of unions, and the lack of social services such as housing and public transportation.

They arise from the profit-taking nature of capitalism at the expense of the working class, especially under the current imperialist neoliberal policies. Indeed. workers of the world must unite to fight their class exploiters and oppressors.

In the Philippines, the blatant use of fascist policy and tactics against workers is a direct response to the successful, widespread working class movement fighting to uphold workers’ rights. We support your main calls for the junking of contractualization, for a national minimum wage, for better public services, and for a just and lasting peace in the context of the ongoing war between the reactionary government and the revolutionary forces of the people.

Indeed, with these clear goals, KMU has succeeded in building a historic alliance with other labor organizations in the country, as workers unite in the face of the Duterte regime’s neoliberal attacks on labor rights and welfare. KMU must maintain its independence and initiative while leading the fight against the tyrannical regime.

KMU has always been at the forefront of the campaigns of the labor sector in the Philippines, because of its capacity for sharp, thorough, and incisive analysis of workers’ issues in the national and international setting. KMU fulfills a crucial role in leading the struggles of Filipino workers, who have labored under the yoke of the semifeudal and semicolonial system.

Today, that struggle is intensifying against the anti-people, anti-worker regime of Duterte and his ruling clique of landlords, big compradors, and bureaucrat capitalists, including the still politically-active families of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the plunderer Gloria M. Arroyo.

This Labor Day, Filipino workers’ condemnation of the Duterte regime’s neoliberal economic policies aligns with the worldwide workers’ movement against imperialism. It has been a decade since the 2008 global financial crisis, yet workers still suffer from its lasting impact, and the crisis of overproduction and excessive publicdebt continues to worsen and deepen.

Capitalists have developed an arsenal of ways and means to keep maximizing profits at the expense of the laboring people. Around the world, exploitation persists, as evident in the pervasiveness of cheap labor, austerity measures, higher taxes for the poor; and tax cuts for the corporations and the rich, the privatization of public assets and services and inhumane working conditions.

Meanwhile, as workers and other oppressed people suffer from the unresolved economic downturn, giant corporations and governments of imperialists and imperialist allies survive through self-serving mechanisms such as state-funded bailouts, credits, and public funding; blatant graft and corruption; and one-sided public-private partnerships.

The nonstop accumulation of capital in the hands of the ruling class is flagrant in the Philippines and the whole world. In the National Capital Region, the current daily minimum wage is less than half of the estimated family living wage.

The gap is widened as the Duterte regime railroads laws designed to benefit the ruling classes while adding to the burdens of the poor, such as the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, which increases taxes on basic goods and services and bring about rising prices for the toiliing masses, while lowering the import costs of luxury goods.

Duterte and his cronies maintain and aggravate the harsh social and economic conditions of the people primarily through state terrorism and active black propaganda campaign against social activists and other critics of his administration.

These strategies of the oppressive rulers are nothing new. As seen in the recent unwarranted attacks on Palestine and Syria, the US and its imperialist allies continue to wage outright wars of aggression in order to feed the greed of the military-industrial complex, while raising the public debt and destroying the lives in great numbers and the physical and social infrastructure of their “enemy” countries.

But even in a world beset by a sharp rise in state terrorist tactics, Duterte is unusually notorious. His multiple wars against his own people, from a drug war targeting the poor to a war against revolutionaries, have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in only two years. His death toll is unprecedented even in comparison to Marcos. In the labor sector, 29 have been killed since Duterte came into power in 2016.

To suppress the legal political activities and clearly legitimate dissent against his ultr-reactionary policies and actions, Duterte has increased military expenditures and used the military, police and paramilitary for selfish criminal purposes. He repeatedly goads, rewards and supports the military, police and paramilitary to carry out mass killings and other atrocities.

The Duterte administration has also made frenzied efforts to generate and spread fake news, intended to mislead the masses and deflect public anger against his government. This is particularly obvious in Duterte’s pretense at being opposed to contractualization, as he signs executive orders riddled with loopholes instead of working with the labor sector to end contractualization once and for all. He has recently exposed himself totally as being for contractualization.

This year, the need for workers to organize and oppose imperialism on a local and global scale is stronger than ever. Some 170 years ago, Marx reminded proletarian revolutionaries: “You have a world to win.” Workers in the Philippines and around the world should unite in fighting oppression and exploitation.

We join the revolutionary struggle of all oppressed peoples to build a society characterized, not by inequality and mass suffering, but by freedom from imperialism and local reaction, by democracy, economic development, cultural progress and social justice for the people towards the goal of socialism.

Long live Kilusang Mayo Uno!

Long live the working class and the Filipino people!

Fight imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism!

Long live the great legacy of Marx!

Advance the world proletarian-socialist revolution!

