By Professor JOSE MARIA SISON
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Keynote Address to the Conference
LAWS, LABELS AND LIBERATION:
The Case of Professor Jose Maria Sison
Universite de Quebec a Montreal
May 29, 2004
(Delivered via video and Webcam)
Dear Compatriots and Friends,
I am happy to be with you. Somehow through electronic means,
we are able to go around the travel restrictions imposed on me
by the US and other governments.
I thank the national organizing committee for holding this conference
under the auspices of the International League of Peoples’
Struggle (ILPS) in order to focus on my case for study. I am highly
honored and deeply pleased to be invited as keynote speaker and
given the opportunity to contribute my views on the case and related
aspects.
I thank you all in this conference for your solidarity and support
in defending me from the persecution arising from the unjust “terrorist”
listing initiated by Washington. I appreciate your concern not
only for my human rights and civil liberties as an individual
but also more importantly for the right of the Filipino people
and other oppressed peoples for national and social liberation.
I wish to express my views on the historical and current global
context of my case, my inclusion in the “terrorist”
list as a direct attack on the Filipino people’s right to
national liberation, the facts of my persecution and the violation
of my rights and certain courses of action that have been adopted
and undertaken to defend myself and oppose the malice and inhumanity
of the US, its imperialist allies and the Philippine puppet government.
I. The Historical and Current Global Context
The terrorism and barbarism to which we are all witness in the
US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, we the Filipino
people experienced from the start of the Filipino-American War
in 1899 to the end of the “campaigns of pacification”
in 1913. We should always remember the blood debt of US imperialism
running up to 1.5 million Filipinos killed. We should also keep
in mind that the US instigated and propped up the 14-year long
Marcos fascist dictatorship. This rule of open terror served US
economic, political and military interests.
We continue to recall and condemn the barbarities of the US in
the course of aggressive wars and military intervention in China,
Korea, Vietnam and the rest of Indochina. We can never forget
the 1965 massacre of millions in Indonesia, perpetrated by General
Suharto for the benefit of US, British and Dutch oil interests.
After the success of the butchery committed directly by the US
or indirectly through its puppets, the violence of daily exploitation
by monopoly capitalism and its local puppets follows and victimizes
the entire subjugated nation generation after generation and can
only end upon victory of a national liberation movement.
It is in the very nature of the US as an imperialist power to
exploit and oppress the people of the world and to oppose violently
the national liberation movements and the countries and governments
that firmly assert national independence. For the purpose of extracting
superprofits, the US has since the beginning of the 20th century
acquired colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries and turned
them into sources of raw materials and cheap labor, markets, fields
of investments, spheres of influence and strategic points of control.
It has used the superprofits from the exploitation of the oppressed
peoples and nations to augment the profits it extracts from its
own proletariat and to counteract the tendency of profit rates
to fall within its national borders. But ever pressed to maximize
profits, the monopoly bourgeoisie keeps on raising the constant
capital for plant, equipment and raw materials and reducing the
variable capital for wages. The reduction of incomes for the working
people results in the shrinkage of the market. Thus arises the
crisis of overproduction. This kind of crisis provides the conditions
for state terrorism and wars of aggression by the imperialists
as well as intensified national and class struggles and successful
revolutions by the people.
The economic and financial crisis that recurs and spreads in
the world capitalist system has become more and more severe in
recent times and has intensified a series of contradictions: those
between the imperialist countries and the oppressed peoples and
nations, those between the imperialist powers and some states
that assert national independence, those among the imperialist
powers and those between the monopoly bourgeoisie and proletariat
within the imperialist countries.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, the US policy makers and strategic
planners have thought that the policy stress on “neoliberal
globalization” would solve the recurrent crises of monopoly
capitalism, particularly the problem of stagflation in the 1970s.
They have been hyping myth of “free market” to push
denationalization of client economies, trade and investment liberalization,
privatization of public assets and deregulation against the workers,
women and the environment. These have only served to accelerate
the concentration and centralization of capital in the US, aggravate
the global crisis of overproduction in all products and whip up
financial speculation, hysteria and collapses.
Since 2000 the US itself has plunged into a severe economic and
financial crisis, aggravating the global depression. Bush has
come into this situation with the notion of superimposing “military
Keynesianism” on the “free market” pretense
of monopoly capitalism. He wants to stimulate the US economy by
promoting military production and giving tax cuts, subsidies and
bigger state purchase contracts to the military-industrial complex.
Unfortunately, hightech military production generates capital
growth for the monopoly capitalists but not jobs.
