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whatisonthemoon · 1 year

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The Death of Jose Maria Sison (Joma)

Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has died after two weeks of hospitalization. This news has led millions all over the world to mourn, as many count him as a freedom fighter. He is known for drawing up a thorough analysis of Philippine society through collective study and struggle that led other young cadre of the old Communist Party to leave and form their own. This analysis led the basis for the ongoing anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, anti-feudal revolution in the Philippines.

The CPP was especially relevant to the Unification Church as Marcos was ousted and the CPP taking power became an increasing threat.

The CPP and the National Democratic movement were vital to the popular movement built up around ousting Marcos. Following the People Power Revolution, which ousted Marcos in 1986, the Unification Church’s institutions flooded the Philippines, organizing conferences with influential cultural figures, as well as active and retired agents of US and Philippine military and intelligence agencies. These conferences played a major role in forming the general counterinsurgency program of the Philippines following Marcos, which consisted of pro-US propaganda on the TV, radio, and education system, that also prepared Filipinos to have their labor exported abroad, as well as arming and developing autonomous anti-communist vigilante groups as the Philippine military slowly develops with the the active aid and mentorship of the US. This was all alongside ramping up neoliberal policies with empty or very limited land reforms, which of course increases the Philippine economy’s dependency on exporting Philippine labor.

The Philippine Government has had an unending string of bad presidents following Marcos, coming from wealthy bureaucrat capitalist families that control the military, government, and economy, and secure the role of semi-feudalism and peasant exploitation in society, all while shamelessly using vigilante and vigilante-style tactics on those combatting their corrupt governments, from members of Communist organizations to LGBTQ+ activists, priests and nuns, teachers, social workers, etc. All of this violence has continually fed the movement for national democracy with a socialist perspective.

Prior to becoming a combatant, Sison was a professor and organizer in the old Communist Party. He organized among students and in his workplace. He is remembered for being a jovial, delightful man who never stopped organizing for the Philippine revolution, even after imprisonment and being exiled from the land he fought for.

Today the Philippine revolution grows with thousands of combatants on all major islands of the Philippines, and growing bases among the peasantry and support among the working masses. The National Democratic revolution wages on, fighting on behalf of workers, LGBTQ+ people, women, seafarers, peasants, children, etc., despite the increased bombings and strafing in the countryside, despite the countless revolutionaries and activists who have been murdered the past few years by the police and army using Moonie-owned SNT Motiv weapons.

These weapons are not the only way the Unification Church is complicit. The continued anti-communist murders of thousands of people in the Philippines is the ongoing legacy of the UC's organizing in the late 80s. CAUSA actively supported and organized vigilante groups, including Alsa Masa, a group responsible for the murder of thousands.

The New People’s Army continues to swell with people who love the people. As the Revolution Selfie documentary remarks, more people get involved with the revolution because of Jesus than Marx. It was the Christian value of loving your neighbor that led so many to take up this struggle.

It was this Christian value that Sison embodied. And now Sison’s legacy lives on brilliantly in the people’s continued struggle.

I hope we will all do what we can to support those on the front line fighting imperialism, as their fight is our own. The only way we can take down the enemy here is by having the enemy fall down all over the world.

Long live international solidarity!

Seasonally relevant video of Jose Maria Sison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PtaI-Ly9Js

#philippines #snt motiv #s&t motiv #weapons #unification church in the philippines #church history #jose maria sison #joma #national democratic movement #national democratic front #ndf #cpp #communism #communist party of the philippines #alsa masa #fascism #anti-communism

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redsolon · 1 year

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Inside the New People's Army

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Redfish made possibly the most in depth documentary ever made on the modern Philippine Maoist movement (at least in English). Once the war between Russia and Ukraine started, US companies blocked media companies affiliated with the Russian government--including Russia Today and Redfish. I've seen reposts of the documentary, but they're always lacking subtitles, so I'm glad someone finally posted the full original.

#Philippines #communism #documentary #politics #CPP #Communist Party of the Philippines #New People's Army #Redfish #Youtube #fascism #anti-fascism #indigenous #Lumad

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aphroditesknife · 7 days

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via red.media Instagram page

A report by the Communist Party of the Philippines's Political Bureau today one year ago today revealed that their highest ranking members, Wilma and Benito Tiamzon, along with eight of their comrades, were massacred by the Philippines' military (AFP) with the support of US military advisors.