#UnitedStates #MayDay #PeoplesStruggles #JoseMariaSison #InternationalLeagueOfPeoplesStruggle #Socialism

Minneapolis, MN – An important interview with Jose Maria Sison – the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines – about the growing people’s war in the Philippines is now available as a pamphlet. Click to download the Sison interview pamphlet (PDF).

The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Kelly states, “At a time when the U.S. is stepping up its intervention to block the advances of the revolution in the Philippines, it is important that this pamphlet get the broadest possible circulation among progressive people in this country.”

#MinneapolisMN #Philippines #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Asia

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement by Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Founding Chairman Communist Party of the Philippines that was sent to the Oct 14 Minneapolis celebration of the October revolution. The address can be viewed on youtube.

Comrades and friends,

I am highly honored and deeply pleased to convey warmest greetings of solidarity to the Freedom Road Socialist Organization on the occasion of its celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution and to give some brief remarks on the significance of this earth-shaking revolution.

The epochal struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was first defined by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto of 1848 in the era of free competition capitalism. The objective conditions of 19th century Europe gave rise to a series of historic events: the workers’ uprisings in 1848, Marxś thoroughgoing critique of capitalism, the International Workingmen´s Association, the Paris Commune of 1871 as prototype of the proletarian dictatorship, the Second International and the rise of Marxism as the main trend in the European working class movement in the last decade of the 19th century.

Lenin extended and developed the theory and practice of Marxism to the stage of Marxism-Leninism in the era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution. He made significant contributions to Marxist philosophy, political economy and social science. He upheld, defended and advanced the revolutionary essence of Marxism not only against the overt ideologists of the bourgeoisie but also against the classical revisionists headed by Kautsky in the Second International.

Most important of all, Lenin led the Bolsheviks in the overthrow of Tsarism in Russia in February of 1917 and then in the overthrow of the bourgeois Kerensky government on October 25, 1917 in order to establish the first durable socialist state on one-sixth of the surface of the earth. The most crucial element in socialism is the class dictatorship of the proletariat defeating that of the bourgeoisie and nationalizing the land and strategic industries, despite the vestiges of feudalism and medievalism, the exigencies of civil war and resistance to foreign intervention and transitory measures like “war communism” and the New Economic Policy.

Even while he was preoccupied with the immediate tasks of consolidating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Lenin paid attention to the prospective stage of socialist construction and the promotion of the world proletarian revolution through the Third International or the Comintern against the rule of the monopoly bourgeoisie in the centers and periphery of imperialism. After the death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin followed up the New Economic Policy with full scale socialist industrialization and the collectivization and mechanization of agriculture and expanded the work of the Third International, especially to the colonies and semi-colonies where the bourgeois democratic and socialist stages of revolution are well defined.

As a pioneering socialist country, the Soviet Union demonstrated how in so short a time through a series of five-year economic and related plans, the proletariat, peasants and other working people could lift themselves up politically, economically, socially and culturally. In the face of the imperialist powers and the rise of fascism, the Soviet Union was able to strengthen itself in an all-round way and build a powerful Red Army under the leadership of the Communist Party. In World War II, the Allied Powers could defeat the Axis powers because of the decisive role of the Soviet Union in defeating the Nazi German invasion and in rolling back the fascists in an epical counteroffensive.

After World War II, the Soviet Union recovered fast from the destruction wrought by the Nazi German invasion to 75 per cent of Soviet industry and death to 27 million Soviet citizens. It continued to be the bulwark of socialism and the national liberation movements in colonies and semicolonies. It was able to develop its own nuclear weapons in order to counter the US nuclear monopoly and blackmail. It stood as an inspiration to the proletariat and oppressed peoples of the world. Within the first half of the 1950s, one third of humankind lived in socialist countries and people´s democracies led by communist and workers´ parties.

But after the death of the Stalin in 1953, the modern revisionists headed by Krushchov were able to split the followers of Stalin and gain power in the Soviet Union in 1956. They instituted capitalist-oriented reforms within the ruling party, the state and the economy and propagated bourgeois populism and pacifism. Brezhnev took power in 1964, continued the restoration of capitalism, recentralized the ministries, plunged into an arms race with the US and engaged in social imperialism. The Soviet Union went into serious economic stagnation and deterioration from the latter half of the 1970s. By the time of Gorbachov, it was ripe for social disorganization and undisguised restoration of capitalism. It collapsed in 1991.

We are still in the era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution because the modern revisionists betrayed socialism and succeeded in subverting socialism and restoring capitalism in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, causing a temporary retreat of the socialist cause and preventing socialism from becoming dominant in the world for the time being. However, upon the integration of former socialist countries in the world capitalist system, with Russia and China becoming big capitalist powers themselves, contradictions among the imperialists, between capital and labor, between the imperialists and the oppressed peoples and between the imperialists and countries assertive of independence have intensified more than ever before in what is now a multipolar world.

