US Puts Squeeze On Filipino Communist Rebels

CNSNews.com ^ | August 13, 2002 | Patrick Goodenough

[Tailgunner Joe]

Washington has asked the Dutch government to freeze the financial assets of a Netherlands-based communist group involved in a bloody 33-year rebellion in the Philippines.

Officials in Manila expressed the hope that the U.S. request may also help their campaign to have The Hague deport a small group of exiled communist leaders, who could face criminal charges at home.

The move came shortly after Secretary of State Colin Powell announced he was officially designating the Philippine Communist Party and its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA), as a foreign terrorist organization.

Last week Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said U.S.-trained Filipino forces who have been fighting Islamic terrorists will now be deployed against the NPA, whose violent campaign to set up a Marxist state has cost some 40,000 lives.

Spokesman for the Dutch Embassy in Manila, Maurits ter Kuile, confirmed his government had received a request from Washington and was now considering it.

Philippine officials have been urging the Netherlands to deport the group's head, Jose Maria Sison, and several others among a 30-strong group living in exile in the city of Utrecht.

The Dutch government has rejected Sison's application for political asylum there and he has filed a petition with the European Court of Human Rights. Several other leaders, including a defrocked Catholic priest, have been granted Dutch citizenship.

Foreign Ministry undersecretary Lauro Baja said Monday the government hoped the U.S. pressure may help Manila's case to have the exiles deported.

Officials also hope this could in turn facilitate a return to peace talks with the rebels.

Alex Magno, the head of the Foundation for Economic Freedom in Manila and an analyst considered close to the president, said in an interview Tuesday the NPA leaders, if deported, could face prosecution for a 1971 bombing in central Manila which killed nine people.

Leftists have long accused former dictator Ferdinand Marcos of responsibility for the bombing, to justify his declaration the following year of martial law.

But Magno said "former cadres" had since emerged pointing to NPA responsibility for the "Plaza Miranda" bombing, which occurred during a Liberal Party political event.

There was another reason why the exiles' deportation could be advantageous, he said.

Until now, leaders in exile had been able to take a hard line in peace negotiations with the government, "because they are comfortably situated" far from home, unlike the group's members underground in the Philippines.

Their forced return could help smooth the path to a negotiated settlement to a conflict that had cost not just many lives but also billions of dollars, he said.

Funding sources

Peace talks with the communists were reopened by Arroyo early last year, but collapsed months later after an NPA assassination.

The group is virulently anti-American, and in a weekend statement reacting to its addition to the State Department list Sison said: "U.S. imperialism is the biggest terrorist force that has ever afflicted the Filipino people."

When he made the terrorist blacklist announcement last Friday, Powell called on foreign governments to act "to choke off their sources of financial support, and to prevent their movement across international borders."

How effective any clampdown on the communists' assets will be remains to be seen.

Magno said the NPA raised funds in several ways. Its members practice extortion - they call it "revolutionary taxation" - inside the Philippines, offering "protection" to farmers and others in return for payment.

In recent weeks police had raided large marijuana plantations in the south and north of the country which are believed to be revenue sources for the NPA.

It also received support inside the country from a large network of leftist non-governmental organizations, including trade unions and student groups.

And then there were funds received from leftist sympathizers in Europe, he said, explaining that a small Maoist group in Flanders practically acted as a "fulltime fundraiser" for the Filipinos.

'Strategic weakness'

The NPA has been waging its campaign since 1969, and in the late 1980s was estimated to be at peak strength, with an estimated 27,000 armed members.

Since then its strength declined to between 5,000 and 7,000 members, but the military recently said it believed the group has been growing again, taking advantage of the fact attention has been focused on Islamic terrorists.

It's now understood to have up to 11,000 members under arms, but Magno said the numbers may be deceptive.

He said the group had recently undergone a process of what it called "rectification," or a return to its original Maoist doctrines, which saw many political activists shifted over to the military wing.

To call them guerrillas under arms was misleading, however, as many were limited to use of a homemade handgun, and in some cases large groups only had one pistol between them.

"There's not been any increase in rifle strength, which the military estimates at 4,000-5,000 at the most."

Magno said the NPA also suffered from a "strategic weakness" in that many of its members were illiterate peasants, rather than the urban intellectuals of previous years.

In a country with 75 languages and 300 dialects, these peasants were often unable to be deployed far from their village or local area, and so their effectiveness was limited.

They also tended to be superstitious, easily spooked, and not averse to "killing each other on the strength of the slightest rumor."