The report says the AFP's claim that the victims, dubbed the "Catbalogan 10," were killed in August last year when their boat "suddenly exploded" during a firefight with a US-trained and commanded unit of the AFP, was designed to conceal their capture, torture, and massacre of the group. Witnesses reported to the CPP's investigation how the Tiamzons' captors subjected them to extreme torture and "smashed" their faces and hands with hard objects. The AFP's 8th infantry division, Joint Task Force Storm, and the Joint Operations Task Force Trident conducted the operation. Trident counts US advisers in its ranks and notoriously joined the AFP's 2017 war on alleged ISIS militants that devastated the Muslim city of Marawi. PhilippinesCommunists #USImperialism #CPP

#philippines #philippine politics #ph politics #politics #ph #communism #us imperialism #communist party of the philippines #cpp

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cathnews · 2 years

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Nuns in the Philippines denounce terrorism charge

Catholic nuns from a missionary order in the Philippines are facing charges of financing terrorism and violating the country’s anti-terrorism law. The Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) have made a statement denouncing the criminal charges filed by the country’s Department of Justice. None of the allegations and charges were based on solid evidence. They “demonise the works of our…

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#Communist Party of the Philippines #New People&039;s Army #Philippines #Rural Missionaries of the Philippines #Terrorism

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carlocarrasco · 24 days

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Two CPP-NPA members charged for financing terrorism

Two members of the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) were charged for financing terrorism and the Department of Justice (DOJ) claims it found compelling evidence against the suspects, according to a Philippine News Agency (PNA) news article. To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the PNA news article. Some parts in boldface… The Department of…

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kneedeepincynade · 6 months

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The more ones read in the absurd list of demanda that the US wants from China, the more it's easy to understand that they don't want peace,just legitimisation for their war

The post is machine translated

Translation is at the bottom

The collective is on telegram

🤮 严正以待 | L'ARROGANZA DEGLI IMPERIALISTI STATUNITENSI RAGGIUNGE UN NUOVO PICCO - PARTE 2 🤹‍♂️

四 La Cina dovrebbe cessare di "molestare" le navi delle Filippine 🤪 - ❓❓❓

🤡 Anche questo è ridicolo. Le Filippine hanno svenduto, con Marcos JR, la propria sovranità e dignità nazionale agli USA, trasformandosi in un asset anti-Cinese nel Mar Cinese Meridionale. Hanno permesso l'apertura di nuove basi USA sul loro territorio e violato il Codice di Condotta del MCM. Le Filippine vogliono diventare la nuova Ucraina? Il nuovo Afghanistan?

Gli USA dovrebbero cessare di utilizzare altri Paesi come asset per le loro infinite guerre per procura. Gli imperialisti americani affermano che la Cina sia una minaccia e che stia militarizzando il Mar Cinese Meridionale, ma la realtà mostra come, su 750 basi militari USA nel Mondo, quasi la metà siano intorno alla Cina 😡

📊 Il 42,7% delle basi USA all'estero puntano le armi direttamente al collo della Cina, dalla Base Navale di Yokosuka alla Base di Seoul, sono 313 le Basi USA con gli occhi puntati sulla Cina 😡

🗺️ Mappa con le Basi Militari USA nel Mar Cinese Meridionale 🌊

🌟 严正以待 - L'Esercito Popolare di Liberazione è vigile e pronto per la battaglia, e non permetterà mai agli USA di esercitare la coercizione sulla Questione della Riunificazione Cinese e sui legittimi interessi della Cina 🇨🇳

五 La Cina dovrebbe far cadere le accuse contro i vili "attivisti" anti-Cinesi che tentarono la rivoluzione colorata a Hong Kong tra il 2019 e il 2020. Eterodiretti da USA e UK, tentarono di promuovere azioni anti-Cinesi nella Regione Amministrativa Speciale. Questo è un insulto! 🤬

🤔 Ovviamente, come scritto nel post precedente, gli imperialisti del Comitato Ristretto sanno bene che queste proposte sono irrealizzabili, semplicemente vogliono innalzare la tensione tra i due Paesi 🤹‍♂️

🔍 Approfondimenti:

😡 Il tentativo di rivoluzione colorata a Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong, Nancy Pelosi, Julia Eadeh 🤮

🤮 Il National Endowment for Democracy e l'interferenza USA negli Affari Interni Cinesi: Parte I, Parte II 📄