For a while, from the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, U.S. imperialism appeared to be the sole superpower in a unipolar world in which it could impose its will and brute force on the people of the world. But since then, the US neoliberal economic policy and neoconservative policy of full spectrum dominance have resulted in more frequent and worse crises and wars that have in fact undermined and debilitated U.S. imperialism. The strategic decline of US imperialism has accelerated in the 21st century. The U.S. is upsetting the world capitalist system with further crises and wars by desperately trying to reverse the trend. Its former hubris over Francis Fukuyama´s perpetuity of capitalism has turned into anxiety over Graham Allison´s Thucydides Trap.

The October Revolution remains highly significant and urgently relevant today to the proletariat and peoples of the world. It tells us to develop the subjective forces for winning the revolutionary struggle against imperialism and for socialism. We need to build the Bolshevik-type of revolutionary party of the proletariat that has a mastery of materialist dialectics and struggles against imperialism, revisionism and all reaction. Lenin teaches us that it takes a whole historical epoch for socialism to prevail over capitalism on a world scale and Mao also teaches us that in socialist countries there must be continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship to combat revisionism and consolidate socialism.

Under the leadership of the proletarian party with communist foresight, we need the revolutionary trade unions and the mass organizations of various oppressed classes and sectors of society. We need the Red Guards or the self-defense units of mass organizations and communities and the Red Army or people´s army wherever possible and necessary. We need to build the soviets or the local organs of political power that will become the base of the socialist state. We need the alliances in every country, the anti-imperialist solidarity of peoples and proletarian internationalism. We need to develop all the revolutionary forces and resources for waging all forms of struggle and winning the revolution against imperialism, revisionism and all reaction.

#MinneapolisMN #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganization #Socialism

Fight Back! interviewed Jose Maria Sison, the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), August 19, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This is the third and final portion of the interview. See also part 1 and part 2.

The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Fight Back!: What do you have to say about the role of the U.S. in the Philippines?

Jose Maria Sison: The U.S. has been alerted. The U.S. has certain laws. You don’t give aid to governments that violate human rights. Congress people were threatening to reduce aid – as a matter of fact, Duterte’s been complaining about not getting the supplies that he wants, appropriate to, you know, supposedly fighting terrorists and so on.

Obama was under advice by congressional leaders and other people to advise Duterte not to kill too many [laughs], because the extra-judicial killings were already being done by the thousands, from month to month.

It’s another question whether the U.S. is real defender of human rights [chuckles]. There is something hypocritical about U.S. imperialism. The U.S. is responsible for massive human rights violations, massive destruction of lives and property, infrastructure – social infrastructure – in so many countries. The U.S. can be described as the ‘number one’ violator of human rights – responsible for the death of millions, 10, 20 million since the end of World War II.

And then course, in the offensives made by the U.S. since the 1990s, it wasted the lives of American soldiers and trillions of dollars to carry out those offensives.

However, the U.S. uses the human rights issue in order to justify its domination over countries, to exercise control. It’s not so much of the love of human rights, but it is for the love of controlling [laughs] the puppets.

Even if Duterte says he wishes to maintain an independent foreign policy, the system he has inherited from his predecessors very much is a system that belongs to the U.S. and he has used personnel loyal to the U.S. Lorenzana [Major General Lorenzana, AFP (Ret.), Secretary of National Defense] is a longtime resident of Washington. He has long been connected to JUSMAG [Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group], the military advisor group that decides what kind of weapons to sell to the Philippine armed forces. And of course, the national security advisor, as well as the chief of staff, they are products of American forces, American forces training and also products of inter-operability training exercises in the yearly Balikatan exercises.

So, the U.S. is in control. Duterte may be dramatic, he’s as if trying to break off from the U.S. control, but, when the Marawi events came, you see how he was so grateful to the U.S. and he was so ready to accept the deliveries of the U.S. At two ends, Duterte has been manipulated. He has been manipulated by his close-in security advisors, and at another end is the IS creation – the Islamic State creation of the CIA, and the Moussad [laughs].

The CPP editorial, the CPP statement, described Duterte as having exposed himself as a tool of aggression, because he’s the one who looks insane, and who has admitted using fentanyl, no? Sending him to the skies, having him seated on cloud nine.

Duterte echoes the U.S. propaganda that Kim Jong Un is crazy. I thought that he knew well the geopolitics in which the U.S. operates. He doesn’t know that the DPRK could be it hit like Iraq of Saddam or Libya of Khaddaffi, if it does not have its nuclear weapons for self-defense.

So that’s Duterte. I have already mentioned the reasons that Duterte cannot be trusted to comply with what the people demand in terms of social, economic, political and constitutional reforms, to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace.

It’s difficult to say whether the negotiations will be able to proceed under Duterte, because Duterte himself cannot guarantee his political survival. He can be thrown out by pro-U.S. elements in the military, or, a broad united front by democratic forces could overthrow him.

