[van-announce] Stronger Resistance Forged Among Filipinos and Canadians Against U.S.-Arroyo All-Out War in the Philippines

[Philippine Women Centre of B.C.]

B.C. COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE PHILIPPINES (BCCHRP)
Email: bcchrp at telus.net

Telephone: (604) 215-1905

Reference: Ted Alcuitas


Stronger Resistance Forged Among Filipinos and Canadians Against U.S.-Arroyo
All-Out War in the Philippines

For immediate release

September 2, 2002


Over sixty people attended an August 28, 2002 community forum urgently
called to denounce the U.S.-Arroyo regime’s recent order for all-out war in
the Philippines.  Three Canadians who recently returned from the
Philippines -- Victor Wong, Yvette Stephenson and Joanne Vasquez -- gave
first hand accounts on their experiences.  Dr. Hari Sharma also placed the
current struggle of the Philippines in a global and historical context.


Wong, one of five Canadian delegates to the International Solidarity Mission
to Mindanao (ISM) from July 24 - 31, 2002, described the devastating impact
of U.S. troops in the Southern Philippines.  During the ISM, a U.S. solider
was tagged in a shooting of a local unarmed Filipino.  This quickly became
front-page news after ISM delegates brought it to public attention.  Wong
noted the immediate rise in military and police presence around the ISM
delegates after the story of the U.S. soldier broke.  He also shared vivid
images via slide presentation of struggle and resistance by the Filipino
people, despite the intensifying onslaught of war.


Yvette Stephenson, member of Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada /
Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance (UKPC / FYCA), returned from a four-month
exposure and integration program.  Stephenson shared the impact of
increasing militarization on indigenous peoples, particularly in the
Cordillera region of the Philippines. “The maximum use of force is being
used against legitimate people’s organizations.  The military is conducting
illegal searches, sexual and physical harassment and needless destruction of
property,” commented Stephenson.  “We know that the 2003 budget of the
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government is basically a war budget and will not do
anything for the benefit of the peasants, workers, indigenous people, youth
and women,” ended Stephenson.


Returning from a nine-month exposure and integration program, Joanne
Vasquez, also a member of UKPC / FCYA, discussed the history of U.S.
intervention in the Philippines.  Citing the numerous attempts of the U.S.
to return to the Philippines as a military force and the same number of
times that the Filipino people resisted such actions, Vasquez highlighted
that the blatant puppetry of President Macapagal-Arroyo opened the door to
what many are calling a permanent U.S. military presence in the Philippines.
“The rising strength of the legal mass movement and the revolutionary armed
movement in the Philippines is pushing the U.S.-Arroyo regime to resort to
more fascist actions,” stated Vasquez.


Dr. Hari Sharma, International Coordinating Committee member of the
International League of People’s Struggles, discussed how the current
struggles in the Philippines are a part of a larger global struggle.  Sharma
noted, “We must build on the anti-colonial movement and people’s historic
victories of the 1950s and 1960s.  We must struggle against imperialism!  It
is frightening to realize that in today’s political climate the U.S. can
accuse anyone of being a terrorist.”  Sharma spoke on the need for a
stronger international solidarity movement to resist the U.S. attacks He
also commented on the attack against political refugee Professor Jose Maria
Sison, and other progressive Filipinos in the Netherlands, and the labelling
of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army as
“foreign terrorist organizations” by the U.S. as unjust and unilateral.  “If
what the U.S. is doing to the legitimate struggle of the Filipino people is
allowed to prevail, the future holds terrible things for the peoples of the
world,” concluded Sharma.


A lively discussion ensued after the presentations.  As part on the urgent
call to action a petition was circulated calling on the Dutch and Philippine
governments to stop the suppression of the human and democratic rights of
progressive Filipinos and organizations in the Netherlands.  A petition
urging the Canadian government not to follow the lead of the U.S. and Dutch
governments was also circulated.


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