📰 Articolo: "Agents of Chaos. How the U.S. Seeded a Colour Revolution in Hong Kong" di Laura Ruggeri, che analizza come, negli anni, siano stati piantati i semi per i tentativi di rivoluzione colorata nella Regione Amministrativa Speciale 👍

六 Infine, un'altra "proposta" vile riguarda la politicizzazione errata dello Xinjiang. Per gli imperialisti americani, avere 20.000 moschee nella Regione, invece di bombardarle, e costruire la Prosperità invece di tagliare acqua, cibo ed elettricità alle persone, significa violare i diritti delle persone 🤡

🤔 Forse, per gli Occidentali anti-Musulmani e anti-Cinesi, i diritti dei musulmani si rispettano bombardando edifici civili, moschee, ospedali e scuole, assassinando anche personale dell'ONU 🤹‍♂️

🤔 Forse, per gli Occidentali anti-Musulmani e anti-Cinesi, l'Amministrazione del Compagno Ma Xingrui dovrebbe fare come Israele, e bombardare tutte le 20.000+ moschee? 你们是一群令人作呕的伪君子和无情无义的人 😡

🔺 Master-Post sullo Xinjiang 🌺

🌸 Iscriviti 👉 @collettivoshaoshan 😘

🤮 严正以待 | THE ARROGANCE OF US IMPERIALISTS REACHES A NEW PEAK - PART 2 🤹‍♂️

四 China should stop "harassing" Philippine ships 🤪 - ❓❓❓

🤡 This is also ridiculous. The Philippines, under Marcos JR, sold out its sovereignty and national dignity to the USA, transforming itself into an anti-Chinese asset in the South China Sea. They allowed the opening of new US bases on their territory and violated the MCM Code of Conduct. Does the Philippines want to become the new Ukraine? The new Afghanistan?

The US should stop using other countries as assets for its endless proxy wars. American imperialists claim that China is a threat and is militarizing the South China Sea, but reality shows that, out of 750 US military bases in the world, almost half are around China 😡

📊 42.7% of US bases abroad point their weapons directly at China's neck, from the Yokosuka Naval Base to the Seoul Base, there are 313 US bases with their eyes on China 😡

🗺️ Map with US Military Bases in the South China Sea 🌊

🌟 严正以待 - The People's Liberation Army is alert and ready for battle, and will never allow the US to exercise coercion on the Issue of Chinese Reunification and China's legitimate interests 🇨🇳

五 China should drop charges against the vile anti-China "activists" who attempted the color revolution in Hong Kong between 2019 and 2020. Directed by the US and UK, they attempted to promote anti-China actions in the Special Administrative Region. This is an insult! 🤬

🤔 Obviously, as written in the previous post, the imperialists of the Select Committee know well that these proposals are unachievable, they simply want to raise tension between the two countries 🤹‍♂️

🔍 Further information:

😡 The attempted color revolution in Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong, Nancy Pelosi, Julia Eadeh 🤮

🤮 The National Endowment for Democracy and US Interference in China's Domestic Affairs: Part I, Part II 📄

📰 Article: "Agents of Chaos. How the U.S. Seeded a Color Revolution in Hong Kong" by Laura Ruggeri, which analyzes how, over the years, the seeds for color revolution attempts have been planted in the Special Administrative Region 👍

六 Finally, another vile "proposal" concerns the wrong politicization of Xinjiang. For the American imperialists, having 20,000 mosques in the Region, instead of bombing them, and building Prosperity instead of cutting off people's water, food and electricity, means violating people's rights 🤡

🤔 Perhaps, for anti-Muslim and anti-Chinese Westerners, Muslim rights are respected by bombing civilian buildings, mosques, hospitals and schools, even assassinating UN personnel 🤹‍♂️

🤔 Maybe, for the anti-Muslim and anti-Chinese Westerners, Comrade Ma Xingrui's Administration should do like Israel, and bomb all 20,000+ mosques? 你们是一群令人作呕的伪君子和无情无义的人 😡

🔺 Master-Post on Xinjiang 🌺

🌸 Subscribe 👉 @collectivoshaoshan 😘

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zvaigzdelasas · 5 months

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Authorities will re-engage with the New People’s Army (NPA), the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), for the first time in six years, both parties and facilitator Norway announced on Tuesday. “The parties agree to a principled and peaceful resolution of the armed conflict,” the two sides said in a joint statement, adding that the peace talks will address “deep-rooted socioeconomic and political grievances”.

