Friday, September 14, 2007

Can't Blame The Dutch, But They ARE Stuck With Joma

ABSCBN News Europe Bureau Chief Danny Buenafe reports on the release of Joma Sison from Dutch police custody after two weeks under detention on suspicion of having ordered the assassination of rivals in the Philippines. Quoting from "a rough translation" of a Press Release from the Hague District Court, Sison's immediate release was ordered by the Court for "insufficiency of evidence" for crimes in the Netherlands to hold him under detention ( much less "torture and solitary confinement" as some have claimed he was undergoing under those awful Dutch police.) However, Sison remains a suspect, according to Wm. de Bruin speaking for the Prosecutors Office and investigation into his activities would continue.
"The District Court established that these serious offenses have been committed in the Philippines and relate to disagreements inside the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and that the decision to commit these murders was taken within the party structure of the CPP," the press release said.

"Furthermore, the Court recognized that there are many indications in the files which support the point of view that the accused is still playing a leading role in the Central Committee [CC] of the CPP as well as in the military branch of the CPP, the New People's Army (NPA)," it added.

The court also said that: "The files pertaining to the accused do not include indications that Sison, while in the Netherlands, committed the offenses he is charged with in deliberate and close co-operation with the perpetrators in the Philippines."

It added that the Sison's files do not contain information that he incited others to commit serious offenses according to the accusations.

The court also believed that the presumptions that Sison ordered the assassinations of his two former comrades as stated by the widows and alleged triggermen “were insufficiently concrete”.

“The statements of the widows and the marksmen, to which the [Dutch] Public Prosecution Service appeals, only refer to the fact that they assume that the murders have been committed by order of the CC of the CPP and therefore an order originating from the accused being the chairman,” said the court decision.
I wonder what the Dutch word actually was that got "roughly translated" as marksmen? Well I used an online English-to-Dutch Translator to find out the Dutch word that translates into marksmen. It's "Scherpschutters"

Did sharpshooters testify along with the widows?

Buenafe's report continues..
Case won't be dropped
Meanwhile, de Bruin said that the Prosecution will appeal the Court's decision.

“The investigation will be continued. And Mr. Sison is still a suspect and Prosecutor's office will appeal the decision of the court this morning," de Bruin said.

De Bruin said that the charges are not being dropped.

"The court thought there was not enough [evidence] to keep Mr. Sison in custody," de Bruin said.

Sison's release from detention followed a related report that he will remain in solitary confinement in the Netherlands for another 90 days.
RICKY CARANDANG of ABSCBN News also interviewed Rep. Satur Ocampo of the militant party list organization Bayan. Here was a curious revelation from Satur Ocampo after Ricky Carandang asked him why the Left has been questioning the Dutch handling of Mr. Sison's arrest and detention and weren't they better off just working within the Dutch legal system to defend Mr. Sison? Satur did an awful low of hemming and hawing before he couldn't seem to blurt or spit out the words "...WAR CRIMES ..."

Is Jose Maria Sison under investigation by the Dutch authorities for war crimes or crimes against the Dutch anti terrorism laws?

Downloadable MP3

I must say that Ricky Carandang asked a well-conceived question for such a slippery-eel like Satur Ocampo when it comes straight answers. In this part of the interview RC gently pins down Satur Ocampo with what is really a test of moral consistency to which Satur --rolled out a long stemwinder of international humanitarian gobbledygook in answer to Ricky's simple question: why aren't the militant leftists as outraged over the deaths of Tabara and Kintanar as they are about alleged activist killings? Why indeed would Renato Reyes say that the pair were "enemy combatants" (and therefore they deserved to be murdered?) Give a listen to how journalistic surgery is done on a professional propagandist like Satur Ocampo:

Satur Ocampo cannot explain why the militant leftists and he are not outraged over the deaths of Tabara and Kintanar.

Downloadable MP3

What exactly did he say?? Satur Ocampo just did a really good impression of Michael Dukakis didn't he? Well, at least Satur Ocampo is here in the Philippines fightging the Parliamentary Struggle and participating in the House of Representatives. Hope he'll be doing it more for real.

I think that the end of the Maoist insurgency in the Philippines would result in a tremendous economic upliftment for the country . A surge of toursists and foreign investments could immediately be expected, but even more importantly, domestic economic forces would be freed of the NPA's extortion, revolutionary tax collection, permits to campaign, cell site bombings and other organized criminal activities that have abnormalized the situation wherever they operate, and therefore stunt and depress the local economies, impoverish and beggar the common people.

10 comments:

Amadeo said...

There are a couple of anachronistic angles in all this.

Let’s start with the trying of a Filipino in the Netherlands for committing crimes against fellow Filipinos perpetrated in Philippine territory.

Then what about, what is he in the first place doing there in the Netherlands all this time, given shelter and support by the host country?

Even with this latest development, the Dutch appear convinced they have the law and/or precedence in their favor for first detaining JoMa and still, maybe trying him if sufficient evidence can be advanced.

This reminds me in some twisted way of Panama’s Noriega who after serving sentence in the US is right now facing extradition to of all places, France, for money laundering.

Deany Bocobo said...

Joma won't be going anywhere though, from the sounds of it. He has convinced them that he is not a flight risk. But that means he probably has to stay there while they watch him and see if there is any truth to the accusations that he is the central nervous system of the insurgency. Boy, it sure looks like it from the online storm of Free Joma protest. All the ganglia have raised their hands.

Tiki Music said...

Amadeo's example is interesting because Noriega worked for the CIA (esp. with Pres. Bush, Sr., who was director then).

Also, more points should be added about the competence of the Philippine judiciary system, military, and police force.

Tonyo said...