For instance, these extra-judicial killings, with impunity, they are becoming sort of a bomb exploding in the face of Duterte, whereas before, it seemed like it was the main factor for gaining his popularity. He was presenting himself as a strongman, using the mean face, and then he was going to do the quick fix. But, he as not solved the problem. Because in the first place, he’s just killing poor drug users and addicts. The highest level he went up to was killing three mayors.

But what about the governors and generals? What about his son, who’s now reputed to be the lord of the drug lords? The son now is accused of using ports, the ports of Davao and Manilla and possibly other ports, in smuggling drugs. So how can he stop the drug problem, if his own son, and if he himself cannot be aware or is aware in cahoots with the son?

Fight Back!: What do you have to say to our readers, to the American people, the people of the U.S.?

Sison: The Filipino people are trying hard to continue and advance the revolution. The people take pride in being able to develop the revolutionary forces, despite what may be called even a strategic retreat of the anti-imperialist and socialist cause since 1991.

The Filipino people are doing everything possible. The Filipino people become aware of their duty to wage the revolution no matter how long it takes. It took us 300 years to liberate ourselves from Spanish colonialism, and for a while we were a standout, before the U.S. imperialists intervened. We were the first to liberate ourselves from a Western colonial power, and that’s a big prize. As we sort of performed the role of being this torch-bearer in our part of the world, at least in Southeast Asia, that’s an inspiring thing to think of.

So, we are doing our best to be able to contribute to the resurgence of the world proletarian revolution and the broad anti-imperialist struggle. In turn, as we have the spirit of helping the proletariat and the people of the world to advance the revolution, possibly in all countries and continents. We expect that their struggles contribute to our own strengthening. So, there’s interaction between the proletariat and people in various countries, be these countries that are the advanced industrialist capitalist countries, and be they underdeveloped countries – which are still in the majority.

The time will come that more direct exchanges, more direct forms of cooperation will be possible and the stronger ones will help the weaker ones, in terms of moral and material support. The most important thing this is that we help each other by true solidarity, by fighting a common enemy.

We have always thought of the American people as having contributed a decisive help to the victory of the Vietnamese people, who were the first to score definite big victory against U.S. imperialism, I think, in history. The U.S. was defeated, and then of course, the rest of Indochina would follow, but the key point is this is one country where the U.S. [pauses]. You know, in the Korean War, the U.S. set a kind of stalemate, ending in the armistice agreement. But of course, in another sense, the U.S. was effectively frustrated in trying to dominate the north, or the DPRK. [returns to Vietnam topic] So a whole country driving away U.S. imperialism, the Vietnamese people achieved that.

And the American people contributed to that victory, because, inside the U.S., they demonstrated the unjustness of the war of aggression. The people showed the costliness and futility of all those bombs being thrown at the Vietnamese people. And so, the U.S. was compelled to retreat, to withdraw from Vietnam – mainly through the struggle of the Vietnamese people, but, you must also take into account what the American people did, in order to discourage the U.S. from going further in the war.

But anyway, they could not really go further in any justifiable way. Even in the boardrooms of the monopoly bourgeoise, the U.S. comforted itself, ‘Well, it’s better to act like good businessmen. We just don’t throw our metals and chemicals at Vietnam, we better sell our weapons to the oil-producing countries.’ That’s how they shifted, they justified the withdrawal from Vietnam.

But we have always regarded the support of the American people to the Vietnamese struggle as a model for us, and we take advantage of the fact that there has been this colonial and neo-colonial relationship, and there are quite a number of Filipinos – as early as the early 70s – they acknowledged we were 4 million Filipinos – you certainly have that figure if you also count in the Filipino-Americans, the second generation that has no more plans of going back to the Philippines. So, we have billions. The Vietnamese had less.

The Filipinos in the U.S., being able to cooperate with their solidarity friends of various nationalities within the U.S., we can do better in fighting against a common enemy right in the belly of the beast.

#UtrechtNetherlands #Utrecht #Philippines #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Asia

Fight Back! interviewed Jose Maria Sison, the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), August 19, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This is the second part of the interview, and the conclusion will be published next week. See part 1 here and part 3 here.

The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Fight Back!: How do you see or characterize the government of Philippine President Duterte?

Duterte has been well-recommended by the regional leadership of the Communist Party in charge of southern Mindanao region that covers Davao City. So Duterte had been cooperating with the comrades there for nearly three decades. But then he has his own way of doing things. Even before, it was already said that Duterte’s capable of saying and doing anything, from the left way, the middle way, or the rightist way. Depending on what serves him from moment to moment [laughs]. He behaves that way as a bureaucrat capitalist.

But you know, he has a style of not showing of whatever acquisitions he has made. He’s a lawyer, he must know how to stash away what he has to hide. He has a big mansion, he donates that, no? And so he’s also capable of the grand gesture; he donates his own house for little children, for the use of children with special needs.

