9.9.07

Background to arrest of Prof. Jose Maria Sison

Netherlands sharing of intelligence info with Philippine government will endanger the lives of Arroyo political opponents

Luis G. Jalandoni
Chairperson
Negotiating Panel
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
September 09, 2007

The NDFP has reliable information that Deputy National Security Adviser Pedro Cabuay, Jr. and Director General Cesar Garcia of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency are in The Netherlands to request Dutch authorities to share with them what they presume as a wealth of intelligence that the Dutch police have gathered from the raids on the NDFP Information Office and six houses simultaneous with the arrest of Prof. Sison on 28 August 2007.

The NDFP had previously warned the Dutch authorities through its lawyer Mr. Bernard Tomlow on 5 September that they would be held accountable if more extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of political opponents of the Arroyo regime would occur as a result of sharing of intelligence information to Philippine intelligence agencies or to the CIA. Professor François Houtart and Secretary General Gianni Tognoni of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal have also expressed deep concerns over the safety of the Tribunal's witnesses, after learning that the Dutch authorities also seized visual, written and recorded material related to the Tribunal's Second Session on the Philippines.

Generals Cabuay, Jr. and Garcia are directly responsible for implementing the Arroyo government's national internal security plan Oplan Bantay Laya, which has resulted to nearly 900 extrajudicial killings and more than 200 enforced disappearances of known political activists and leaders of opposition groups. The enforced disappearance of NDFP Consultant Rogelio Calubad and his son Gabriel on 17 June 2006 in Calauag, Quezon province was perpetrated by forces of the Southern Luzon Command (SOLCOM) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), then under the command of General Cabuay, Jr.

Sharing information with Philippine intelligence agencies and the CIA would pose a very real danger to the lives of those who have been in communication with the NDFP in connection with the peace negotiations and other matters.

We wish to remind the Dutch government that the Arroyo regime has already been censured by the Amnesty International, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the European Union and other governments for the rampant extrajudicial killings of nearly 900 and enforced disappearances of more than 200 political opponents of Arroyo.

The whole world knows about the capacity of the Arroyo regime to commit the worst forms of human rights violations. The Dutch government has already helped Arroyo in deflecting attention from her crimes by arresting Prof. Jose Maria Sison for obviously trumped up charges. It would be complicit to future extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the Philippines if it shares intelligence information to Philippine intelligence agencies. #

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For Reference:
Ruth de Leon
Executive Director
NDFP International Information Office
Tel.+31-30-2310431
Fax +31-84-7589930
Email: ndf@casema.nl


Increasing Dutch investments in Philippines tied to Joma arrest

Davao Today / September 2, 2007

MANILA –- Does the increasing number of Dutch investments in the Philippines have anything to do with the arrest last week in the Netherlands of Filipino communist leader Jose Maria Sison? Sison’s supporters in the Philippines certainly think so.

Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran, in a statement on Saturday, said the Arroyo government recently approved an oil exploration project by British, US and Dutch companies and that this, among others, “may have helped close the deal of cooperation” between Malacanang and the Dutch government to raid the office of the National Democratic Front in Utrecht and arrest Sison, its chief political consultant.

The project, Beltran said, involves exploration and drilling for oil within a million hectares of agricultural and fishing areas in Bicol. ...

Read more - http://davaotoday.com/2007/09/02/
increasing-dutch-investments-in-philippines-tied-to-joma-arrest/


The Old Man & The Dutch

by Ninotchka Rosca / September 5, 2007

It’s like what Obi Wan Kenobi said to Darth Vader, at the moment of their final confrontation: “the more you strike me down, the stronger I become.” In this case, the more he is persecuted, the stronger he is.

I refer, of course, to Jose Ma. Sison, chair of the International League of Peoples Struggles and chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front's negotiating panel in peace talks with the Philippine government. He has other accomplishments, among them leading the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1960s. Before exile in 1987, he had spent nearly a decade imprisoned under the Marcos Dictatorship, in isolation and heavily tortured. When he was elected ILPS chair two years ago, Joma made the side comment that perhaps this would be a last office for him.

The third generation of Filipino activists calls him with affection, in Tagalog, the old man. ...

Read more -
http://www.ninotchkarosca.blogspot.com/

Video interview with Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General
By Gary, New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines & Bayan USA / August, 2007

A video interview with Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General, on the arrest of Joma Sison where he calls for his immediate release. Clark also comments on the Human Security Act of 2007 and the need to withdraw US military aid to the Philippines.

The video is available on Youtube by clicking onto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgACK_0ttmQ

Filipino Revolutionary, Cleared of EU "Terrorist" Charge, Arrested in Holland
by Gary Leupp / September 3, 2007

On the morning of August 28, Dutch plainclothes police raided the home of exiled Filipino revolutionary leader Jose Maria Sison in Utrecht, the Netherlands, arrested him and charged him with ordering the murder of two persons in the Philippines in 2003. According to his wife, they broke down the front door without bothering to ring or knock, bruising her arm as they prevented her from making a phone call. They carted away computers, documents, CDs, and other files, remaining until the evening while she was instructed to sit in a corner. Eight other locations were simultaneously raided. Sison was not at home the time. Luis Jalandoni, the chief peace negotiator for the Filipino Maoist rebels in their talks with the Government of the Philippines, details what happened:

“The Dutch Police called up Prof. Sison to invite him to the police station because according to them there were new developments on the complaint that Prof. Sison had filed in 2001. Thinking that it was about the complaint he filed on an assassination plot that was hatched by the then incumbent [Joseph] Estrada government against him, Prof. Sison brought with him some documents pertinent to the said complaint.

“But when he arrived at the police station, he was separated from his three companions that included his lawyer. ...
http://www.bulatlat.com/2007/09/filipino-revolutionary-cleared-eu-terrorist-charge-arrested-holland

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