Communist Party of the Philippines
On behalf of the Filipino people and all revolutionary forces in the Philippines, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) expresses its deepest sympathy with the people of Haiti who have been suffering from the great devastation caused by the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that practically buried its national capital, Port-Au-Prince. The earthquake that hit the capital city and nearby towns last January 12 destroyed the majority of homes, offices, schools, hospitals and most of the infrastructure in the area.
Around half a million are estimated to have died as a result of the earthquake. Their deaths and other tremendous losses to more than a third of the entire population bear heavily on the Haitian people.
The January 12 earthquake has worsened the Haitian people's desperate situation. Decades of US political, military and economic intervention, US-instigated coups and US-supported corrupt military dictatorships have kept this former slave colony a neocolony of sweat shops and source of cheap agricultural exports. More than 80% of the Haitian people have been wallowing in poverty, hunger, squalor and disease. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.
We are in solidarity with international revolutionary forces, including those led by the Cuban government, who have long been providing medical assistance to Haiti and which was one of the first governments to deploy a contingent of doctors to provide emergency medical assistance to the recent earthquake victims.
The CPP calls on the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces to contribute whatever they can to ease the sufferings of the Haitian people. The CPP and all revolutionary forces are ready to unite with all international progressive and revolutionary forces as well as international aid agencies to provide whatever assistance it can to help the Haitian people.
At the same time, the CPP and all revolutionary forces are ready to help the Haitian people in fighting the neocolonial, semifeudal oppressive rule that has been the cause of their more fundamental, long-term ruin and suffering.