But being mayor of Davao can be different from being president, because the president will have to take into account more factors. Among those factors are far, far more powerful than even the supposedly all-powerful president. You have the U.S. and other players on a global scale. And also you have a society that is in chronic crisis, and it is stricken by further crisis – more and more, no?

Because this is a country that drowning in foreign debt. So, if Marcos used to borrow money at the rate of 1.4 billion pesos a year, the succeeding regimes would be borrowing at the annual rate of $2.8 billion dollars. Marcos ended his term with 27 billion debt from a level of 500 million. Now you have 77 billion. And Duterte expects to be able to borrow from China – one of the most fantastic figures is 167 billion – I don’t think China can provide that. But in the October visit of Duterte to China he got 9 billion in pledges, and further talks, I think led to an additional pile of like 6 billion, so they are talking about 15 billion in loans but mainly for infrastructure.

The problem is, that Filipino people have to be alert to, is that, you know, Duterte’s open joint undertaking with the Chinese in the exploring and developing the undersea energy resources in the western Philippine sea. The Philippines won the case before the UN Arbitral Tribunal in accordance with the UN convention on the law of the sea, so the exclusive economic zone, the extended continental shelf, sovereign rights over them are completely, clearly belong to the Philippines. But there are certain features in which the Chinese made reclamation.

If you have a wise president, you can take advantage of the multipolar world. You can utilize China and Russia in order to neutralize the long-running U.S. power. But if you are not wise enough, competent enough, because you see, these countries competing with the U.S. have capitalist operations – if you let them take advantage, well they don’t like to pay credit on their side, no? Whoever represents China or Chinese corporations in deals… [laughs]. So, the Philippines must also take care of its interests so there is mutuality of benefit, and you don’t get taken advantage of.

The problem is we might lose control over those trillions of dollars’ worth of energy resources because we cannot pay for excessive loans for infrastructure. So under the World Bank infrastructure projects are a way of drawing away resources from industrial development. That’s an old trick of U.S. imperialism, and it should not be repeated – whichever country or whichever bank we deal with.

We have now a testing ground for Duterte. It is you now, the peace negotiations.

Fight Back!: Let’s hear more about the peace negotiations. Why are they taking place and where are they going?

The peace negotiation is a testing ground for Duterte. We demand, the NDFP [National Democratic Front of the Philippines] demands that the Duterte government complies with the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect For Human Rights and international humanitarian law, by releasing the political prisoners, either by one of two methods.

One is by general amnesty, the other is by withdrawal of the charges. Those charges are garbage. According to the CARHRIHL, the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, those prisoners have been arrested and detained should not have been arrested and detained in the first place, because the charges are trumped up. And many of these political prisoners are not even fighters of the NPA [New People’s Army]. After an incident, the military just picked up people from the nearby villages. So the GRP [Government of the Republic of the Philippines] and their obligation to release the political prisoners, there is even more demand for compensation – for apology and compensation.

Duterte so far has not passed the test. A year has passed, and his promise to comply with CARHRIHL has not been done. There are supposed to be six grades which he must pass. He hasn’t passed grade one.

It is obvious in the peace negotiations, there is so much delay. Even if there are already four successful – we call them successful – because there are some advances, but we notice that at a certain point, there may be no success whatsoever, because the GRP or the Duterte government insists that there must be a protracted and indefinite joint or bilateral ceasefire ahead of everything. And you know if the NDFP agrees to that, that would be very bad. People will say, “What about the social and economic reforms?” At least those must be taken up in advance of this ceasefire. In fact, properly, the permanent truce is a subject matter of the end – it’s the fourth item under the rubric of “end of hostilities and the disposition of forces.” So, this is a problem.

Now, Duterte, I think, he’s quite unstable or stupid, no? He had this Marawi problem. First, he underestimated it then he overestimated – well he, for a while, probably for a day or so he was underestimating the problem but when the fighting started, he had just arrived in Russia, then went back to the Philippines, and he proclaimed martial law.

The martial law does not cover only the area where the Bangsamoro is, of where the Marawi and Abu Sayyaf groups exist. He made the martial law Mindanao-wide. That means to say, the NPA is ‘the enemy!’

Duterte speaks with a forked tongue. “Oh, we are not targeting the NPA.” But why Mindanao, nationwide, and why at the level of the national defense department and the level of the armed forces chief of staff, why do the issue the directives against the NPA? And then they repeat threats that martial rule will be extended to the entire country.

So. What enemy will they face? The NPA, and then of course revolutionary forces and the legal democratic forces, especially those concerned about human rights – from the beginning they were critical of these extra-judicial killings in the so-called ‘war on drugs.’

There are too may innocents getting killed and the police are emboldened to kill because they are assured of impunity and they are paid 50 thousand pesos per head. It’s a scandal!

Well, this is the problem for the revolutionary movement. This may be something like pointed out very early by Ka Oris, the spokesperson of the CPP and the New People’s Army.