If negotiations succeed, the rebels will end their armed struggle and transform into a political movement, according to Norway, which has mediated the island nation’s peace process for around 20 years. Despite the progress, the government announced no immediate ceasefire and said operations against the armed group would continue. However, military chief Romeo Brawner was hopeful an eventual peace deal would enable the armed forces to fully focus on “external or territorial defence”, rather than domestic conflict.

28 Nov 23

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captain-price-unofficially · 1 year

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Members of the Filipino NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. NPA has since waged a guerrilla war based on the Maoist strategy of protracted people's war since 1969 and is one of the key figures in the ongoing Communist rebellion in the Philippines, the longest ongoing conflict in the country.

#modern #New People's Army rebellion

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connorthemaoist · 6 months

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The recent visit by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida form part of its drive to expand its geopolitical influence through expansion of its military power and reach. Japan has been carrying out this push over the past decade or so under the auspices of the US imperialism. The visit paved the way for plans to allow Japanese military forces to use the country as its Southeast Asian outpost.

Kishida’s visit pushed for plans to forge a visiting forces agreement or reciprocal access agreement to allow Japanese military forces to freely go in and out of the country and use Philippine ports for purposes of refuelling and resupplying its warships and providing recreation for its crew.

Japan’s plans to expand its military operations here in the country further erode Philippine sovereignty and pull the country closer into the growing vortex of inter-imperialist wars in the region. It made a publicity stunt of providing a grant for a “coastal radar” system involving a ¥600 million or ₱235 million Japanese loan to buy old generation surplus equipment from Mitsubishi Electric Corp., a Japanese company. It dangled promises to fund infrastructure projects.

Japan has long employed its surplus capital to take advantage of the backward economic situation in the Philippines to serve its own economic interests. It extends loans through its Export-Import Bank, the Asian Development Bank and so-called official development assistance to fund infrastructure projects and other programs which invariably require the Philippines to buy Japanese equipment and consumables as a way of unloading Japan of its surplus commodities.

Marcos bureaucrat capitalists fawned over Kishida during his recent visit in the rush to get their share of the promised funds. They displayed utter subservience to Japan and promised to sign and ratify the agreement even before it has existed. The Marcos regime and the ruling classes in the Philippines always act slavishly and bow to every imperialist power they meet.

Japan is a junior imperialist partner of the US that has its own ambitions of regaining its “old glory” as an imperial power. It is part of the Quad alliance with the US, Australia and India. Goaded by the US, Japan has been strengthening its military power, including plans to produce fighter jets. It is set on expanding its armed presence in the Philippines and various parts of Asia. Japanese militarism has been on the rise in recent years. In line with its National Security Strategy formulated in December 2022, it plans to spend $321 billion for its military in 2023-2027, a 56% jump from the previous period of 2019-2023.

The US wants Japan to increase its military presence in the South China Sea in line with the so-called “Indo-Pacific Strategy” of the US to encircle China from the “first island chain” of countries nearest China. US machinations are further militarizing the area leading to increased dangers of armed conflict. The imperialist US is dragging its military allies in the area and using the Philippines as an outpost for their naval forces.

Japan is doing the bidding of the imperialist US. At the same time, as a capitalist giant and imperialist power, it also serves its advantage to strengthen its military might and use it to expand its economic interests and geopolitical influence. It is being driven to increase military spending in the hope of energizing its economy that has been dragged down by three decades of stagnation. As an imperialist power, Japan needs to expand its sources of raw materials, spheres of influence, and fields of investments for its surplus capital.

The Filipino people must unite and resist the plans allowing Japan to gain a military foothold in the Philippines, in line with US imperialist strategy. At the same time, they must demand that all imperialist powers, including the US and China, withdraw all its military forces in the South China Sea in order to prevent any possibility of armed hostilities breaking out which invariably will drag the country into a war that goes against the people’s interest.

Resisting US and Japanese intervention forms part of the overall struggle of the Filipino people for national and social liberation, which must be advanced vigorously and with even more urgency.

Marco Valbuena | Chief Information Officer | Communist Party of the Philippines

November 07, 2023

#the philippines #Japan #CPP #Filipino #imperialism #anti imperialism #militarism #us imperialism #communist party of the Philippines #CPPh #natdem #national democratic revolution #revolution #revolutionary

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whatisonthemoon · 11 months

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LA Times: Philippine Vigilantes Reflect U.S. Strategy for ‘Low-Intensity Conflict’ (1987)

by Peter Tarr October 11, 1987

NEW YORK — Some weeks after retired Army Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub told the Senate-House Iran- contra committees about his fund-raising activities on behalf of the Nicaraguan “freedom fighters,” I went to the Philippines to research that country’s communist insurgency.

