CIA "Rendition" Poised Against Filipino Exile

International Information Office
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
10 December 2005

[Utrecht � 10 December] Amid mounting international accusations of the US government's use of "secret prisons" and the torture of "terrorist suspects", a top Philippine political refugee in the Netherlands warned on Saturday of covert plans by the US and Manila governments for his "rendition" by the Central Intelligence Agency.

In a statement issued on Saturday from his exile in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Professor Jose Maria Sison revealed that his lawyers are "looking into the possibility that the US and Arroyo governments are fabricating � dossiers against me in order to lay the ground for my 'rendition' by the CIA".

Sison, the Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) engaged in peace negotiations with the Manila government, is fighting against his inclusion in August 2002 in the "terrorist" list of the US government. The Dutch government and the Council of the European Union have also included Sison in their respective "terrorist" lists.

Manila's Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a resolution before a local trial court charging Sison in connection with the June 2001 death of notorious Marcos-era torturer Colonel Rodolfo Aguinaldo.

DOJ chief Raul Gonzalez was quoted in local newspapers that he would provide the Netherlands with "a copy of the resolution" and that the Manila government will ask for Sison's "deportation" from his political exile.

The Arroyo government in recent months has stepped up its attacks against Sison, accusing him of responsibility for the nationwide offensives of the guerilla New People's Army against Manila's security forces. On Thursday, top security officials also blamed the NPA for an armed attack on an office building of President Macapagal-Arroyo's husband, firecracker explosions in three places in Metro Manila as well as phoned-in bomb threats to the US and other embassies.

The bomb threats and the accusations coincided with a Manila stopover of US chief spook John Negroponte.

"Various minions of Gloria M. Arroyo�have been subjecting me to vicious attacks," Sison asserted, "(which) are calculated to vilify me, incite official and unofficial acts of violence against my person and put pressure on the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) to capitulate to the rotten reactionary government."

"I hope that the current exposures of US criminality in carrying out 'renditions' from Europe will continue to run ahead of any scheme to 'rendition' me," Sison concluded. ###

[NDFP IIO]

REFERENCE:
Ruth de Leon
Executive Director
NDFP International Information Office
Tel.+31-30-2310431
Fax +31-30-2322989
Email: [email protected]