This campaign popularizing the extra-judicial killings at first posed against this illegal drug trade can be shifted, can be used a method, against the revolutionary movement. And this could be something like ‘Plan Colombia.’ At first the paramilitaries units were formed supposedly against the illegal drugs, then then they could be shifted against the FARC and ELN, no?

So, the Communist Party and the rest of the revolutionary movement have been alerted, and so right now, even Duterte is making some offensives justifying the disengagement that the NDFP has to undertake.

But Duterte has declared the termination, the end, of the peace negotiations three times. Not once has NDF complained and terminated the peace negotiations. So we are on the just and reasonable side on this issue.

#UtrechtNetherlands #Utrecht #Philippines #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Socialism #Asia

Fight Back! interviewed Jose Maria Sison, the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, August 19, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This is the first part of the interview. See part 2 here and part 3 here.

The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Fight Back!: In the Philippines, there is a people’s war taking place, for basic social change. Why? Jose Maria Sison: The Philippines is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. Corresponding to that is the bourgeois democratic revolution of the new type. That is to say, it’s of the new type because it’s under working-class leadership – no longer under the bourgeois leadership, as in the old democratic revolution. One other way of phrasing what I call the ‘bourgeois democratic revolution, the new type’; they seem to call it ‘the people’s democratic revolution with a socialist perspective.’ And you know, the kind of character, as a new type of democratic revolution is determined by its class leadership – the working class – and the working class is the force that carries over the revolution from the democratic stage to the socialist stage of the revolution.

People’s war can be carried out in the Philippines any time, because Philippine society, which is semi-colonial and semi-feudal, is in chronic crisis. It’s a country that is agrarian and underdeveloped and most people are in the countryside. They are peasants. So, you have a wide countryside, as the physical terrain for building the New People’s Army and carrying out people’s war through stages, from small and weak, to bigger, to stronger.

We have three probable stages in the development of the people’s war. First stage is strategic defensive, in which we change the balance of forces by launching tactical offensives. You get the weapons from the enemy’s side and then you can get onto the strategic stalemate, where there is a parity. In other words, in so many areas, there will be a tug of war, over, let’s say, over towns – over town centers and even some small cities.

The enemy cannot hold on to any areas firmly and the NPA must maintain its mobility. When the enemy advances in bigger force, then the NPA retreats, it takes a more advantageous position, and then hits back [laughs]. Anyway, the final stage is when the force that was on the offensive, on the strategic offensive, is already placed on the defensive, and, so it’s now the force that was previously on the strategic defensive that goes on the strategic counter-offensive.

In terms of the growth of the army, when guerilla warfare is predominant in the strategic defensive, but elements of regular mobile warfare will already arise, upon the completion of that stage. And most of the fighting in the strategic offensive will be – most of the crucial fighting will be – done by the regular, by the mobile forces, so there will be bigger units, but with characteristics of mobility: The use of the tactics of concentration, dispersion, and shifting of forces, depending on the circumstances – whatever’s advantageous to the revolutionary army.

Now, in the strategic of counter-offensive, there will be instances where in crucial battles there will be some positional warfare, especially to destroy the strongholds and then of course, where certain cities can be taken over, by fighting, then the army that wins, the people’s army that wins, can leave the place: turn over the city to other types of forces – turn over the cities to the self-defense units, so that it can go – to beat the enemy as well.

So, you never throw away the mobility. But in the strategic counter-offensive you’ll see much use of positional warfare and the regular mobile warfare, depending on the situation. You don’t tie down your force, because, you know, you have already the momentum of winning, so [laughs] you don’t just keep territory, because you can transfer the matter of governance, peace and order, to the local revolutionary forces.

So that’s how we envision its probable course. And additional scheduling of each stage, the stages will appear as the people’s war develops. There can be even some zig zag – yeah it can happen – but the general course is from victory to victory.

Now, it is crucial that the working class is the lead factor that is taking up the democratic revolution from the bourgeois. Completely, surely, that with the working class in the leadership of the revolution, that puts the democratic revolution, even if it’s reliant on both peasants and workers, surely on the path, towards socialism. The one that is placed in the role of realizing the socialist cause is the working class. The working class leads the main component of proletarian dictatorship, the People’s Army. It smashes the military and bureaucratic machinery of the reactionary state. Then it will take over the enterprises that are in the commanding heights of the economy, the sources of raw materials, the main lines of communications. Those will be taken over by the proletarian state.

Democratic reform, land reform, will be carried out. You see, it’s when you seize power, all over the country, when you can really carry out, when you can complete land reform – it’s no longer here and there, as at present, in the strategic defensive. But when you have power, when the proletariat has already seized power, then the democratic reform, land reform, affecting the majority of the people can be carried out within a relatively short period of time.

