Editorial:
State terrorism intensifies as the Arroyo regime's desperation worsens

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The November 16 Hacienda Luisita massacre will go down in history as one of the most heinous crimes ever against the worker and peasant masses. It brought to the fore anew the cruel bondage of workers and peasants and the brutal use of state terror to trample on their most basic rights.

The people seethe with anger against the Cojuangco clan and the Arroyo regime's armed minions for their wanton killing of unarmed workers and peasants and violating the democratic rights of oppressed and exploited classes to form unions and to strike, organize and engage in collective action.

The Hacienda Luisita massacre signifies the intensifying use of state terrorism against the people�employing violence against workers and peasants to suppress their rights and muzzle their cries. The use of terror by the state is not an indication of its strength but of its further deterioration and desperation in the face of the intensifying crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system.

With its own increasing indulgence in militarism, US imperialism is thoroughly behind the Arroyo regime in its heightened use of terror. The blood shed in Hacienda Luisita had hardly dried when US imperialism honored Arroyo, proclaiming her queen of "counter-terrorism" in the Asia-Pacific.

Arroyo has likewise become even more dependent on the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). In exchange for the support she enjoys from the AFP, she goes all out to secure the loyalty of military officials by appointing retired officers to the most coveted positions in the bureaucracy. She not only turns a blind eye to military abuses against the people but tirelessly weaves lies to cover them up.

The people can never allow state terrorism to be perpetrated with impunity. Brutality in Hacienda Luisita and elsewhere in the country should rightfully be confronted with a powerful mass movement of workers, peasants and other democratic forces. The guilty must be held accountable and punishment must be meted out to them.

Workers and peasants must be reached, aroused and mobilized in their numbers. We must unite them to oppose the antiworker and antipeasant policies pushed by the Arroyo regime. Special attention should be given to the particular and general issues that the Hacienda Luisita mill and farm workers are fighting for.

We must attain the broadest support and sympathy of the middle forces, including the churches, in condemning the massacre and the growing list of human rights violations. We must put a stop to the bondage of workers and peasants and support their struggles.

Victims of the Hacienda Luisita massacre and their relatives must also file the appropriate cases with the Joint Monitoring Committee that supervises the implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). They likewise have every right to demand investigations in all possible venues, such as the reactionary congress. We must do all we can to further expose and assail not only the massacre but the Cojuangcos' decades-long abuses and all antiworker and antipeasant policies of the reactionary government.

The Hacienda Luisita massacre further fires up the anger of the worker and peasant masses against the reactionary state and the mercenary AFP.

In the face of the intense social crisis and the further hardships imposed by the Arroyo regime on the Filipino people, we can expect ever broader economic and political mass struggles by workers and peasants, and the continuous expansion and strengthening of their revolutionary and progressive organizations.

The reactionary state is increasingly mired in a grave economic and political crisis. It is confronted by its own bankruptcy, turmoil within the AFP and PNP due to huge corruption scandals and grave factionalism as well as tumult within the ranks of reactionaries due to large-scale fraud in the previous election, widespread corruption and intense jockeying over spoils, privileges and benefits.

Above all, it faces the intensifying resistance of an increasingly oppressed and impoverished people. In the face of the reactionary state's desperation, it is entirely possible for it to employ state terror once again the way it did in the Hacienda Luisita massacre. The Filipino people must respond with more widespread protests and the intensification of their armed and unarmed resistance.

07 December 2004
English Edition

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