Press Statement by Jose Maria Sison, NDFP Chief Political Consultant, 10 August 2002
The US launched a war of aggression against the Filipino people from 1899 onwards and in the process tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of them, mostly unarmed civilians who were merely suspected of supporting the Philippine revolutionary government and thereafter the succeeding revolutionary movements in various parts of the Philippines.
The latest count done by a group of scholars and researchers in the History Department of the University of the Philippines shows that the aggressor troops of US imperialism killed more than 1,400,000 Filipinos from 1899 to 1914. Consequent to its bloody conquest of the Philippines, the US has subjected the Filipino nation to the daily violence of exploitation in connivance with the local reactionaries.
US imperialism is the biggest terrorist force that has ever afflicted the Filipino people. And yet it has all the malice and temerity to misrepresent as terrorist every revolutionary force that arouses, organizes and mobilizes the Filipino people in a resolute struggle for national liberation and democracy against US imperialism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
It is utterly ridiculous that in representation of the biggest terrorist force in the world, US State Secretary Colin L. Powell, in consultation with the US Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury, has designated the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People´s Army as “foreign terrorist organizations” since yesterday, August 9, 2002.
Among the objectives that the US seeks to achieve by such designation are to bar suspected officers and members of the CPP and NPA from entering the US, to prohibit and punish any kind of activity suspected of being helpful to them, to freeze any suspect bank account and to signal all other countries to act against those whom it designates as terrorists.
But anyone who knows the principles and policies of the CPP is aware that it does not send its members or Red fighters of the NPA abroad to attack any US entity. The CPP has also repeatedly pointed out that Americans can enjoy the basic rights and freedoms of the foreign guest in the Philippines, unless they are deployed for combat operations against the revolutionary forces and people.
It is silly for anyone to imagine that the CPP has any amount of money in US banks or elsewhere. The US government will certainly be abusing Filipinos, Americans and other people in the US and violating civil liberties by carrying out a witchhunt against those suspected of working for or supporting the CPP and NPA and keeping money for them.
The US is whipping up the line of preemptive first strike on the basis of mere suspicion at the level of the state relations with private organizations and individuals within or outside its jurisdiction and likewise at the level of state-to-state relations. The US is already violating the civil liberties of the American people (e.g., those who have been detained indefinitely and in solitary confinement just because they were known to be Muslim immigrants or they looked Arabic) and is possibly provoking certain states that it has threatened, to physically attack the US before they are attacked.
Under the guise of combating terrorism, the Bush administration is generating fascism in the US and the entire world. It is trying to push Europe and Japan as well as neocolonial states to adopt more and more repressive measures against the people, especially the migrants. The US is promoting wholesale state terrorism to suppress the growing social discontent and resurgent revolutionary resistance, amidst the rapidly worsening crisis of the US and world capitalist system.
It is highly probable that the US and Manila government are in cahoots with each other in the designation of the CPP and NPA as terrorists in a futile psywar attempt to intimidate and push them towards capitulation. The CPP, NPA and NDFP cannot be intimidated. They dared to fight the Marcos fascist dictatorship and in the process grew in strength even while the US military bases were still in the Philippines and were used for delivering war materiel and training Filipino puppet troops.
The designation of the CPP and NPA as terrorists is likely to lead to the termination of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and to the intensification of the civil war and even to a war of national liberation against US aggression, if the US troops join the puppets in combat against the NPA. Said designation has been done by the US apparently as a psywar preparation for doing away with the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and for rationalizing the escalation of US military intervention or aggression against the revolutionary forces and people.
Being the sole superpower in the world, US imperialism is being carried away by extreme arrogance. It has the notion that it can do anything it pleases in order to oppress and exploit the people under the slogan of “free market” globalization. It has the illusion that it can wage several wars of aggression and to suppress revolutionary movements in several continents all at the same time.
Those who are resolutely fighting US imperialism and its puppets know very well that the US itself is now in a serious prolonged economic crisis and is already overextended financially and militarily. They are taking advantage of increasingly favourable conditions to advance their revolutionary struggles. They are steadily gaining strength and preparing for great upswings in the near future.
