GUESS who is already lawyering for Joma? Satur Ocampo, his co-accused in the paranoiac murderous purges and killing fields of their comrades inb the 1980s. But at this moment, he apparently does not realize the basis of the arrest is not those alleged crimes but the assassinations of Joma's rivals, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara, both leading lights of the CPP-NPA.
Philippine Communist Leader Apprehended to Face a Murder Charge
28 augustus 2007
Jose Maria S., 68, a Philippine Communist leader was apprehended this morning in Utrecht by the International Crime Investigation Team of the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department to face the criminal charges for his involvement in assassinations that took place in Philippines.
Mr. S. is a founder of the Communist Party of Philippines (CPP) and its armed branch, the New People’s Army (NPA), that has been fighting for years against the consecutive governments in Manila. The Communist leader was suspected of giving orders, from the Netherlands, to murder his former political associates in Philippines, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara.
Except for the apartment in which Mr. S. lived, the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department today combed the apartments belonging to his co-workers, seven of which were in Utrecht and one in Abcoude.
On January 23, 2003, the former leader of the New People’s Army, Romulo Kintanar, 50, was shot dead in a Japanese restaurant in Philippines. The perpetrators were at the time of murder in the restaurant as well and fired 10 shots in Mr. Kintanar. The victim bled to death as a result of the shot wounds. The assassination triggered off a huge commotion in Philippines. It was claimed by the New People’s Army, in an official publication in which the reference was made to a sentencing by the special People’s Court. A special unit of the New People’s Army allegedly punished Kintanar for his crimes against the revolution and the people.
The Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department also investigates the role of Mr. S. in the assassinations of Arturo Tabara and his son in law Stephen Ong, which took place on September 26, 2006. Both men were shot dead in a parking lot, while stepping out of their car. They died instantly as a result of being shot in the area of head, chest and stomach.
This assassination was also claimed by the CPP’s armed branch. According to one official publication Tabara was “a seasoned criminal and fanatic contra-revolutionist.“ He was killed because he and his son in law had supposedly offered resistance when a special unit of the New People’s Army tried to make the arrest.
Until the beginning of the nineties, Tabara was a member of the highest command of the New People’s Army.
Mr. S. has been living in the Netherlands since 1987. He had applied for a political asylum but he was not granted one. He could not be deported because his life would allegedly be endangered upon his arrival in Philippines. On Friday, Mr. S. will be indicted by the Examining Judge at Court in The Hague.
For information about this Press Release please contact Mr. Wim de Bruin.
JOSE MARIA SISON, founder and chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People's Army, has been arrested by Dutch authorities at his home in Utrecht, The Netherlands, on suspicion of ordering the murders of two former comrades in the Philippines, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara in 2003 and 2004. He is being held in The Hague pending arraignment and trial under Dutch law for allegedly ordering the remote control assassinations, which are also the subject of murder charges against him and New People's army operatives in the Philippines.
Mr. Sison has been designated to be a foreign terrorist personality, and the CPP-NPA as foreign terrorist organizations, by both the United States and the European Union every year since 2002. It is very likely that they will also be designated as such under new landmark legislation in the Philippines Anti-Terrorism Law, the Human Security Act of 2007.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA TV News) hailed the arrest as "a giant step toward peace. A victory for justice and the rule of law."
The murders allegedly ordered by Mr. Sison in the Netherlands are part of an enduring internal struggle within the communist movement that has its roots in a paranoiac purge of suspected government spies that had infiltrated the Party and the NPA towards the end of the Marcos regime in the early eighties. Nearly a thousand cadre are said to have been murdered by their own comrades during those purges. Several of the mass burial sites used by execution teams, were discovered and investigated by the Philippine police and military authorities last year, resulting in charges of mass murder against Mr. Sison, and his associates.
The most comprehensive exposition of this aspect of Mr. Sison's history and the deadly "rejectionist-reaffirmist" struggle within the CPP that directly led to the Kintanar-Tabara assassinations may be found in this web testimonial by a former member of the CPP's Mindanao Commission who survived the deadly purges and tells a compelling story of paranoia, treachery and the long vindictive memory of the CPP's top leaders against anyone who has opposed their ideological and organizational supremacy.