My travels in the southern islands of Negros, Cebu and Mindanao turned up evidence that the counterinsurgency strategy advocated by Singlaub and other private American citizens on the far right for use in Central America now had taken firm root in the Philippines.

The tactics are used in what Pentagon strategists call “low-intensity conflict” or LIC. They emphasize an “integrated” approach in the fight against communism combining rural civic action and humanitarian aid programs with methods of “unconventional warfare” that Singlaub and others--including the U.S. government--have covertly employed in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Singlaub’s credentials in “unconventional operations” are well known. A former chief of the Joint Unconventional Task Force in Vietnam, he participated in “Operation Phoenix,” the CIA’s notorious assassination program that resulted in the murder of an estimated 40,000 supposed Viet Cong sympathizers. More recently he served on President Reagan’s Special Warfare Advisory Group, to offer recommendations regarding LIC strategies.

There remains much speculation throughout the Philippines about the purpose of his several recent visits, spanning a period from July, 1986, to this past February. The former commander of U.S. forces in South Korea insists that he went to the Philippines to search for buried treasure. A number of his critics say the general’s real mission was to help organize civilian militias to be employed in the fight against guerrillas of the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

Many questions have yet to be answered, but one thing is certain: Vigilante justice has captured the imagination of the mass of Filipinos. It is a development that has disturbing implications.

In the theory of low-intensity warfare, the establishment of paramilitary groups is a key element in the battle for the sympathies of people living in rebel-contested areas. Their proliferation is thought to deprive communists of “mass-base” support, and thus contributes to a broader effort to isolate and demoralize insurgent forces.

Several commanders of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) assured me that most vigilante groups were unarmed. But at every turn I saw deadly weapons: M-16 automatic rifles, fragmentation grenades, homemade pistols and shotguns and a bewildering variety of machetes and bolo knives. And at every turn, the men, women and children who wielded these weapons were eager to tell me that they were “prepared to die” to defend themselves against communism, which many of them called “the godless ideology.”

On a street in downtown Davao, a sprawling city of 1.2 million on Mindanao’s southeast coast, the bolo-toting “Midnight Attack Commandos” of the “Far Eastern Democratic Restoration Bureau” boasted about dismembering captured communist guerrillas while one of their leaders supplied me with leaflets published by an evangelical ministry in Arkansas that posed these burning questions: “Are the IRS, FBI, U.S. Dept. of Labor, the Mafia and labor unions part of the Vatican? Is the Pope the superboss of all government agencies as well as the Vatican?”

How did this literature get to Davao, 10,000 miles from its point of origin in Alma, Arkansas? Did the vigilantes have American contacts? Were they acting in concert with the Philippine military, or on their own? Where did their weapons come from? What were their sources of financial support?

Lt. Col. Franco Calida, police chief of Davao and the acknowledged “godfather” of the first and most successful vigilante group, the Alsa Masa, insisted that his and other paramilitary groups had arisen spontaneously. Their popularity, he said, reflected widespread dissatisfaction with the communists’ urban terror campaign conducted in the city between 1981 and 1985. Indeed, Davao had been the “murder capital” of the Philippines in those years, a city where more than 5,000 people had met violent deaths. Many of the murders were “insurgency-related,” although the activities of criminal gangs also accounted for a good deal of the carnage.

Alsa Masa, which in the local dialect means “Masses Arise,” was organized by the leader of one of those gangs early in 1986. But the movement went nowhere until Calida assumed his Davao command in July, 1986. It was at that time that Calida received a visit from Singlaub. They “chitchatted,” Calida said, but did not discuss Alsa Masa. Nevertheless, in the months following Singlaub’s visit, Alsa Masa grew exponentially. It now claims 10,000 members. “The Alsa Masa was never a CIA project,” Calida told Filipino journalists several months ago. “It is the product of abuses of the communist New People’s Army. The people were left with no choice but to band together to protect themselves.”

In Davao, virulently anti-communist radio announcer Jun Porras Pala admitted that the vigilante groups lumped together all manner of riffraff, from members of criminal gangs to adherents of fanatical religious cult groups.

In Negros, Cebu and Mindanao there were ominous signs that anti-communist fanaticism was putting innocent people in danger. In Davao, the houses of people who did not join or make financial contributions to Alsa Masa (a practice one member called “extortion for democracy”) were marked with the letter X. Anti-communist broadcasters threatened supposed sympathizers over the airwaves.