Magno said public opinion surveys generally give Sison very low rating as a leader trusted by Filipinos.

In open elections, he estimated, the communists would probably not win more than four or five per cent of the vote.

The terrorist list Secretary of State Powell added the NPA to last week identifies groups which Americans may not support.

Their members are also not permitted to visit the U.S., and American banks must block any assets.

Late last year the State Department added the NPA to another list - a new "exclusion list" of foreign terrorist organizations whose members were subject to U.S. visa restrictions or deportation if found in the U.S.

[livius]

"And then there were funds received from leftist sympathizers in Europe, he said, explaining that a small Maoist group in Flanders practically acted as a "fulltime fundraiser" for the Filipinos."

With friends like Europe, who needs enemies?

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Thought I'd ping you to this one. Can't pass up anything that brings together Dutch, Filipinos, and communists....

[Free the USA]

Index Bump

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

And we thought the communists were done!

[knighthawk]

Thanks for the ping!

[Vidalia]

"...in a bloody 33-year rebellion in the Philippines. "

Thirty three years?

This must just be a passing fad compared to the Hundred Years War...

[Tailgunner Joe]

bump

[GOP_1900AD]

Communism, Jihadism, anti-Westernism.....

Moscow, Many in Europe, The US Left, Beijing, Islamabad, Baghdad, ISI, Al Qaida, Abu Sayyaf, Communist Insurgencies everywhere, rockets, nuclear warheads....

Connect the dots....

[Leisler]

I remember reading about commies( the Huks ) working with the japs in the late '30s.

[StopGlobalWhining]

The group is virulently anti-American, ... "

So why don't we just charge them with "hate crimes"?

Ethnic motivated violence is second only to violence against homosexuals in seriousness of crimes as defined by the E.U. and the U.N. Therefore, perpetrators of hate against the USA must either be tried for hate crimes, or committed to mental institutions for treatment and rehabilitation.

[altair]

Throw the book away because it's dead wrong. The Huks didn't exist in the 30's. Their original name meant "People's Anti-Japanese Army" and during the occupation they faught as guerillas against the Japanese. It was only after the war that they got involved with communism.

[Guillermo]

Amazing.

We really can't count on ANY European country, in the long run.

Whenever it's expedient, (western) European countries abandon their "allies".

[Guillermo]

I wish our supposed "leaders" would speak out against those you list.

Instead, they "pray" with Muslims in their Mosques and celebrate Ramadan with them in the WHITE HOUSE, going on and on about how peaceful and wonderful their religion is.

[Leisler]

So a rebelion, which officially began in '46, didn't have its genesis in the '30s? Who do you think the .45 automatic was invented for? The book, I was referring too, was Gost Soldiers, about the successful being the lines raid on a Japanese run POW camp. I guess the Medal of Honor winner was lying

[Cincinatus' Wife]

*** The move came shortly after Secretary of State Colin Powell announced he was officially designating the Philippine Communist Party and its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA), as a foreign terrorist organization. ***

Communists are terrorists. Why do the half-wits and LIBERALS in Congress want to finance trade with the biggest commie of all, Castro?

[altair]

There's been rebellion and dissent for as long as there's been a Philippines. The social inequities they were protesting date back to the days of the Spanish. The specific group you referred to did not exist in the 30's. They did not cooperate with the Japanese at any time and were, in fact, created to oppose the Japanese occupation. Look here.

Hukbalahap Rebellion, also called HUK REBELLION (1946-54), Communist-led peasant uprising in central Luzon, Philippines. The name of the movement is a Tagalog acronym for Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon, which means "People's Anti-Japanese Army."

So yes, if the Medal of Honor really said what you wrote, he was wrong.

[Leisler]

The villages were mentioned in the book as Huk villages, (so this is obviously pre 1945) were anti-Japanese, also anti-American and anti-Catholic. The raiding party with hundreds of POW's in oxen carts , in fligt from pursuing Japanese infantry , had to be threaten with destruction by supporting U.S Army artillery the Huk leaders and villages which opposed their flight. They were Moslems. These were the same people that the U.S. fought at the turn of the century. The fact that they changed organizational names and later draped themselves with the mantel of the revolutionary proletariat is semantics. They didn’t descend from spaceships in ’45. They didn't become anti Japanese after 1945. The Huks, like the Viet Minh, they used the 1941 invasion as a pretext.

[Leisler]

Re "I remember reading about commies( the Huks ) working with the japs in the late '30s."

Totally wrong on my part and poorly said on a much more complex political history.

[Leisler]

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