Correspondence Reports:
People�s opposition to the SOT in the Cordillera

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The mercenary military�s �counter-insurgency� operations conducted through its Special Operations Teams (SOTs) are an impersonation of the operations of the New People�s Army�s Armed Propaganda Units. But apart from using more forces to saturate priority barrios, putting stress on military aspects and enhancing the role of civilian agencies in carrying out certain psy-war components, the SOT is essentially unchanged even as it now sports the new moniker Re-engineered SOT (RSOT).

Intelligence work and fielding assets among the masses are always part of the SOT�s tasks. From time to time, SOTs also join strike operations. But the SOT�s main thrust is Civilian-Military Operations (CMO) which, in reality, are psychological operations or psy-ops. The SOT pretends to be benign and carries out a counterfeit version of the NPA�s mass work in its effort to deceive the masses, win their hearts and minds, and lead them away from the path of revolution.

The SOT uses two methods of carrying out psy-ops: in word and in deed.

Psy-ops carried out in word involve slandering the revolutionary movement. The SOTs demonize the NPA in their radio programs, village meetings and leafleteering. They spread the propaganda that nurses and doctors refuse to go to the barrios because they fear the NPA, that the NPA cultivates marijuana and extorts money from the masses and that it carries out criminal fund-raising efforts, among other lies.

Psy-ops in deed involve launching CMOs through medical missions, sports festivals, shows and �education.� In reality, their socalled �education� are lectures by military officials and real and fake rebel returnees. In the Cordillera, the AFP also employs CPLA elements to give such lectures.

All these activities contain nothing but defamatory messages against communism and the NPA.

The SOT also mimics the NPA�s literacy campaign. They show movies that either vilify the Party and the NPA or have lewd content. They also stage plays that portray the NPA as being the epitome of evil. They pretend to conduct social investigation like the NPA, but only to identify the supporters of the revolutionary movement. When they have come up with a list of presumed sympathizers, they pinpoint the latter during barrio meetings and then harass, intimidate and sow intrigues against the persons they have named.

In most cases, however, the SOTs find it difficult to recruit from the barrios, especially from the organized villages. There are few barrios that have BIN and CAFGU in the Cordillera, and their members are usually the henchmen of mayors or CPLA elements.

In places where the revolutionary movement operates or even in areas reached by the open democratic movement, there is strong popular opposition to joining the CAFGU and collaborating with the military and the deleterious projects of the government and foreign and local ruling classes.

Political work within the military has also resulted in more and more CAFGU defections. More CAFGU elements have also been maintaining clandestine links with the NPA and helping it.

The mercenary, puppet and fascist military is unable to win the support and nurture that it desperately wants from the masses. It is unable to deceive the masses with its token gestures to ingratiate itself with the people. It cannot sustain its deceptive stance because it reveals its inherently abrasive, fascist and lumpen character after only a brief period.

21 October 2003
English Edition

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