But at the same time, there are stages in the development of agricultural cooperation. In the first stage, [it] can be based on certain villages, townships and districts. The third and highest level would be the communes. So, you combine social organization and the building of whatever amount of mechanization you can have.

Of course, whatever old ways of tilling, storing and processing the agricultural products will have to be pursued, pending deliveries from the industrial sector of the economy. And the working class is directly in charge of that part of the economy. Building the industries, also those industries will eventually recruit the peasants whose surplus population will be absorbed, given jobs by socialist industry.

Fight Back!: Very good…

Sison: Then we may also give concessions in the transitional processes. The small and medium entrepreneurs may be given an opportunity to participate in the national recovery, if, let us say, in the process of the revolutionary war, and because of let’s say, imperialist blockade, you have difficulties getting all the means necessary for building socialist industry. Well in Russia, you have the New Economic Policy, even then the proletariat will be in command, the proletariat will be in charge of economic planning.

And also, rather than frighten the people with [possessing] professional and technical skills, you can buy them off in a sort of way, you can give higher wages so they don’t flee [laughs] from the country.

Filipino people can also avail of the Filipinos in different countries – Filipinos who work abroad as professionals in technologies and as skilled workers – they can come back, to help in the socialist construction.

So that’s the outlook.

#UtrechtNetherlands #AntiwarMovement #Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #Interviews #JoseMariaSison #Asia

The result of the June 23 referendum in the United Kingdom, in which the majority of voters chose to take their country out of the European Union, is a rejection of austerity measures, economic stagnation, and widening social inequalities in British society.

Brexit implies a repudiation of the laws of motion of monopoly capitalism, the aggravation of these by neoliberal economic policy and the political arrogance and economic greed of the monopoly bourgeoisie, especially the finance oligarch of both of UK and the EU.

Implications of Brexit

The stunning 52-48 vote in favor of “Brexit,” as the Leave-EU option has come to be known, is mainly based on the widespread nationwide sentiment that the stagnation, unemployment and austerity measures have been generated by the EU's persistent push for neoliberal policies and its overprivileged bureaucracy. In a sense, the Brexit is a spontaneous rebellion against the EU and their main UK partners.

The strongest Brexit bulwarks have been the UK's blighted industrial areas, worst-hit by the economic crisis. The neoliberal regime under EU has reduced big sections of the British working people into low-paid, precariously employed, and outright unemployed workers competing among themselves for reduced social benefits.

These comprise both the proletariat and what is more widely labeled as the precariat (unemployed and underemployed, including more and more white collars from the so-called middle class). They are increasingly unable to enjoy the supposed benefits of continued EU membership such as a wider range of cheap consumer goods, unrestricted movement within Europe, and so on.

The Brexit also reflects to a secondary degree the growing influence of rightwing nationalists, populists and xenophobes, whose mass agitation campaigns have spread hatred and anger against refugees and immigrants in the wake of the inflow of millions of refugees to the EU. Ultra-nationalist and racist sentiments have been generated by the monopoly bourgeoisie to obscure the capitalist roots of the crisis, to inflame a section of the masses against others and cause senseless brutal incidents against refugees and immigrants.

But even on this point, the Brexit arguments for national sovereignty and self-determination resonated widely among the British people who feel all the more dissatisfied by the growing and over privileged EU bureaucracy. To many pro-Brexit voters, exit from EU meant better chances to gain more control over national policy-making and improve the economy.

Such current of thinking is buttressed by the fact that the UK has all along maintained fiscal and financial sovereignty and takes into account the better living conditions of several countries like Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The British financial oligarchy also harbors such thinking as it contraposes London as the financial center of a wider scale to the Frankfurt as the financial center of the EU.

While the voting seems not to have strictly followed class alignments, the polarization once again showed the great class divide between the affluent monopoly bourgeoisie and the impoverished working people. It is this underlying clash of class interests that is expressed outwardly as voting patterns in terms of economic status, educational level, age, residence and ethnicity.

The American and British mainstream media, which reflect the interests of monopoly capitalism, especially of the financial oligarchy, have concentrated only on the pros and cons for British monopoly capitalism during the debate before June 23. Since the resounding Brexit vote, they have focused mainly on the most immediate impacts of Brexit, such as steep drops in the pound and euro, other aftershocks in the financial markets, unexpected complications for the EU labor market, and the seemingly widened floodgates of racist tensions.

What is often obscured are the root causes of the worsening economic and financial crisis. In fact, the proletariat and the rest of the people in the UK are suffering class oppression and exploitation, whether there is Brexit or not. The US has openly expressed for the UK to remain in the UK for the sake of sustaining the US-NATO expansion and pressures on Russia. But the UK has its own distinct internal dynamics despite the intimate Anglo-American links.

On one hand, the UK has always been a hesitant or reluctant member of the EU even during its peak years. The pound sterling has long stood outside the eurozone, symbolic of the long-standing fiscal and financial sovereignty of the British financial oligarchy. This oligarchy has zealously done everything to keep London as a major financial center of global capitalism and pivot point of Anglo-American collaboration.

