By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
The NDFP Negotiating Panel vigorously condemns the inhuman treatment of Retired General Raymundo Jarque and his wife Zenia by the US authorities when they arrived at Dallas airport on September 20, 2005. They were there to visit their daughter, Melissa, a resident of the US and to seek urgently needed medical care for Mrs. Jarque. They were held incommunicado, separated from each other, not allowed visits from family. They even could not change their clothes. The Philippine consul in Dallas said he could not do anything for General and Mrs. Jarque.
By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
The NDFP Negotiating Panel vigorously condemns the inhuman treatment of Retired General Raymundo Jarque and his wife Zenia by the US authorities when they arrived at Dallas airport on September 20, 2005. They were there to visit their daughter, Melissa, a resident of the US and to seek urgently needed medical care for Mrs. Jarque. They were held incommunicado, separated from each other, not allowed visits from family. They even could not change their clothes. The Philippine consul in Dallas said he could not do anything for General and Mrs. Jarque.
When General Jarque, after 33 years in the service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, was forced to retire in 1995 and he suffered persecution as a victim of gross injustice in the corrupt judicial system of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, he sought refuge with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in Negros, Philippines. He was accepted and given refuge by the NDFP. When the NDFP subsequently requested him to help in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations as a consultant on politico-military affairs, he generously agreed and joined the NDFP Negotiating Panel in peace negotiations with the GRP in the Netherlands in 1997.
General Jarque’s association with the NDFP and his continuing role as consultant in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations are apparently the reasons of the US for denying him and his wife entry into the US. The US is condemnable for arbitrarily labeling General Jarque as a “terrorist” and subsequently acting inhumanely against him and his wife who needs a kidney transplant in the US. The couple were issued visas by US consular officials in Manila. Neither one of them has ever been accused of committing any crime against the US or any of its citizens in the US or anywhere else in the world.
The US is reprehensible for using its so-called war on terrorism to unjustly and without any basis brand the Communist Party, the New People’s Army and Prof. Jose Maria Sison, the NDFP Chief Political Consultant as “terrorists” and proceed to stigmatize, humiliate and abuse other NDFP consultants like General Jarque, including his wife, and thus violate their human dignity and rights. The US keeps on sending out the message to the whole world that it is against the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and is hell-bent on upsetting these negotiations by threatening and attacking persons involved in these.
The GRP is likewise reprehensible for colluding with the US and other foreign governments in the aforesaid unjust and baseless “terrorist listing” and for allowing them to interfere in Philippine affairs and show contempt for the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. The GRP is condemnable for failing to provide timely assistance to General and Mrs. Jarque, despite the fact that General Jarque is the security consultant of a state corporation, which is a subsidiary of the Philippine National Oil Corporation.
We express again our deep appreciation for the continuing service of General Jarque as a voluntary and unremunerated consultant of the NDFP in the peace negotiations with the GRP. According to the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), a person does not necessarily belong to any NDFP organization to serve as a duly-authorized consultant of the NDFP in the peace negotiations.
