By FIDEL V. AGCAOILI
Chairperson, NDFP Human Rights Committee
The all-out war policy of the Arroyo regime and the escalating human rights violations under Oplan Bantay Laya have been inspired and directed by the US government, especially under the Bush global war of terror and under the operational command of the US commander in the Pacific based in Hawaii.
The US has declared the Philippines the “second front” in the so-called war on terror and has escalated the intervention of US military forces in Philippine affairs under the pretext of “joint military exercises” and “combating terrorists”. It has expanded the pretexts for deploying US military forces in Philippine territory, ranging from the oldest pretext of “mutual defense against foreign aggression” to the recent cluster of pretexts: joint military exercises, anti-terrorism, anti-drugs, civic action, disaster relief, anti-epidemic mission, humanitarian mission and so on.
By FIDEL V. AGCAOILI
Chairperson, NDFP Human Rights Committee
The all-out war policy of the Arroyo regime and the escalating human rights violations under Oplan Bantay Laya have been inspired and directed by the US government, especially under the Bush global war of terror and under the operational command of the US commander in the Pacific based in Hawaii.
The US has declared the Philippines the “second front” in the so-called war on terror and has escalated the intervention of US military forces in Philippine affairs under the pretext of “joint military exercises” and “combating terrorists”. It has expanded the pretexts for deploying US military forces in Philippine territory, ranging from the oldest pretext of “mutual defense against foreign aggression” to the recent cluster of pretexts: joint military exercises, anti-terrorism, anti-drugs, civic action, disaster relief, anti-epidemic mission, humanitarian mission and so on.
US Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft of the US Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-West is hyping the anti-drugs pretext for military intervention in the Philippines. What is wrong and repulsive about his anti-drugs statements is that he makes the big lie that the revolutionary forces of the Filipino people are engaged in the production and distribution of shabu.
He feigns ignorance and deliberately obscures the long standing firm policy of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), New People’s Army (NPA), the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the people’s democratic government prohibiting the production and distribution of drugs like shabu, cocaine and heroin and plants like marijuana and the like, which damage the bodies and minds of otherwise healthy men and women.
But Rear Admiral Zukunft does not care about the truth so long as he can tout a pretext for US military intervention in the Philippines. Let me remind the admiral that the US has been responsible for crimes far worse than shabu production and distribution by providing the Philippine puppet forces with the direction, indoctrination, planning, training, intelligence and military equipment to escalate massacres, assassinations, abductions, torture, forced displacement of people and other human rights violations.
To slander the revolutionary forces of the Filipino people, Zukunft maliciously conceals the fact that the production and distribution of shabu and other dangerous drugs are actually effected through the widespread network of kubradors under jueteng operators like Bong Pineda who are close partners in crime of the fake president Gloria M. Arroyo and her loyalist military and police officers.
The proliferation of illegal drugs is a big problem in the Philippines. The CPP through the NPA has consistently taken a firm stand since the beginning of the people’s war against illegal drug production and trafficking and has been carrying out educational and eradication campaigns against illegal drug operations and use in the territories under its control.
Illegal drug operations have been flourishing in the country because these are run by big jueteng operators who can bribe presidents and are in cahoots with top military and police generals. This is the big truth that the lies of Admiral Zukunft and his subalterns in the Armed Forces of the Philippines like its former chief of staff, Dionisio Santiago of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), try to hide in playing up the so-called involvement of the NPA and the Moro liberation forces in the illegal drugs production and trade.
The Human Rights Committee of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines assures Admiral Zukunft and his Filipino puppets that they cannot mislead the Filipino people and make the anti-drugs pretext an effective propaganda line for justifying US military intervention and the escalation of human rights violations in the Philippines.
The Filipino people know the facts and no amount of lies by Admiral Zukunft and General Santiago can tarnish the image of the NPA as the people’s protector against illegal drug production, distribution and use. At its own peril, the US can decide to further increase and deepen its military intervention and escalate it to the level of outright aggression. The people and the revolutionary forces are ready to transform the current revolutionary civil war into a national war of liberation against foreign aggression.