On the other hand, the factors favoring Brexit have been generated by the ever worsening crisis both of British monopoly capitalism as well as of EU-wide monopoly capitalism, under the auspices of the neoliberal economic policy propagated in Europe and worldwide by the US and UK since Reagan and Thatcher.

The British Left has not been effective in explaining in revolutionary terms to the people that the worsening economic and financial crisis is rooted in the basic laws of capitalism and aggravated at an accelerated rate by neoliberal economic policy, which has been promoted by the US and UK. Racist backlash and the myopic bourgeois media have overwhelmed the obvious fact that the massive inflow of refugees into the EU has been the result of US and NATO wars of aggression, whipped up mainly by the US and UK, in the Middle East and Africa.

The US and UK have been the most vile and violent in unleashing wars of aggression by the US and NATO and have been mainly responsible for the phenomenon of refugees in tens of millions since the repeated wars against Iraq. They have been actively involved the longrunning war in Afghanistan and the wars in the Balkans, Africa, in Libya and Syria They are most culpable for the 65 million refugees that have resulted from the wars.

Consequences of Brexit

What happens after the referendum is still unfolding. Various political forces, still in a state of denial, are calling for a second referendum in the hope of reversing the Brexit. The British and other European oligarchs who favor UK remaining in EU are using the post-Brexit fallout to whip up a “Bregret” trend, an anti-democratic backlash that questions the democratic vote in principle while reasserting the wisdom of the EU techno-bureaucracy, and fears that Brexit could further lead to a breakup of the UK.

British PM David Cameron has chosen to remain for 90 days to try to untangle the political mess, leaving to his successor the decision whether and when to start the formal two-year separation process under Article 50 (the “exit clause”) of the EU treaties, or even to initiate the immediately legislative repeal of some EU obligations. An alternative track entails a more complex and more extended negotiations to define future UK-EU relations. At any rate, the worsening crisis of leadership in both Tory and Labour parties are reflective of a deeper economic and political crisis in the UK.

The ILPS continues to monitor the developments related to Brexit as these directly affect the working people of the UK and Europe in general. Just the same, we call on all ILPS chapters to further study and prepare for its longer-term impacts. The Brexit is among the latest manifestations of the decomposition of British monopoly capitalism and of EU monopoly capitalism. Such process of decomposition is still made less obvious by a working class previously debilitated by social democracy, modern revisionism and neoliberalism.

Considering the major role of the UK in the European economy, its exit from the EU or redefined role can trigger the beginning of further exits by other countries from the EU. Such exits jeopardize further the floundering Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and further worsen the economic and financial crisis of European and global capitalism. Germany can ride on the crisis to loosen or remove US controls resulting from German defeat in World War II and can even favor a European army independent of a US-controlled NATO.

In the still relatively more prosperous countries of Europe, such as Germany, France and the Netherlands, more nationalist and anti-immigrant parties and groups will press for exit from the EU. In countries hard pressed by higher rates of unemployment, stagnation, austerity measures and foreign debt obligations, like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, the people can be led by the Left parties and movements against impositions by their local rulers, monopolies and foreign creditors.

From a proletarian revolutionary viewpoint, it can be said that the tendency of the EU to decompose will result in the eventual weakening of EU and its national components as bulwarks of counterrevolution and aggression. However, proletarian revolutionary parties have yet to effectively lead the education, organization and mass mobilization of the people on the road of revolution.

In many EU countries at the moment, rightwing parties and groups have stood out far more than the Left in responding to the crisis. There are however Left formations which can strive to assert leadership in the face of the crisis conditions that continue to worsen and incite the people to rebel. The working class, youth and people in France, Spain, Greece and Portugal have been among the most determined and military in fighting austerity measures and other neoliberal impositions by the EU and by their respective oligarchies.

In the underdeveloped Third World, the outflow of labor migration and return flow of remittances will begin to constrict as refugees from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia and migrant workers from Eastern Europe and elsewhere compete for shrinking labor markets in EU and UK. More financial bubbles are threatening to burst, aggravating slowdowns, recessions, and unemployment in all parts of the world.

At this point in time, even the IMF and the ruling circles of many countries are aware that the neoliberal economic policy has resulted in stagnation and gross inequality and that the neoconservative policy of aggressive wars have resulted in floods of refugees. But they are paralyzed by their own arrogance and greed and still deny what they perceive.

The worsening crisis of global capitalism and the unraveling of the neoliberal economic policy drives the ILPS to call for all anti-imperialist and democratic forces to move to the front lines and bring the people's struggle forward to greater freedom, democracy, social justice, all-round development and international solidarity against the forces of exploitation, oppression and aggression.

#Netherlands #JoseMariaSison #Brexit #EU #Europe