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NEWS RELEASE
August 31, 2007
Migrants and Peace Movements in Korea protest at Dutch Embassy
Reference: Mark Padlan, 01031433123
STATEMENT ON THE ARREST OF PROFESSOR JOSE MARIA SISON BY THE DUTCH
POLICE
We subscribe to the encompassing understanding of peace based on justice.
In the Philippine context peace is not the absence of war, or the absence
of dissent. Peace is the quality of life under democratic governance.
Specifically, peace in the Philippines should be one that eliminates
unequal distribution of wealth, an experience freedom of expression and
people in their persons, families and communities are able to adequately
support their basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, education and
health through sustainable and honorable employment of their human
capacities. Peace is neither a sort of happenstance nor paying lip service
to it. The Philippine government in collusion with the U.S. has failed
miserably to realize this quality of peace in the lives of the poor and
struggling sectors of the Philippine society.
The peace process in which the Government of the Republic of the
Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front (NDF) got into
consequently resulted in the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on
Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CAHRIHL), a big step in
mutual recognition of the basic need of the Filipino people for peace and
respect for human rights. The NDF with Professor Jose Maria Sison as its
consultant helped realize this agreement albeit GRP's reluctance to
implement the agreement, the NDF pursued its goal of having a peace
accord. The peace talk was stalled when US State Secretary Colin Powell
included the CPP-NPA in the US list of "Foreign terrorist organizations.?
Peace based on justice is elusive in the Philippines.
We thus deplore the arrest of Professor Jose Maria Sison by the Dutch
Police on Tuesday August 28, 2007for this is an aggravating circumstance
in the peace process and human rights situation. This is a flawed act of
the Dutch government in the light of the peace process and human rights
situation in the Philippines and in international relations. We condemn
the action of the Dutch police teams who raided Professor Sison's office
in Utrecht, seizing computers, CDs, documents and books, and the
interrogation of the NDF office staff during the six-hour police operation
at the office.
We decry President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, its military commanders,
National Security Adviser and the Department of Defense for putting up
criminal charges against Professor Sison and for being suspected of giving
orders, from the Netherlands, to murder his former political associates in
the Philippines. The political senility of President Arroyo to govern or
the inept attempt to gain moral ascendancy as president put her in the
hands of blood thirsty military commanders. These military commanders who
are being paid by Filipino people's taxes and the Overseas Filipino
Workers? remittances are unabashed with their deeds especially that of
instituting state terrorism as state policy.
We denounce the shallow and egoistic acclaim of President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo on the arrest that its a giant step toward peace, a victory for
justice and the rule of law.? This acclamation is a meander and derogation
of the constitutional and human rights of the Filipino people. For how can
the arrest of Professor Sison become a giant step toward peace and victory
for justice and the rule of law when thousands of cases of extrajudicial
killings plus the hundreds of persons missing have not been solved? These
killings were done by government's security officers. Stop extra-judicial
killings now! Give justice to the victims and their families and all those
who are victims of forced disappearances.
We condemn the US interventionist policy that wreck havoc on Filipino
people's lives and its total disregard for national sovereignty. The US
imperialist neo-colonialism in the Philippines had been supporting fascist
regimes and has condoned corrupt military officials and their acts against
human rights and people's self-determination.
We call on the Dutch Government to:
1. Immediately release Professor Jose Maria Sison.
2. Remove the name of Professor Sison from terrorist list.
3. Stop police harassment of NDF staff in Utrecht and return all
confiscated equipments.
We call of the Philippine Government to:
1. Give justice to all victims of political killings.
2. Withdraw unfounded criminal charges on Professor Jose Maria Sison.
3. Resume peace talks with NDF and other dissenting groups in the
Philippines
4. Institute economic, political and social reforms that will benefit the
poor, deprived and oppressed
5. Protect human rights, abolish Human Security Act
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Agumang
Kapampangan sa Korea;
Hyewa Dong
Seoul Korea
Resolutions #
2,
Release Jose Maria Sison Now.
Defend the rights and life of
Jose Maria Sison
Junk the trumped-up charges
We, the
delegates of the Agumang Kapampangan in Korea a Filipino Migrant workers
in Korea from the province of Pampanga. Condemned the collaboration
between the US-Arroyo regime and the Dutch government and denounce the
Gestapo-like arrest of Professor Jose Maria Sison a true patriot and
freedom fighter for the cause of the Filipino working class and people on
August 28, 2007.
We believe that
the Dutch police and prosecutors have fabricated the charges against
Professor Jose Maria Sison of ordering the alleged murder of Romulo
Kintanar and Arturo Tabara from the Netherlands. All the charges are
already nullified and dismissed with finality by the Supreme Court in the
Philippines in its decision last July 2,2007.
We believe that
the Dutch government is violating the rights of Professor Jose Maria
Sison by denying visitations from his family, denying warm clothes,
denied access to his medicine and access to his own doctor and denying
access to newspaper and TV.
We therefore
believe that Professor should release now and the Dutch government and the
US-Arrayo regime should be be the one detained at the National
Penitentiary because they are committing crimes against the humanity.
Agumang
Kapampangan sa Korea (AKK)
September 2,
2007
Seoul Korea.
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