A Rejoinder to the Malicious and Slanderous Publicity of the AFP-PNP On the NPA’S Improvised Explosive Devices and on “Localized Peace Talks” to Malign the Revolutionary Movement in the Ilocos-Cordillera

Since the time the NPA have been using the so-called Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) to advance the National Democratic Revolution through People’s War against the Filipino people’s three basic problems of US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, the fascist commanding officers of the reactionary AFP-PNP forces – who are the candid protectors of the big landlords and big comprador bourgeoisie and their US-imperialist master – blatantly shout that the revolutionary Army of the Filipino people are the violators of the international laws and rules of war. The NPA’s National Operations Command (NOC) has often made clarifications that NPA commanders and combatants always and at all times adhere to the laws and rules of war in waging the People’s War. Nonetheless, the AFP-PNP commanders continue to slander the NPA and the armed Filipino masses.

While the Regional Operations Command (ROC) of the NPA in the Ilocos-Cordillera Region salute to the highest degree the Leonardo Pacsi Command and its Red commanders and combatants for successively and successfully launching three (3) tactical offensives in Moutain Province against the AFP-PNP last March 29, March 31 and April 2, which led to the death of three (3) and the wounding of nine (9) enemies of the people, it is but proper to send to the print, broadcast and social media this rejoinder to the malicious and slanderous publicity of the AFP-PNP on the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to malign the NPA and the whole revolutionary movement. After said NPA tactical offensives, Lt. Col. Narciso Nabulneg Jr., commander of the 54th IB, also the 503rd Infrantry Brigade Commander as well as Lt. Col. Isagani Nato, the PA Northern Luzon Command spokesperson, kept on denouncing the NPA for using IEDs which, they claim spitefully, are prohibited by the United Nations’ international laws. Calling the NPA revolutionary forces as terrorists, the reactionary and fascist AFPPNP commanders at the national and regional levels still go on to the extent of broadcasting their ridiculous declarations that the NPAs are using IEDs only to hide their declining strength, that peace and development in the Cordillera and the Philippines would be achieved through “localized peace talks”, and that the US-Duterte tyrannical regime’s “Whole-of-Nation Approach, 12 Pillars and National Task Force” would finally end the CPP-NPA-NDFP by 2022.

The revolutionary principles of the NPA in using the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) do not at all contradict but follow the rules and instructions, written in the “CONVENTION OF THE PROHIBITION OF THE USE, STOCKPILING, PRODUCTION AND TRANSFER OF ANTI-PERSONNEL MINES AND ON THEIR DESTRUCTION”. This Convention was done by the 133 members of the United Nations at Oslo, Norway, on 18 September 1997. It has been ratified, accepted and approved by 133 nations, including the Philippines; but this has never been acknowledged and recognized, and up to now, has been totally ignored and rejected, by the government of the United States of America.

The Convention is “determined to put an end to the suffering and casualties caused by antipersonnel mines, that kill or maim hundreds of people every week, mostly innocent and defenseless civilians and especially children, obstruct economic development and reconstruction, inhibit the repatriation of refugees and internally displaced persons, and have other severe consequences for years after emplacement.” Specifically, it prohibits the “Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which May Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects”.

Even in an armed conflict, whether internal in a country (like what is happening now in the Philippines) or between two countries, the Convention states that “Basing themselves on the principle of international humanitarian law that the right of the parties to an armed conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited, on the principle that prohibits the employment in armed conflicts of weapons, projectiles and materials and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and on the principle that a distinction must be made between civilians and combatants”. What the Convention particularly prohibits also is “the use of mines, booby-traps and other devices” that are “designed to be placed under, on or near the ground or other surface area and to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person or a vehicle”. Thus, the IEDs – that are competently developed, produced and used by the NPA solely against the armed enemies of the exploited and oppressed people, i.e. the fascist AFP-PNP and their para-military troops – are not covered by the prohibitions of the Convention because it permits and does not ban command detonated bombs, and the NPA do not at all target civilians in launching tactical offensives and in pursuing the People’s War. Such command detonated bombs, being exploded by the NPA exclusively against the reactionary AFP-PNP forces in places outside civilian population, are detonated by NPA explosive experts based on the command of the Company Commander or Platoon Leader.