In all three islands, liberal members of the Catholic Church had been threatened both by vigilantes and military officials. During my stay in Negros, 35 clerics and newsmen were accused of being NPA sympathizers by a local military commander, and had received death threats in the mail. A similar scenario was simultaneously unfolding in Cebu. And in Davao, the Redemptorist Church was strafed from a passing truck late one August night. Earlier, Catholic members of the congregation had been called “redemterrorists” by broadcaster Pala. Redemptorists in Cebu had been similarly branded.

Why did President Corazon Aquino, an uncommonly religious woman, agree to endorse the vigilante movement? The answer lies partly in a meaningless distinction she makes between armed and unarmed vigilante groups. Aquino favors the mobilization of unarmed citizen patrols, called Nakasaka, that warn the military of NPA activity. She favors these groups, but does not proscribe the activities of armed groups.

American officials may have influenced Aquino’s policy. On March 16, 1987, she ordered a government-trained militia, the Civilian Home Defense Force, “and all private armies and other armed groups” to disband. The CHDF, with 70,000 members nationwide, had been active since the 1970s in the fight against the NPA, but its ill-disciplined members had been blamed for many of the military abuses committed against civilians in counterinsurgency operations.

A phase-out of the CHDF was mandated in the new Philippine constitution, adopted in February. But soon after Aquino issued the order to disband paramilitary groups, she rescinded it. The Philippine military, led by Gen. Fidel Ramos, was lobbying hard for retention of the CHDF. So was Local Goverment Secretary Jamie Ferrer, slain in August. Aquino and her military had been repeatedly lectured, directly and indirectly, by high-ranking U.S. officials on how to fight the communists. One such lecture was delivered on March 19, 1987, by Richard L. Armitage, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He offered a blunt critique of AFP tactics in testimony before the House subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Armitage’s remarks clearly indicated American impatience with Aquino’s policy of reconciliation, in effect during her first 12 months in office. Even after the failure of peace talks with the radical left and the collapse of a cease-fire in the AFP-NPA war that had held for only 60 days, Aquino continued to offer an olive branch to the left. On Feb. 28, she proposed amnesty and rehabilitation for rebels who would lay down their arms, in the interests of “healing the wounds of our nation.”

On March 18, a time bomb exploded at the Philippine Military Academy. It was apparently intended to kill Aquino, who was to address the academy’s graduating class four days later. When commencement day arrived, the Philippine president unveiled a new strategy--one that might have gratified Singlaub himself. “The answer to terrorism of the left and the right is not social and economic reform, but police and military action,” she said, turning her back on a philosophy she had espoused since coming to power.

It was in this climate that Aquino rescinded her order to disband the paramilitary groups. In keeping with her new policy of “total war” against the communists, and in light of her growing reliance on Ramos, who repeatedly put down attempts by disgruntled AFP officers to take over her government, Aquino found herself, by the end of March, implementing the very counterinsurgency policies she had resisted for more than a year. She was now prepared to wage low-intensity warfare.

Her shift to a hard-line policy is likely to encourage a similarly militant response from the radical left. But even more important, the legitimation of vigilante “justice” will most likely serve to accentuate a culture of violence that has prevailed for decades in the Philippine countryside. At the core of the vigilante movement are incompetent CHDF commandos, religious cultists and members of private armies that flourished during the Marcos years.

The Philippines needs more than civic action and “humanitarian” aid programs carried out by civilian and military authorities waging low-intensity warfare. The country needs structural reforms, the most important of which is land reform. As Aquino often noted during her first year in office, the insurgency has economic and social roots. It will continue to flourish--no matter how many vigilantes are mobilized--unless the root causes are addressed.

Source: LA Times

Links and notes below

Moonies Support Vigilante Violence in the Philippines Around 1986/1987 - excerpts from Belina A. Aquino’s “The Philippines in 1987: Politics of Survival”

Marti found that the Reagan administration sought the help of CAUSA International to support US policy in Nicaragua. It might be mentioned that the Moonies and CAUSA have conducted expense-paid seminars and conferences in Washington, D.C.; Manila and other places, inviting well-known names in academic, religious and political circles. Among the CAUSA’s top brass are Cleon Skousen, a Mormon Church leader, Douglas MacArthur II, and Bo Hi Pak, the chairman who has acknowledged CIA funding. This is just another form of counter-insurgency, but it tries to minimize direct military intervention in favor of small “grassroots” efforts combining socio-economic, civic action, psychological & political objective.