Ang dami daming satsat nung kinulong si Joma, pero nung sinabi ng korte ng Holland na INSUFFICIENT ang ebidensya para siya ipiit, the slanderers have fallen silent.

Can't it be possible that there can never be sufficient evidence to back up the charge against Joma?

Can't it be possible that Joma is innocent?

I hope to get a reply that is more civilized than branding me a communist or a Joma cult member. Name-calling is passe.

Ben Vallejo said...

Ka Tonio

Ay naku! Maari pang makahanap ng dagdag na ebidensya laban kay Joma. Malamang lubos na nakita na ng intelligence community ng Imperyalistang Holland kung sino ang namumuno sa CPP-NDF-NDF.

Abangan ang susunod na kabanata!

Ang trahedya ay kahit na sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas dead ma ang mga estudyante tungkol kay Joma. Ano ang tinahak ng ideolohiya ni Joma?

Ay ang napapalala kung matagal ka sa Utrecht!

Deany Bocobo said...

Tonyo,
Karamihan sa atin bata pa nang matanda na si Joma. Mahaba ang kuwento ng taong yan. Malamang marami ng nakalimutan yang taong yan na hindi man natin kahit kailan matutuklasan. Maraming sekreto ang buhay, maraming karanasang hindi para sa madla. Ngunit kung tunay mong mahal ang yaring bayan, mabuti nga ay magsuring mabuti, dahil maraming tao siyang nilinlang sa kanyang buhay bilang "rebolusyonaryo."

Deany Bocobo said...

Folks I think the Dutch are being very smart about this. They know that Sison isn't about to go anywhere (unless it's aNorth Korea or Cuba and even there communism could be on the wane, though South America is an interesting option.) But perhaps Joma will make his last stand in The Hague. It would be fitting and poetic, because the whole world needs to see just how a single determined and cunning professional, lifelong guerilla, can hold an entire nation hostage to his compulsive psychology and ideology.

He's like a bad skin disease from planet Uranus, but I'm glad the Dutch now have a taste of what they've been nurturing and growing over at the Utrecht Space Station for the last 20 years. Let them have him over for dinner now for a few years until Allah takes him.

That'll learn'em for being an unwitting State sponsor of terrorism all this time. It took the tragedy of Theo van Gogh to wake them up to the dangers within their own borders.

In retrospect, Sison's leaving the Philippines was the best thing to happen to us. We just need to get someone, like the Dutch, to confiscate his remote control and shut down his email.

Ben Vallejo said...

Compared to Jose Maria Sison, unrepentant communist Erich Honecker may have had it better when he flew to exile in Chile. At least the GDR was a state and for a while seemed to make communism to work. When he died Honecker's coffin was draped with the flag of a state that no longer exists, thus inviting comments from wags.

Nonetheless if Joma plans to fly to South America, perhaps to Hugo Chavez's Venezuela then Pinoy wags would have a field day.

Inevitably Joma will be draped with the NDF flag. Well the NDF never got the belligerent status a major fantasy of Sison.

upoytao said...

Setting the murderers free

Let me talk about Jose Maria Sison and his alleged ordering of the murder of his two former comrades (amongst others).

That while the Dutch court cannot find any sufficient evidence on the supposed hand of the current NDF/CPP/NPA "adviser" it has also yet to put into light the developments of other countries in terms of putting to justice revolutionary movements who have maimed, tortured and murdered innocent civilians as well as former allies.

One only has to look at the history of Africa and their successful campaign against criminals with a number of human rights abuses.

The question should be the nature of the organization, the factual as well as coincidental evidences that supports the prosecutions claim.

For one the nature of the CPP-NPA: it is an underground organization where its members do not use their true names, they use aliases instead. They also do not recognize the rule of law such that they have their own form of justice calling it the "peoples court" where most of their proceedings mostly left unchecked from public scrutiny therefore leaving the hapless suspect at the mercy of them "prosecutors/justices/executioners".

There is no power of appeal when one is found guilty and as much as other countries have banned the use of the death penalty, the CPP-NPA always address the guilty ones on its usual deadly manner--by murder.

Given the above definition of the nature of the organization it is therefore close to impossible to determine the hand of Jose Maria Sison in the murder charges filed against him, as well as his involvement to the massive purges of the 1980's.

This has been a major problem ever since with the Non-Government Organization Peace Advocates for Truth, Justice and Healing (PATH), the NGO is a group of survivors, victims and members of families of the massive purges carried out in the 80's by the CPP-NPA. This massive witch-hunt allegedly victimized at least 3,000 cadres and killed a score of 2,000 suspected infiltrators in the NPA. PATH to this day aims to search and excavate the remains of the victims and bring them back to their families.

This problem lies henceforth in the whole bureaucracy of the CPP-NPA-NDF leadership because there are no available point person to be made accountable unless it is the whole organization and they can always cower at the defense that they are a revolutionary movement at the same time make use of human rights as a form of shield against the military.

Jose Maria Sison and the CPP-NPA has been successful therefore in annihilating anybody under its flags of revolutionary advocacy. The organization can admit to almost anything while it cannot be prosecuted or otherwise be made accountable.

While Jose Maria Sison may be free for now it bids darkly for the organization as its victims remains searching for justice. And as long as the CPP-NPA continues its indiscriminate killings it will eventually loose its credibility as well as its supporters.

Deany Bocobo said...

upoytao,
thanks for this comment. I do believe you have just made the case for Joma being a terrorist personality and the CPP NPA a terrorist organization.

What you have described is precisely the kind of subterranean organized political crime syndicate that the Human Security Act and the Anti Terrorism laws of most civilized countries seek to identify and interdict.

That is what Joma and his Gang have in common with Bin Laden and HIS gang: they are organized to deceive and kill in the name of ideologies that are inhuman and murderous.