NDFP PANEL CONDEMNS STATE TERRORISM OF MACAPAGAL-ARROYO REGIME

Luis T. Jalandoni
Chairperson
Negotiating Panel
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
August 17, 2002

The NDFP Negotiating Panel is recommending to the NDFP National Council to hold under indefinite study the NDFP�s negotiations with the Macapagal-Arroyo government for the following reasons:

1. The Macapagal-Arroyo regime is committing massive human rights violations against the people. This constitutes state terrorism of the worst kind. Partial documentation of human rights violations of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime from 22 January 2001 until 15 July 2002 shows 1,334 cases involving 37,164 victims plus 1,265 families and 38 communities. These include cases of killings, massacres, forced disappearances, torture, forced evacuation, destruction of properties, food blockades.

More than 163,000 families are adversely affected by the regime�s land use conversion, cancellation of CLOA, EP and CLT, and so-called government development projects like Eduardo Cojuangco�s cassava project in Isabela. Moreover the regime�s fisheries projects adversely affect more than 145,000 families.

With regards to trade unions, from January 2001 to June 2002, 226 cases of human rights violations have been documented, 118 of which were violent assaults on picket lines. These violations consisted of harassment, physical assaults, mauling, intimidation, sexual harassment, coercion, grave threats, illegal arrests and detention, violent dispersal of picket lines, surveillance of trade union leaders and other brutal forms of abuses of workers� rights.

Instead of complying with the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the regime escalates its state terrorism and refuses to set up the Joint Monitoring Committee as provided for in the CARHRIHL as the proper venue for handling complaints of human rights violations.

2. The Macapagal-Arroyo regime has refused to comply with The Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), the CARHRIHL and other agreements it has bound itself to implement. It has unilaterally put the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations on indefinite recess since June 2001. It has declared an all-out war against the revolutionary movement. In violating the JASIG, it is collaborating with the U.S. in misrepresenting the negotiators, consultants and staffers of the NDFP as �terrorists� and oppressing them abroad.

3. The regime has subserviently allowed the increasing US military intervention in the Philippines in gross violation of Philippine national sovereignty and territorial integrity. In the process of its so-called war against terrorism, US and Philippine armed forces have committed massive human rights violations in Basilan and other parts of Mindanao. The U.S. is introducing more and more U.S. combat troops in the Philippines in order to ultimately reestablish US military bases.

For as long as the Macapagal-Arroyo regime persists in its acts of state terrorism and massive human rights violations and refuses to respect and comply with agreements it has signed, it must be held accountable for destroying the possibility of advancing the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. The Filipino people will raise the level of their revolutionary resistance to meet the all-out war policy of the regime and the intensifying US military intervention. #

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