Bush and the “neoconservatives” around him find the
situation favorable for pushing the Project for a New American
Century, a pipedream for a global Pax Americana that is supposed
to be without challenge and beyond compare. Since long before
9/11, they have calculated that they can use the position of the
US as sole superpower, with overwhelming superiority in high tech
weaponry, to expand by force or threat of arms its economic territory
and grab oil sources and supply routes and to push the doctrine
of preemptive war in order to destroy any challenge from disobedient
client-state or any potential rival. Supposedly, this is the way
for the US to realize peace, human rights, the free market and
democracy.
The 9/11 attacks have been extremely useful to the US, particularly
the Bush regime, in drumming up an “anti-terrorism”
hysteria to support a policy of war production and aggression
and have been the pretext for so many US acts of aggression and
terrorism. The US has unleashed wars of aggression such as those
against Afghanistan and Iraq, in collaboration with the UN and
NATO in the former case and with the British goevrenment in the
latter case. It has turned the Philippines into a so-called second
front in so-called war on terrorism. It has emboldened the Israeli
Zionists to slaughter the Palestinians. It has threatened Cuba,
North Korea, Syria, Iran and other countries.
It has established bases and forward stations of US military
forces in Central Asia, Middle East and South Asia and has brought
up the number of such footholds to 140 countries. It has imposed
a draconian law like the USA PATRIOT Act on the American people
and required US allied and puppet states to adopt similar repressive
laws and put the national liberation movements and progressive
leaders on the same list with such small terrorist groups as Al
Qaeda and Abu Sayyaf, previously trained and used by the US for
counterrevolutionary purposes.
Since 9/11 the US has once again proven itself to the world as
the biggest terrorist force in the entire history of human kind.
It launched the war of aggression against Iraq in gross violation
of the UN Charter. It prevented the UN from completing the work
of discovering whether the Iraqi government had or had no weapons
of mass destruction. Instead, it trumpeted the lie that by invading
Iraq it could locate those weapons. It has maimed and murdered
tens of thousands of ordinary people and destroyed entire communities
and the social infrastructure of Iraq with the use of bombs and
artillery fire.
In gross violation of the international law on human rights and
humanitarian conduct in time of war, it has arbitrartily arrested,
humiliated, detained under inhuman conditons, tortured and murdered
hundreds of thousands of people. It has caused the deaths of hundreds
of thousands and the misery of millions of people in Afghanistan
and Iraq alone. It has also encouraged the Israeli Zionists to
slaughter the Palestinan people and destroy their homes, all in
accordance with US imperialist plans.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft have underscored the fact
that US imperialism is a superterrorist force by their public
expression of contempt for the Geneva Conventions and its Protocols
and their claims that civilians and fighters labelled as “enemy
combattants” are outside of the protection of international
humanitarian law and can be humiliated, tortured and murdered
inside and outside US military prisons and concentration camps.
The horrors of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and
Iraq have shocked all decent people of the world.
In sharp contrast to the US superterrorists, the revolutionary
forces of the the national liberation movement and the revolutionary
organs of political power of the Filipino people have stood and
acted responsibly in accordance with international humanitarian
law. In this regard, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
(NDFP) has deposited with the Swiss Federal Council a Unilateral
Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Geneva Conventions and
Protocol I since 1996. It has carried out peace negotiations with
the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and has
forged with it the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human
Rights and International Humanitarian Law since 1999.
II. “Terrorist” Listing as Blackmail Against
the NDFP
After Bush declared a new, permanent and borderless “war
on terror” in the wake of 9/11, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime
immediately expressed support and offered the Philippines as a
hunting ground and regional base for US military forces. The US
and the puppet government dueted about going after the Abu Sayyaf,
a small terrorist band, previously organized and handled by the
US Central Intelligence Agency. The top military officials of
the puppet government loudly boasted that the “war on terror”
would induce the US to give more financial and military assistance.
They announced that US military operations would be extended to
the areas of the New People’s Army and would pave the way
for the US to build the infrastructure for the return of US military
bases.
The cabinet oversight committee, including the defense secretary,
the national security adviser, the secretary for special operations
and the presidential adviser on peace negotiations, prepared a
proposal to the US government to designate as “terrorist”
the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army
and the chief political consultant of the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines. The proposal was formally presented
by Macapagal-Arroyo to Bush when she made a working visit to Washington
in the third week of November 2001.