The decades-long communist insurgency of the CPP-NPA has been a major thorn in the side of successive Philippine governments since their founding in the 1960s and is seen as a major stumbling block to peace and order in the country as well as its economic and social upliftment. Although the NPA has never won any significant military victories against the government, it runs the most highly organized criminal extortion operation in the country, collecting hundreds of millions of pesos annually, from local farmers, businesses and government institutions. During election time, the NPA even collects fees for the "right to campaign" in areas under their influence from political candidates. Hundreds of kidnappings, assassinations, arsons, remote-controlled land mine explosions, raids on police stations, and small-scale military engagements are the ongoing "livelihood" projects of the CPP NPA in the countrysides.
The CPP-NPA also runs dozens of front organizations among workers, students, peasants and other "marginalized sectors". These highly militant activist organizations are also the CPP NPA's major recruiting grounds and the main base of operations for aboveground parliamentary struggles. In recent years, several of these organizations have successfully won several seats in the Philippine House of Representatives under the party-list system. Perhaps the best known of these is Rep. Satur Ocampo of the party list Bayan Muna, who also happens to be Mr. Sison's co-accused for having ordered the murderous purges of their comrades in the 80s, when both were running the CPP NPA.
The arrest of Mr.Sison in the Netherlands has long been urged upon the Dutch government, with whom the Philippines does not however have an extradition treaty. When Mr. Sison originally applied for political asylum in the Netherlands 20 years ago, the application was rejected, but the Netherlands granted him political refugee status, and allowed him to take up residence there, believing his life would be in danger in the Philippines [sic!]. The CPP's top leadership and their families moved to Utrecht with Mr. Sison and were receiving millions in financial contributions from the European Left and other international sources. From there they ran the CPP NPA's operations in the Philippine Archipelago by fax and email and in coordination with their agents and allies in the Philippines. They also resorted to the alleged assassinations to eliminate their ideological rivals, some of whom had returned to the fold of the law and were therefore considered counter-revolutionaries subject to trial, arrest and execution by the same "People's Courts" that caused the "killing fields" of the eighties.
The listing of Mr. Sison and the CPP NPA as foreign terrorists by the US and EU put a big dent in their European exile lifestyles and put pressure on the local NPAs to raise money and resources through their organized criminal activities. But it also drove a deep wedge between those in the Archipelago fighting in the hills, and those on the Continent enjoying the glamorous and relatively comfortable lifestyle of an exile in Europe.
The arrest of Mr. Sison and the end of his Dutch Treat hopefully presages the eventual total demise of the CPP-NPA as a terrorist organization in the Philippines. If that happens, I predict that the Philippines will have secured its century-old democratic experiment as the first and the oldest constitutional democracy in Australasia; that it will double or triple its rate of economic growth by quickly eclipsing all other tourist and foreign investment destinations, and that it will become the bulwark of the Global War on Terror in Southeast Asia.
Its ninety million freedom-loving people, who have suffered so much because of the communist insurgency look with renewed hope in the future as a result of this recent development, even as they cannot fail to see the arduous tasks still ahead of them in overcoming both the totalitarian left. There is also still the Global Islamic Jihad, which many suspect has taken over the old Moro cause in Mindanao and is responsible for the recent upsurge of terrorist bombings, ambush killings and mass beheadings in the South, where an "all-out war" has erupted. (But that is another story yet to be told!)
For now however, the Filipinos can enjoy the sight of the Red Moon's eclipse.
46 comments:
Finally.
Yeah, but it won't be easy to finish this. He could somehow run for Congress. CPP Party list? hehe
His ideological rants were killing me
Who do you think kidnapped Jonas Burgos, agin? The cops put those three comrades of his on tv. Pretty cheeky of em huh? Now either they've gotten really good at training actors and deploying them as witnesses, or this whole extajudicial killings issue could get a whole 'nuther complexion, mb
While the Dutch may bring Sison to court, it would be better if Sison is tried in a Philippine court.
Gloria Arroyo shouldn't rejoice yet. Why are we elated when a foreign court tries one of our citizens for crimes committed in the Philippines? Surely the CPP purges count as genocide in the scale of Saddam's massacre of the Kurds. If Saddam was tried by an Iraqi court, why can't Joma Sison be tried in a Philippine court?