In 1985 the Washington Times sponsored a fund for the Contras who committed atrocities, and trafficked drugs to the US The WACL and CAUSA’s Role in the Ruthless Violence of US-Philippines Counterinsurgency

CounterSpy: Moonies Move on Honduras (1983)

The UC should be held responsible for supplying weapons that killed young Filipino activists

How has the Moon network played a role in the post-9/11 U.S. Imperialist strategy?

The Unification Church and KCIA: Some Notes on Bud Han, Steve Kim, and Bo Hi Pak The Unification Church and the KCIA – ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC The Broad Counterinsurgency Strategies of the US in the 80s, and a Glimpse into the UC’s Role

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radiofreederry · 1 year

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Happy birthday, Jose Maria Sison! (February 8, 1939)

A founder and longtime leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Maria Sison was born to a landed family in Cabugao, in the province of Ilocos Sur. Interested in communism from a young age, Sison became politically involved in his college years, joining the original Filipino Communist Party in 1962 and rising to its executive committee in 1963. However, he ultimately split from the party over his support for Mao Zedong Thought. Sison's new party quickly eclipsed the old, and soon began a guerilla war against the government of the Philippines under the auspices of the New People's Army. Sison was imprisoned from 11977 to 1986, resuming his chairmanship of the CPP upon release. He served in a consultative role in peace negotiations between the communists and the government, and left his role as chairman in 2022. He wrote extensively on Marxism and revolution before dying in December of that year.

"As a revolutionary, you are expected to work hard, make sacrifices and be ready to give your life if necessary to uphold, defend and advance the revolutionary cause."

#birthdays #jose maria sison

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mariacallous · 1 month

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In the waters of the South China Sea, Chinese coast guard vessels have clashed with Philippine ships. In the air above the Taiwan Strait, Chinese warplanes have challenged Taiwanese jet fighters. And in the valleys of the Himalayas, Chinese troops have fought Indian soldiers.

Across several frontiers, China has been using its armed forces to dispute territory not internationally recognized as part of China but nevertheless claimed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In August 2023, Beijing laid out its current territorial claims for the world to see. The new edition of the standard map of China includes lands that are today a part of India and Russia, along with island territories such as Taiwan and comprehensive stretches of the East and South China Seas that are also claimed by Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

China often invokes historical narratives to justify these claims. Beijing, for example, has said that the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which it claims under the name of the Diaoyu Islands, “have been an inherent territory of China since ancient times.” Chinese officials have used the same words to back China’s right to parts of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Chinese government also claims that its sovereignty over the South China Sea is based on its own historic maritime maps.

However, in certain periods since ancient times China has also held sway over other states in the region—Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam. Yet Beijing is currently not laying claim to any of these.

Instead, Beijing has embraced a selective irredentism, wielding specific chapters of China’s historical record when they suit existing aims and leaving former Chinese territories be when they don’t. Over time, as Beijing’s interests and power relations have shifted, some of these claims have faded from importance, while new ones have taken their place. Yet for Taiwan, Chinese claims remain unchanged, as the fate of the island state is tied to the very legitimacy of the CCP as well as the vitality of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s political vision.

Many of the CCP’s territorial claims have roots in the 19th and 20th centuries during the late rule of the Qing Dynasty. Following diplomatic pressure and repeated military defeats, the Qing Dynasty was forced to cede territory to several Western colonial powers, as well as the Russian and Japanese empires. These concessions are part of what are known in China as the “unequal treaties,” while the 100 years in which the treaties were signed and enforced are known as the “century of humiliation.” These territorial losses eventually passed from the dynasty to the Republic of China and then, following the Chinese Civil War, to the CCP. As a result, upon the CCP’s establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the new Chinese state inherited outstanding territorial disputes with most of its neighbors.

But despite the humiliation the Qing Dynasty’s losses had caused, the CCP proved willing to compromise and reduce its territorial aims during times of high internal unrest. Following the Tibetan uprising in 1959, for instance, the CCP negotiated territorial settlements with countries bordering the Tibet region, including Myanmar, Nepal, and India. Similarly, when unrest rocked the Uyghur region in the 1960s and ‘90s, Beijing pursued territorial compromises with several bordering countries such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, the CCP also pursued territorial settlements with Mongolia, Laos, and Vietnam in the hopes of securing China’s borders during times of domestic instability. Instead of pursuing diversionary wars, the CCP relied on diplomacy to settle border and territory disputes.