It was on November 22, 2001 when Speaker Jose de Venecia called
me up from Mexico to inform me that the US would include me in
its list of “terrorists”, unless the NDFP agreed to
sign a ‘final peace accord” prepared unilaterally
by the Cabinet oversight committee. Thinking that it was best
to have an interface, I told the speaker to come over to The Netherlands
to discuss with representatives of the NDFP what he was talking
about.
Towards the end of November 2001, he came to The Netherlands
with the presidential adviser on peace negotiations, the chairman
of the negotiating panel of the Manila government and others.
The NDFP representatives and I made clear to them that the NDFP
does not capitulate and does nort yield to blackmail. We asserted
that The Hague Joint Declaration provides a clear framework for
the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. Then the chairpersons of the
GRP and the NDFP negotiating panels drafted a document of understanding
to resume the formal talks of the peace negotiations, reaffirming
The Hague Joint Declaration and thereby blocking the attempt at
blackmail and the absurd demand for capitulation.
From the Netherlands, the GRP and NDFP delegations flew to Oslo,
with the common intention of signing the aforesaid document in
the presence of the then newly elected Norwegian prime minister
on December 1, 2001. But, just before the meeting the GRP delegation
informed the NDFP delegation that word had come from Manila, specifically
from the defense secretary, for it not to sign the document. Thus,
the meeting with the Nowegian prime minister became a simple courtesy
call. Since then, the CPP, the NPA and the NDFP have more than
ever intensified their opposition to the entire range of US imperialist
domination and to the increased US military intervention in the
Philippines.
After his visit to Manila within the first week of August 2002,
US state secretary Colin Powell designated the CPP/NPA as a “foreign
terrorist organization” on August 9, 2002. The US treasury
department followed suit by listing the same and the NDFP chief
political consultant as “terrorists” on August 12,
2002. The following day the Dutch government issued its “sanction
regulation” against the CPP, NPA and the NDFP chief political
consultant. Other governments like those of the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia and eventually the European Council joined the
“anti-terrorist” lynch mob against me.
All these governments have shamelessly used the pretext of anti-terrorism
in order to slander and demonize the CPP, NPA and the NDFP chief
political consultant as “terrorists”. They trangress
the right of the Filipino people to fight for national liberation.
They violate the rights of the Filipino people and my individual
rights under international law. They violate the principles of
national sovereignty and noncapitulation and the safety and immunity
guarantees in the GRP-NDFP agreements. They run against the resolutions
of the European Parliament supporting the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.
In fact, they paralyzed these peace negotiations for a long while.
III. My Persecution: Violations of Rights and Undue Punishment
By virtue of two judgements (1992 and 1995) of the Raad van State,
the highest administrative court in The Netherlands, I am a recognized
political refugee under Article 1 a of the Refugee Convention
and I am under the protection of Article 3 of the European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR) and consequently the entirety of this convention.
Subsequently, the Dutch government (Justice Ministry) accepted
the aforesaid judgements but asserted that it could refuse legal
admittance even to one recognized by the Raad van State as a political
refugee.
When it decided in 1997 that the Dutch government could deny
legal admittance, the Chamber of Legal Uniformity of the Aliens
Court paid lip service to the the aforesaid Raad van State decisions
and deliberately ignored the specific decision of the 1995 Raad
van State that if I could not go to another country, without being
put at risk of losing the protection of Article 3 of the ECHR,
the Dutch government had no choice but to grant me legal admittance
and the residence permit.
In the meantime in the Philippines, one false charge after another
against me collapsed. The charge of subversion was nullified by
the repeal of the anti-democratic anti-subversion law in 1992.
The charge of multiple murder fabricated out of the 1971 Plaza
Miranda bombing was dismissed by formal resolution of the Manila
prosecutors declaring that the charge was based on pure speculation.
Thus, the secretary of justice of the GRP made a formal certification
in 1998 that there was no pending criminal charge against me.
Until now, there is no formal criminal charge against me in the
Philippines or anywhere else in the world, including The Netherlands,
where I have in fact resided since 1987. And yet I am put on the
list of “terrorists” serially and indefinitely and
I am subjected to what are deviously described as temporary restrictive
sanctions but which in fact are indefinite punitive sanctions.
All banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions
are prohibited from having any transaction with me. My personal
bank account has been frozen, including the amounts that have
all come from the social welfare agencies. Previously, the social
benefits for living allowance, housing and health insurance were
provided because the Dutch authorities had prohibited me (as asylum
seeker) from getting employment.
The Dutch authorities cut off these social benefits in connection
with its August sanction regulations against me. Then they repealed
those regulations and pretended to restore my social benefits.