Saddam and Jose Maria Sison can't hide under ideology.
you scare me with your telepathy sometimes blackshama!
they gotta be thinking that too you know. but you know what, i guess anything is better than the dumb insurgency.
As soon as the armed insurgency ends, I bet you economic growth doubles!
Blackshama,
Finder's keepers.
I do not know where I got the inkling, perhaps here perhaps at the Belmont Club. But I was hearing rumors the Nehtherlands was getting fed up with hosting JMS. Apparently his activities finally became so blatantly obvious they had to do something about it.
Why not extradite him? Even though the Philippines has again eliminated capital punishment putting JSM into jail for the rest of his life probably is too tough for the Netherlanders.
marcus,
well, i guess i have to take the Dutch off of my list of State sponsors of terror! But now we get their headache! He just gets to eat a lot of galunggong for the rest of his life. Or dilis, maybe.
I'm taking the Durch off too. And I will also take the US off my list as soon as they stop coddling that guy Carillo.
As to Jonas...read my reply in MLQ's blog. Don't want to repeat answers as much as U do questions
excuse me for a typo
Don't want to repeat answers as much as U do questions should read as much as I do questions
Sino Carillo?
Carillo is the man who bombed a Venezuelan commercial plane, was jailed in Venezuela, escaped, entered the US illegally, and set free on bail.
In addition to the airplane bombing, He is also suspected of numerous terrorists acts against Cuba and civilians in Central America during the Contra Wats.
MB,
There you have it, he entered the country illegally. I should not be surprised if he gets free medical care & cheap tuition at our state universities.
Marcus,
Amd a fellowship at the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute and his own talk show on Fox news.
Dean,
Try requesting CIA files under FOIA on CIA support for Joma and CPP-MTT in the early 70's. It will be enlightening.
Who do you think kidnapped Jonas Burgos, agin? The cops put those three comrades of his on tv. Pretty cheeky of em huh? Now either they've gotten really good at training actors and deploying them as witnesses, or this whole extajudicial killings issue could get a whole 'nuther complexion, mb
i recall the arroyo authorities used rashma hali of all people to accuse harriet demetriou and rufus rodriguez of kidnapping and illegal detention.
but nice timing though...
Dean:
"As soon as the armed insurgency ends, I bet you economic growth doubles!"
1. the NPAs are not the reason for our low eco growth. they are the results. and compared to the abu sayyaf, the NPAs look like mother teresa to me. they dont behead, they dont kidnap business people, they dont throwh bombs at the malls, etc.
2. low eco growth is a result of structural problems like rent-seeking, the presence of oligopolies, low infra investments, and the dirigiste policies that the state maintains to favor a few economic elites, etc. the battle for higher economic growth and development lies elsewhere.
no one seems to rejoice with joma's arrest. and its because he was totally irrelevant long time ago.
the hypothesis that economic growth will double is scientifically falsifiable and verifiable in the events that are about to ensue.
I agree that the economic factors you mention are determinants of economic growth rate.
But I think the insurgency is a special kind of factor which inhibits the potential economic growth rate that would reflect the economy's actual fundamentals.
We have all wondered for example, why the Philippines generally gets the lowest growth rates compared to its neighbors, when surely, its root conditions reflected in the factors you mention, are neither the worst nor the best in the region.
So what's the difference?
You got it! The insurgencies.
That is what makes my prediction of double economic growth a testable scientific hypothesis. Because the factors you mention are not likely to change very much in the near future, whereas the possible end of the insurgency will be a more or less sudden event.
IF we do get double economic growth rates, or something dramatic compared to what we have ever done, by say matching our neighbors at 80th percentile of the population spread, it would confirm the notion that the presence of an insurgency drives away tourists, foreign investors and other economic benefits of an insurgency free land.
You see, I don't deny the importance of your factors, only their priority.
insurgency will continue as long as severe economic stratification is there for everyone to see.
i would even be surprised if, given the economic injustice and alienation
suffered by a large segment of the population, there won't be anyone who would take up arms against the oppression.
communism as an ideology is dead.
people take to the hills not for this widely discredited ideology but for the plain and simple reason of economic and social injustice.
the arrest of joma sison is good opportunity for the leaders of the NPA (Ka Roger et. al.) to reinvent the rebel movement, shed off the old skin of Marxist or Maoist fraud and give birth to a rebellion for rebellion's sake.