So why then does the US-imperialist government, well protected by their imperialist CIA and armed powers, deny and reject said Convention? Because such prohibitions totally castigate and denounce US imperialism in its current war of aggressions and armed interventions to maintain and expand its global monopolies and hegemony against many nations by massively using weapons of mass destructions, cluster bombs, chemical and biological weapons, artilleries, missiles and nuclear facilities and forces (submarines, ships, planes) without any distinction between civilians and combatants. And look what the US did to the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima; to Vietnam and Korea and other Asian and Latin American countries; to people of Libya, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East.

And though the reactionary Philippine government ratified, approved and signed the said Convention at Ottawa, Canada and at the UN Headquarters in New York on 3 December 1997, its fascist AFP-PNP forces have never totally implemented the laws and rules of the UN Convention. Guided by and based on the US-imperialist global Counter-Insurgency (COIN) Guide, all the APF-PNP Operation Plans of past puppet regimes since 1997 to the present – the US-Ramos’ Oplan Lambat Bitag 4 and Oplan Sandugo I & II; the US-Estrada’s “All-out War” and Oplan Balangai; the US-Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya I & II; the US-Aquino II’s Oplan Bayanihan; and the US-Duterte tyrannical regime’s “total war” through his Oplan Kapayapaan and “Whole-of-Nation Approach” (WNA) through his “12 Pillars” and implemented by his “National Task Force” (NTF), which is actually a de facto Martial Law throughout the Philippines – have been and are continuously using airborne bombings that have boundless and indiscriminate effects on the civilians, their communities and the environment. Consider the destructive consequences of what killer Duterte have done to the Moro people of Marawi City! All these are crimes against humanity, particularly against the Filipino people.

Tyrant Duterte’s daydream to end the NPA and the Filipino people’s armed revolution by 2022 will totally fail because his “Whole-of-National Approach”, “12 pillars” and “National Task Force” do not address but only reinforce daily the root causes of the armed conflict, which are US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism that have buried the exploited and oppressed Filipino masses into increasing poverty and impoverishment. Tyrant Duterte’s “Whole-of-Nation Approach” is itself a state fascism that continues to slaughter the struggling workers, urban poor, peasants, national minorities, women, youth, lawyers, media people, human rights defenders, Church people, and including the political oppositionists of killer Duterte. Killer Duterte’s “12 Pillars” are actually aggravating the deteriorating socio-economic conditions of the Filipino masses through high taxes and TRAIN law, excessive foreign loans for his “Build, Build, Build” projects, high prices/inflation, contractualization, depressed wages, corruption and promoting shabu smuggling and trade in the facade of “anti-drug war”. Killer Duterte has ordered his pro-US imperialist AFP and PNP to control and use the “National Task Force” in order to militarize the whole national and local bureaucracy, and has de facto put the whole nation to martial law.

Duterte and his fascist military and police continue to step up further various extra-judicial killings, surveillances, baseless arrests, red-tagging and trumped-up criminal cases against the legal democratic forces and all critics and political oppositionists, including members of the NDPF peace negotiation panelists and consultants. And after terminating through Proclamation No. 360 the peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP, tyrant Duterte and his fascist AFP-PNP commanders have been and are coercing all government agencies to implement localized peace negotiations that are nationally directed and supervised. But the fact remains that localized peace negotiations will neither solve the root causes of the People’s War being waged by the NPA and the Filipino armed masses, nor respond to the Filipino people’s aspiration for a just and lasting peace.

In actual facts, tyrant Duterte and his pro-US imperialist armed forces and police have actually become the best recruiters for the NPA, and are daily compelling the Filipino masses to take up arms and join the NPA. By terminating the peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP, killer Duterte and his reactionary AFP and PNP are encouraging the Filipino masses to wage the People’s War in order to advance the National Democratic Revolution, continue building the Filipino people’s revolutionary democratic government, pursue the agrarian revolution and national industrialization, and at all times stand for national sovereignty and democracy as well as social justice. The revolution shall surely terminate the class dictatorship of big landlords and big comprador bourgeoisie, and end finally and thoroughly the unbridled pro-US imperialist puppetry, neo-liberalism, fascism, corruption, economic plunder, repression and abuses, poverty and impoverishment of the Filipino people, for socialist construction to finally commence nation-wide.

Long live the New People’s Army!
Join the New People’s Army and the People’s War!
Advance the People’s War to higher stages up to final nation-wide victory!

A Rejoinder to the Malicious and Slanderous Publicity of the AFP-PNP On the NPA’S Improvised Explosive Devices and on “Localized Peace Talks” to Malign the Revolutionary Movement in the Ilocos-Cordillera