But they had requested the European Council to put me on its “terrorist”
list. After my inclusion in the list on October 28, 2002, they
terminated all the social benefits. All border authorities are
under written orders to be constantly on the look out for me,
as if I were a dangerous criminal. Despite such calumny, I am
allowed to travel on laissez passer only for the purpose of attending
the GRP-NDFP negotiations in Oslo upon the request of the Norwegian
government.
The European governments have been swayed by the US-generated
“anti-terrorism” hysteria, reminiscent of the anti-communist
hysteria during the Cold War. They have collectively and separately
adopted positions, decision and laws that are blatantly repressive
and fascistic. They empower themselves to do the most undemocratic
and unlawful acts, like arbitrarily arresting and detaining anyone
on mere suspicion of being a terrorist, depriving him of access
to counsel and to evidence and separating him from other detainees
and keeping him under conditions worse than those of other detainees.
So far, the Dutch authorities have not yet made a move to arrest
and detain me. But the sword of Damocles hangs over me. I am constantly
under threat of being arrested and detained on the false charge
of terrorism or being subjected to a US request for my detention
prior to extradition or extradition straight to a place like Guantanamo
or Abu Ghraib.
My rights under the European Convention on Human Rights are being
so brazenly violated. I am deprived of the essential means for
human existence. The seizure of such means violate my basic right
to human life. The deprivations amount to punishment worse than
that imposed on convicted murderers who are provided in prison
with the essential means for human existence. The punitive measures
have been applied on me without due process. I have been ordered
to leave the house where I stay with my wife and my son. Thus,
my right to private and family life is put at risk and violated.
When my lawyers cite Resolution 1452 of the UN Security Council,
allowing transactions related to essential human needs and professional
fees, we are told by the lawyers of the Dutch government and the
European Council that no benefit comes to me from said resolution
because it is applicable only to those suspected of belonging
to Al Qaeda. Thus, my lawyers protest that even the suspected
perpetrators of 9/11 have more rights than I have.
I am subjected to worse material and moral damages due to the
official efforts of the US and other governments to demonize and
stigmatize me as “terrorist”. Opportunities to share
my knowledge and experience as a teacher or to earn income commensurate
to my professional training and competence have been blocked.
Potential employers and partners are discouraged. For instance,
a book-publishing project has been delayed several times. But
the loss of income is nothing compared to the grave threats to
my life and physical integrity due to the official incitement
of hatred and violence against my person. The Bush regime boasts
of having renewed the license of its covert operatives to kill
leaders who are deemed dangerous to US interests and are labelled
“terrorists.”
And yet nowhere in the world can I be held liable for the heinous
crime of terrorism for the simple reason that there is no basis
whatsoever for starting a criminal investigation. Not in the Philippines,
because up to now the political descendants of Marcos have failed
to push the passage of their anti-terrorism bill. The most reasonable
and democratic-minded jurists know that there are more than enough
laws to handle the most heinous of common crimes. Philippine jurisprudence
upholds the doctrine of political offense, which differentiates
rebellion or revolution from common crimes. But with overweening
arrogance, the US and its imperialist allies seek to impose its
hysteria on the Philippines and usurp jurisdiction over enties
and events in the Philippines.
The Dutch government and European Council have acted unlawfully
to negate the absolute protection that Article 3 of the European
Convention is supposed to guarantee. At this point, you might
ask why the US, British and Dutch governments are collaborating
so closely to persecute me. They have always collaborated in opposing
national liberation movements and in controlling oil and other
natural resources in Southeast Asia. Their hands drip with blood
from a long history of colonialism and imperialism as well as
well as from their more recent sponsorship of puppet regimes of
open terror, such as those of Suharto and Marcos.
The US, British and Dutch monopoly firms are among the biggest
plunderers of the Philippines. They collaborate in exploiting
the Filipino people. To cite one current major collaboration,
Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell are the main partners in the Malampaya
Sound project, involving the exploitation of gas resources and
the operation of the long pipelines to Luzon. The US, British
and Dutch governments are accomplices in many current acts of
aggression and plunder not only in Southeast Asia but also in
the Balkans, Middle East and other regions of the world.
The matter of my being listed a “terrorist” by the
imperialist monsters is so serious because it involves not only
my life but also the integrity of the national liberation movement
in the Philippines. But sometimes I get a big laugh from the fact
that I am not in any way linked with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda,
unlike the Bush family which has close relations with the Bin
Laden family through the Carlyle group of investors, which have
big investments in military production, oil and other enterprises
dependent on state intervention and state contracts.
