NDF Southern Mindanao Hails NPA�s 36Th Founding Anniversary

Rubi Del Mundo
Spokesperson
National Democratic Front-Southern Mindanao
March 29, 2005

The National Democratic Front Southern Mindanao congratulates the New People�s Army on the occasion of its 36th founding anniversary on March 29, 2005. The NPA continues to grow in strength in advancing the revolutionary armed struggle. Operating under austere conditions in the countryside, the NPA builds and perseveres in the expansion and consolidation of the 13 guerilla fronts in Southern Mindanao and the 128 guerilla fronts nationwide.

The revolutionary armed struggle remains an absolute necessity under a rotten ruling system and amid the worsening feudal, semi-feudal and imperialist exploitation in the country. By carrying out the armed revolution, the NPA--under the leader- ship of the Communist Party of the Philippines--educates and organizes the peasant masses to realize their demands for land reform and implement social services denied to them by the reactionary government.

Adhering to iron discipline and hard struggle, the NPA has shown itself as a true army of the people. The Red fighters raise the consciousness of the poor peasants, teaching them against passivity and fatalism and inspiring them to be part of revolutionary mass organizations and build organs of poli- tical power. With the help of the NPA, the peasant masses have learned to resolve practical problems in their communities and enforce revolutionary justice. The local enemies are neutra- lized and the worst enemies of the people are effectively confronted.

Threatened with an intensifying guerilla warfare and an ever- increasing number of revolutionary forces, the US-Macapagal Arroyo regime employs state terrorism and a wave of suppres- sion.

The fascist Armed Forces of the Philippines�s atrocious opera- tions in the countryside have left in its wake a bloody trail of many martyred masses and abducted activists, hundreds of thousands of dislocated peasants, and devastated communities. The AFP and the Philippine National Police have also resorted to daring political assassinations against an increasing number of progressive leaders nationwide. The killings occur to stifle dissent in the midst of the people�s outrage against the landlessness, soaring oil price increases, low wages, tax impositions, and the scandalous plunder and corruption by reactionary officials. The US-Arroyo regime uses state terro- rism to whip anti-Moro and anti-terrorist hysteria, and use the bombings as pretext to engage in massive military opera- tions, dislocate Moro communities, install fascist AFP units � task forces - in civilian areas and pave the way for direct US military presence in Mindanao.

Time and again, the US foists the threat of terror attacks from the Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf and, recently, from so- called radical elements of the Moro National Liberation Front to justify regular joint military exercises and spy operations in more and more areas in Mindanao and in the country.

In its fight against US imperialism and war of national libe- ration, the NPA is ready to launch tactical offensives against the US mercenary army and puppet AFP troops. Its guerilla war- fare is directed against the imperialist-capitalist and bourgeois-capitalist plunderers of national patrimony such as foreign-owned large-scale mining firms and logging companies, with the latter now poised to scrape off the remaining forest frontiers in the region. The NPA�s armed tactical offensives are aimed against terrorist-criminals and reactionary anti- fascists who serve only to fuel the people�s anger against the reactionary system.

The Arroyo regime�s Oplan Bantay Laya is a strategic and tac- tical failure in the face of the people�s war. Purportedly aimed to neutralize and decimate communist forces in the country, the Oplan Bantay Laya has failed and in fact only served to bolster the validity of the armed struggle and drive the people to wage the revolution. The grave human rights atrocities that resulted from the Oplan further highlight the stark contrast between the AFP troops as mercenary soldiers and the NPA as humane soldiers of the people.

The consolidated and widening guerilla mass bases are able to effectively deter the AFP�s Reengineered Special Operations Teams, the platoon-sized mobile units and the enemy�s small detachments. The NPA units with the help of people�s militia are able to thwart company-sized or battalion-sized AFP for- mations which conduct combat and security operations. The re- volutionary forces learn to dismantle intelligence networks set up at the villages while the NPA launches its own counter- intelligence work. In confronting paramilitary formations, the NPAs manages to neutralize, and in some instances, recruit the CAFGUs and CAAs to its ranks. The intensive psychological war- fare operation under the Oplan Bantay Laya is also rendered inutile.

Indeed, the enemy troops are not able to cover the 128 gueril- la fronts in the country. The AFP is quick to launch massive operations and concentrate its firepower in certain areas, but it fails to catch up with the Red fighters who have the upper hand of having deeper knowledge of the terrain, the tenacity of will and spirit to meet the odds head-on, and the firm sup- port of the masses.

Guerilla warfare is bound to spread and intensify. The NPA�s fortified strength and the guerilla warfare further boost the united front for the overthrow of the rabidly corrupt and fascist US-Arroyo regime. The NDF calls on more peasants, workers, national minorities, youth and professionals to join the NPA and the revolutionary armed struggle.

Victory for the Filipino people is inexorable.#

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