Icnatabio,
A warm welcome to you.
Rebellion for rebellion's sake, eh?
I think you have to go to the Anarchist Party of the Philippines.
The CPP NPA would only send you off to Tabara, Lagman, Kintanar, et al.
only by shedding the communist ideological hoax will the NPA become relevant as a rebel movement.
it's this ideological baggage that's keeping them in stalemate with the army of the mafiosi and the oligarchy.
djb,
hahaha, look who's sowing chaos and anarchy in your beloved land.
like everything else, rebel movement must also follow the rules of evolution.
adapt or perish.
it must evolve or it will stagnate.
its enemies are real.
and far more demonic.
icnatabio,
let me understand your position. you think a rebellion can succeed for its own sake. But do you mean NO ideology, ANY ideology, or ANOTHER ideology different from communism?
On those three PNP "witnesses"
Here's is a report from the Daily Tribune
"The PNP, through Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) chief Edgardo Doromal, the other day presented before the media the “witness,” Emerito Lipio, a self-confessed New People’s Army (NPA) guerrilla who claimed he has vital infor-mation on the abduction of Jonas.
During investigation, Lipio said he was getting orders from his leader based in Bulacan province, north of Manila, one “Delfin de Guzman.”
But it was learned that De Guzman has been in government custody since 2006.
In his testimony, Lipio said it was De Guzman who had ordered him and another NPA member, Marlon Manue, alias Ka Carlo, to conduct surveillance operations on Jonas, who was being suspected of pilfering the communist movement’s funds and passing information to the military.
De Guzman was arrested last year after he was implicated in the killing of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara, both former NPA leaders.
Records showed that he was nabbed by military agents last May 11, 2006, in his safehouse in Barangay San Mateo in Norzagaray, Bulacan.
De Guzman was even presented to the media by then military chief Gen. Generoso Senga during a press conference held at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City last May 22, 2006.
Senga said De Guzman had admitted he was behind the assassinations of the two communist leaders."
Either the PNP or the Tribune is lying.
MB,
The Tribune is only reporting what it knows or learned from interviews and media records.
You are interpreting what they have reported and concluding from it, what?
That because deguzman was under arrest, he could not have issued orders to kill possibly the person that put him in jail?
The mafia does it all the time, and the fact that we at least know of deguzman's arrest means he's not been INCOMUNICADO all this time.
Joma is halfway around the world, yet the Dutch believe he ordered the remote control killing of tabara and kintanar.
Remember that the witnesses are testifying against self-interest. That always carries a lot of weight in court. But I'm sure you'll have something to say about that.
Did I miss something? What exactly is your point about the Trib's report?
DJ.
It was an FYI. An amber light. You might ne celebrating the AFP's vindication too early. That's all. No need for you to become so defensive.
Just to remind ou there is always more than one side,
djb,
yes i think some clarification is in order. What i said was, given the severe economio alienation and injustice suffered by a large segment of the population, a rebellion based on that alienation is inevitable, even necessary, to rectify the anomaly.
you do not need a foreign hatched communist ideology to foment such a rebellion since people are already taking to the hills not so much because they are enamored by Karl Marx's romanticism.
in my opinion, the sooner the NPA tears down their banner of communist ideology which has already been widely discredited, the more will there be people's support and sympathy for the movement.
it's the only way they can be relevant.
or for that matter, survive.
will such a rebellion succeed?
i believe it could.
the french people have done it sans any formal ideology. they've done it with nothing more than the inner longing of their souls to be free from the brutalization of their rulers, the same brutalization which our home grown ruling class are inflicting on our people.
but of course 18th century Frenchmen are different from 21st century Filipinos.
or are they?
icnatabio,
This does not seem to be factual:
you do not need a foreign hatched communist ideology to foment such a rebellion since people are already taking to the hills not so much because they are enamored by Karl Marx's romanticism.
The last time I checked, the NPA was 7000 strong. At its peak it was 20000 strong (before they wiped each other out in the killing fields of the eighties.)
Out of a population of 90 million (2007) those numbers do not add up to "the people are already taking to the hills."