IV. Courses of Action
Compatriots, friends and I have acted resolutely and vigorously
to expose and oppose the use of the false charge of terrorism
against me in particular and against the national liberation movement,
the patriotic and progressive forces and their leaders and members
in the Philippines. We are also conscious of contributing thereby
to the struggle of the national liberation movements in other
countries.
We have adopted and undertaken several courses of action. These
include educational work, political action, legal action, negotiation
and fund-raising. The International DEFEND Committee and its country
committees and the International League of Peoples’ Struggle
and its national chapters have been the most active in undertaking
campaigns and activities to arouse, organize and mobilize the
people and to raise resources for defense and for fighting back.
Let me describe the educational work. We have done various types
of information and educational work on the case and its various
aspects. We have published the pertinent materials in leaflets
and pamphlets, in email circulars and on several websites, including
the following: www.defendsison.be, www.inps-sison.freewebspace.com,
www.sisonlegaldefense.250free.com, and www.justiceforjoma.org.
We have held study meetings, conferences and seminars. We have
encouraged organizations to do so. I am happy that this conference
is being held. We have carried out cultural activities that defend
me and support the call for national liberation of the Filipino
people from US imperialism. We are urging further research, especially
legal research, to aid both legal action and political action.
Let me describe the political action. We have collected signatures
on petitions from the organized masses as well as the spontaneous
masses at public places on ordinary days and during marches and
rallies. We have also solicited the signatures and support of
parliamentarians, trade union leaders, academics, jurists, religious
leaders, human rights luminaries and other prominent personalities
in order to encourage more people to join us. We have carried
out pickets and demonstrations for the purpose of making protests
and demands on the case. We have successfully requested other
organizations to take up the case. We have joined international
conferences and huge marches and rallies against war and imperialism
in order to condemn the US as a terrorist force and to raise the
issue of the “terrorist” listing.
Let me also describe the legal action. We have filed complaints
in administrative processes against Dutch agencies mainly for
terminating my social benefits and violating my rights. We have
laid the ground for legal action in the courts, up to the level
of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. We have filed
a complaint before the European Court of Justice (First Instance)
in Luxembourg against the European Council for putting me on its
“terrorist” list. In this case, the NDFP negotiating
panel is an intervenor in my favor. In each of these cases going
to a European court, we have an international battery of lawyers.
The Amsterdam Clinic of International Law based in the University
of Amsterdam is assisting us. The Philippine-based Public Interest
Law Center is a participant or cooperator in all the cases. It
stands guard against whatever legal mischief the GRP might do
in collaboration with the US and Dutch governments. There are
also lawyers ready to fight any attempt to use against me the
US-Dutch extradition treaty.
Let me describe the method of negotiation. There have been several
opportunities for availing of the method of negotiation. The NDFP
has asked groups of parliamentarians to uphold the 1997 and 1999
resolutions of the European Parliament in support of the GRP-NDFP
peace negotiations. It has also asked the third party facilitator,
the Norwegian government, to deal with the obstacles posed by
the European Council and certain governments to these negotiations.
The NDFP has required the GRP to comply with solemn agreements
and to join the NDFP in reaffirming the following: the mutually
acceptable principle of national sovereignty in The Hague Joint
Declaration in order to frustrate the usurpation of jurisdiction
by the US and other governments, the safety and immunity guarantees
in the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees and the
Hernandez political offense doctrine in the Comprehensive Agreement
on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.
The formal talks in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations have been
resumed recently upon the premise that effective measures are
sought and realized to remove the CPP, NPA and the NDFP chief
political consultant from the “terrorist” listing.
Let me describe the fund-raising. We consider fund-raising important
because we need funds for publications and other necessities.
Even as my lawyers provide their services pro bono there are certain
unavoidable expenses that must be met. The legal defense fund
is under the care of religious leaders in a foundation based in
The Netherlands. There are various ways of raising funds: passing
the hat among the people in meetings, selling tickets to cultural
affairs and to lunch or dinner lectures and marking up, for the
sake of solidarity and support, the prices of books, CD-roms and
campaign paraphernalia (t-shirts, pamphlets and buttons). Recently,
the fund-raisers have asked me to record my songs and poem recitations
on video clips and CDs. I have agreed, in order to take on one
more form of struggle, which is instructive and yet entertaining.
In concluding, I express my deep gratitude to all compatriots
and friends who have joined and contributed to the campaign to
defend me and also those who have supported the struggle for national
liberation, democracy and social justice in the Philippines. #