MANILA, Philippines—Exiled communist leader Jose Maria Sison denied the Philippine government’s claim that the Communist Party of the Philippines was sending communist cadres to train insurgents in places like India and Thailand.
In a statement issued to the media Friday, Sison said the claim that CPP cadres were being “exported” under the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), to which he belongs, were made up by government officials to undermine the political asylum he enjoys in the Netherlands.
“I denounce vigorously the false allegations. These are in the malignant spirit of those justifying the abduction, torture and extrajudicial killing of unarmed social activists in the Philippines,” he said in the statement.
“Such false allegations have been used to undercut my status as a recognized political refugee since 1992, to put me on the terrorist list of several governments since 2002 and to cause my arrest and detention in the Netherlands in 2007,” added the 71-year-old communist leader.
He said Acting Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency director general Pedro Cabuay made the claims during a recent national security briefing of the National Security Council for diplomatic officials.
He held the two responsible for “spread(ing) false allegations in the form of speculations, insinuations and intrigues that cadres of the Communist Party of the Philippines are being mobilized under the ILPS in order to export revolution or communism and deploy them in India, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries.”
“Gonzales and Cabuay prove once again that “military intelligence” is an oxymoron or a contradiction of terms,” Sison said.
He described the ILPS as “a perfectly legal and transparent global organization” and “a democratic and anti-imperialist formation of more then 350 member-organizations in more than 50 countries.”
He said he chairs the ILPS’ International Coordinating Committee.
Sison said Gonzales and Cabuay’s claim runs counter to the claim of the Armed Forces that the CPP and the New People’s Army “are so isolated and about to destroy themselves.”
By Dona Pazzibugan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
http://services.inquirer.net/print/print.php?article_id=20100410-263363
Posted date: April 10, 2010