The people are not in rebellion, just a bunch of ex professors and some student activists who recruit poor desperate farmers and turn them into extortion mafia. Even in the CPP only a very miniscule fraction actually have an ideology. the rest are just soldati to the capos di tutti capi.
As for the French doing things sans ideology, perhaps what you really mean is the French do things sans MORALITY, for there cannot possibly be a more ideologically besotted people than the French. Sacre bleu!
djb,
you said:
Even in the CPP only a very miniscule fraction actually have an ideology. the rest are just soldati to the capos di tutti capi.
i say:
that's the point.
djb,
there may not be a massive exodus to the hills yet but your numbers refer to the bonafide members not their symphatizers who, i opine, will increase and revert to active membership once the NPA mutates into a genuine people's struggle for justice from economic oppression sans the Communist ideological bull.
If you reject the "communist ideological bull" then you are left with Democracy.
But then again, I suspect that my first inkling was right: you are an Anarchist and don't believe in any ideology, not even democracy.
Anarchism is dangerous if the NPA takes up your call, for you would remove all the restraints that objectives, goals and ends (ideology) places upon the deadly and violent means they already employ.
You are calling for violent means to overthrow the government without any clear notion of what you want to replace it with.
Yet I know about anarchists. They only take the position that NO ideology is necessary because that allows them to do as they please.
Anarchists are far more immoral than communists.
Whoever indoctrinated you with that line that the French do things sans morality is frankly making fun of you Dean.
And coming from someone like you who once admitted that you know next to nothing about the French except perhaps for French fries (which in reality aren't even supposed to be termed French fries - Belgians are up in arms coz of the spin that fries are French - heh), I can very well see how you could easily be hoodwinked.
Heh!
Btw, even the French are surprised that les amerloques have termed good old frites as 'French fries'!
Learn a bit more about the world Dean. Travel a bit, discover places, people - the world is a big place and not limited to New Jersey and Metro Manila. You will realize that everything your neocon indoctrinators said are true.
Ooops... You will realize that NOT everything your neocon indoctrinators said are true.
mbw,
Well howdy, Ma'm. Long time no see. Isnt anarchisme a French word?
djb,
you said:
for there cannot possibly be a more ideologically besotted people than the French.
i say:
it's so very fine by me.
i mean, what can be a more coherent ideology than that which seeks to exalt life as the french are very well known for.
even then, did they not produced such notable thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau?
djb,
you said:
If you reject the "communist ideological bull" then you are left with Democracy.
i say:
do you really think we have a democracy, Mr. Bocobo?
Howdy? Yep long time no see.
Yep, they invented lots of words that we now use in the English language.
Re anarchisme: Yep but twas the Spanish commies who perfected it - check your communist history (way back during your KM days in La Salle), you will find La Pasionnara's doctrine, (the female Spanish communist leader who bolted to Russia after failing to beat Generalissimo Franco) was based on anarchy.
Twas also the French who gifted the American people with the statue of liberty now standing in NY's Liberty Island, if you care to remember.
djb,
you also said:
I suspect that my first inkling was right: you are an Anarchist and don't believe in any ideology, not even democracy.
i say:
your suspicion is wrong.
so easy to make labellings.
djb,
further, you said:
Anarchism is dangerous if the NPA takes up your call, for you would remove all the restraints that objectives, goals and ends (ideology) places upon the deadly and violent means they already employ.
I say:
hahaha, you seem paranoid with this humble idea.
what i am suggesting is for the NPA to transform itself and be relevant in the dynamics of Philippine politics. i symphatize with our people's struggle to free themselves from the clutches of economic oppression by our ruling class who betrayed them wholesale and big time.
it's just a fact of life in this part of our world mr. bocobo that we have until today the oppressed and the oppressors so do not wonder if the NPA (however you belittle their number) continue to exist.
our people's right to pursue freedom and justice is an ideology in and by itself.
djb,
you also said:
You are calling for violent means to overthrow the government without any clear notion of what you want to replace it with.
i say:
you mean the bogus regime of gloria arroyo?
yes, i am for overthrowing it by any means, violent or not.
and i want to replace it with a regime of justice, honesty and integrity.
simple, good old-fashioned desires huh?
okay icnatabio,
i guess you aren't a real anarchist, but a diletante (another french word)!
therein lies the danger of labelling and generalizations.
you could be wrong.
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