But China has changed quite a lot since then. In recent years, the CCP has avoided the inflammatory domestic political chaos of previous decades, and its once-tentative hold over border regions, such as Tibet and the Uyghur region, has been replaced by an iron grip. With this upper hand, the CCP has little incentive to pursue peaceful resolutions to remaining territorial disputes.

“China’s national power has increased significantly, reducing the benefits of compromise and enabling China to drive a much harder bargain,” said M. Taylor Fravel, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In this context, the CCP has expanded its irredentist ambitions. After the discovery of potential oil reserves around the Senkaku Islands, and the United States’ return of the islands to Japan in the 1970s, Beijing drew on its historical record to lay claim to the islands, even though it had previously referred to them as part of the Japanese Ryukyu Islands. Similarly, though Beijing and Moscow settled a dispute over Heixiazi Island, located along China’s northeastern border, in 2004, the 2023 map of China depicted the entire island (ceded, along with vast Pacific territories, by the Qing Dynasty to the Russian Empire in 1860) as part of its domain, much to the ire of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Collin Koh Swee Lean, a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, argues that the Chinese mapping of Heixiazi Island shows that Beijing holds on to certain core interests and simply waits for the opportune time to assert them.

“Given the current context of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s increased dependence on China, it might have appeared to Beijing that it has the chips in its pockets because, after all, Moscow needs Beijing more than the other way around,” Koh said on the German Marshall Fund’s China Global podcast.

This raises the question of whether territorial disputes that were settled during times of CCP weakness can be revisited and become subject to irredentist ambitions should power balances shift in China’s favor.

According to Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, there is currently a limit to how far the CCP will push territorial claims against Russia, since President Xi will need Russian support to sustain his grand ambitions for Chinese leadership on the global stage.

Although it would be a long shot, even Russia may not be safe from these ambitions indefinitely. Given that large swaths of Russia’s Pacific territories were part of China until 1860, “China could claim back the Russian Far East when it deems the time is right,” Tsang said. Such control would grant Beijing unrestricted access to the region’s abundance of coal, timber, tin, and gold while moving it geographically closer to its ambition of becoming an Arctic power.

While there is plenty of historical evidence pointing to former Chinese control over the southeastern portion of the Russian Far East, the historical record is less unequivocal about Chinese control over Taiwan. Anything resembling mainland Chinese control over Taiwan was not established until after 1684 by the Qing Dynasty, and even then central authority remained weak. In 1895, the Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan following the First Sino-Japanese War, and by the time Chinese authority was restored in 1945, Taiwan had undergone several decades of Japanization.

These details have not prevented the CCP from claiming that Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times. Yet more than any other irredentist claim, Xi has made unification with Taiwan a major component of his vision to rejuvenate the Chinese nation.

Unification, however, has little to do with ancient history and more to do with the challenge that Taiwan presently poses to Xi’s aims, according to Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor who teaches about Chinese foreign policy at the National University of Singapore.

“The CCP pursues a Chinese nationalism that emphasizes unity and homogeneity centered around the CCP leadership while they also often claim that their single-party rule is acceptable to Chinese people,” Chong said.

In contrast, Taiwan holds free elections in which multiple political parties compete for the favor of a people that have increasingly developed an identity distinct from mainland China.

“The Taiwanese experience is a clear affront to the CCP narrative,” Chong said.

Control over Taiwan is also attractive to Beijing because it is key to unlocking the Chinese leadership’s broader ambition of maritime hegemony in waters where almost half of the world’s container fleet passed through in 2022.

As with the case of Taiwan, the CCP’s historical arguments regarding its claims on island groups and islets in the East and South China Seas are likewise much weaker than many of its land-based claims.

Instead, Chinese territorial intransigence in the maritime arena is more about a strategic shift in the value of the seas around China, Fravel said.

Today, it has been estimated that more than 21 percent of global trade passes through the South China Sea. And beneath these waters are not only subsea cables that carry sensitive internet data but also vast estimated reserves of oil and natural gas.

Although it may say otherwise, Beijing’s unwillingness to let up on its tenuous territorial maritime claims suggests that China is pursuing long-held ambitions and global aspirations rather than attempting to reverse past losses. So long as the CCP wields its historical record selectively and changeably to serve its aims—and is willing to back its claims up with military action—China’s neighbors will remain at risk.

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