By Sharon Cabusao
for Pinoy Weekly
20 April 2003
1. How is your situation over there?
The Dutch government and the European Council are still harassing me upon orders of the US imperialists. I am still listed as a “terrorist” in documents of the imperialists who are the real terrorists. They continue to withhold the social benefits due me as a recognized political refugee. But we fight back. We defend our rights. The support of the broad masses, competent lawyers and respected personages all over the world further strengthens my position.
2. Does the so-called US military victory affect the struggle of anti-imperialist asylum seekers such as you?
Over the aggression against Iraq, its occupation and the seizure of its oil resources, a rift has developed between the US and British imperialist aggressors on the one side and France, Germany and Russia on the other. But in my case, they do not have any oil to quarrel over. Among governments in mainland Europe, the Dutch government is the most pro-US. For quite some time now, it has adopted a restrictive policy with regard to asylum seekers in order to reduce the number of refugees. The current of fascism is growing stronger in Europe because of the crisis of capitalism and at the prodding of the US since 9/11.
3. What are its implications on the course of politics in the Philippines? On the struggling Filipino people?
If we consider the “terrorist” listing, the Arroyo regime has already destroyed the peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP. For the US and the Arroyo regime to call the CPP, NPA and the NDFP chief political consultant as “terrorist” in order to coerce the NDFP to surrender and to sign that trashy piece of paper called the “final peace agreement,” is sheer madness. The US and Arroyo regime know that the revolutionary forces and the people will never surrender. What the US and Arroyo regime want is to intensify the counterrevolutionary violence. To deal with the economic crisis and the rising of the masses, their policy is to use US high-tech military solution.
4. Is it correct to say that the military victory of the US in Iraq has strengthened the standing of the US as a superpower?
Because of its military victory in Iraq, the US can more directly access the second largest oil reserve (Iraq) in the OPEC, more effectively control the entire OPEC, and place the Middle East under US and Israeli domination. But even now, there is strong objection from France, Germany, Russia and China, and the Arab countries to the greed of the US and its oil monopolies.
It is revolting to humanity that the US has launched a one-sided high-tech war of aggression against a country that bombs and twelve long years of sanctions have long worn down and brought to ruin. Furthermore, Iraq has been proven not to have weapons of mass destruction. Having destroyed lives, the livelihood, the infrastructure and services (electricity, water, transport, hospitals, etc.), the US is now giving US companies the contracts for reconstruction and humanitarian aid to be paid by the Iraqi people and their oil.
The cowardly US imperialists are brutal and clever, but in the future, the people of the world will make them pay for their arrogance, greed and overextension. The US is at its apex of being a superpower, especially as a military power. But there will come a time when the US will no longer be able to resolve its economic and financial crisis because of the aggressions that it commits. The US has been on a strategic economic decline since the 1970’s. It was able to cover this up in the 1980’s and 1990’s by large-scale borrowing and by being the sole military superpower, especially after the revisionist Soviet Union first rotted and disintegrated.
5. What, in your analysis, will be the course of world politics as a result of the US attack on Iraq?
The world is bound to become more turbulent. The US will continue to believe that it can invade other countries at will, bomb them, turn them into colonies or put up puppet governments there, seize the people’s wealth, and dictate on all governments and countries. The US will bring harm unto itself with its brutal doctrine of pre-emptive war, bombing war with little US casualties, etc. The US imperialists are truly terrorist monsters.
But the struggle of the people who want revolution, nations that want liberation and governments that assert national independence will intensify. With the worsening of the crisis of the world capitalist system and with the aggressiveness of US imperialism, the working class and oppressed nations will rise up. The imperialists will contend with each other and weaken in their rivalries over markets, sources of raw materials, fields of investment and spheres of influence.
In Iraq itself, the US has entered a complicated situation even as it expects to divide and rule the people. The US imperialists and their puppets cannot handle the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and other smaller ethnic and religious communities. In the long run, the bodies of the US imperialists and their puppets will be exposed to the effective use of the rifles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). The use of these weapons will be far more effective now that the large formations and heavy weaponry of Saddam are gone and the US troops have no more reason to use weapons for destroying fixed structures and large military formations. The Iraqis have an historical experience in waging guerrilla warfare against British colonialism. The communists, secular bourgeois nationalists, anti-imperialist Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can once again join together in struggle. #
