Bangladesh seriously needs revolution. Thank God the Maoists have taken up arms there to overthrow the system. They have not done too well, they are completely insane, and the Islamists have united against them, but we must wish them well. After all, only the Maoists are fighting to get rid of the system, the system that kills so many.
Reasons.
Electricity is scarce and most do not have access to clean water. Roads are in terrible shape and agriculture is lagging far behind where it ought to be.
In other words, it is a total capitalist South Asian clusterfuck. Get rid of it.
Even more reasons.
⅓ of rural Bangladeshis are landless (for contrast, 50% of Central American rural ppl are landless). All land reforms since independence have failed.
Truth is, if you are landless in Bangladesh, I would wager that you are probably starving. The land question is clearly the heart of the matter here. If someone disagrees that giving these folks land will keep them from starving, please speak up in the comments.
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Showing posts with label Maoism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maoism. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Great Site On Ethnic Groups In China
From the Chinese government.
That isn't really the homepage; I can't find the homepage, so just click to the left on any ethnic groups you want to read about.
Lists all of the official minorities, with a good anthropological background for them, along with a good history, a bit about the language, customs, religious beliefs, culture, etc., then onto recent history.
The history and recent history is written according to Marxist economic analysis, and shows how the coming of the Chinese Revolution really did improve things for many minorities.
I've been scared to read the part about the Tibetans and Uighurs.
I'm sure in the case of Tibet it will talk about how the revolution ended feudalism (Yes, there was real feudalism in Tibet.) in Tibet and made life better for most Tibetans. One thing no one tells you about the Free Tibet crowd was that the Dalai Lama presided over a particularly horrible modern form of feudalism, complete with castes and out and out slavery.
The site does provide a tremendous amount of evidence that the Chinese revolution has resulted in tremendous improvements in the lives of many Chinese minorities. Anti-Communists seem to be blind to that fact. Life in China in 1949 and the decades prior was no picnic!
It's pretty cool to have an anthropological overview of lots of interesting ethnic groups written strictly from a Marxist perspective. More typical is this one, still very well-done, but written by hardline Estonian anti-Communists. It deals with the ethnic groups of the Former Soviet Union.
I wasn't aware that the USSR had destroyed every single ethnic group in the country until these stalwart Balts informed me. I realize the Balts are pissed, but it needn't taint your scholarship.
That isn't really the homepage; I can't find the homepage, so just click to the left on any ethnic groups you want to read about.
Lists all of the official minorities, with a good anthropological background for them, along with a good history, a bit about the language, customs, religious beliefs, culture, etc., then onto recent history.
The history and recent history is written according to Marxist economic analysis, and shows how the coming of the Chinese Revolution really did improve things for many minorities.
I've been scared to read the part about the Tibetans and Uighurs.
I'm sure in the case of Tibet it will talk about how the revolution ended feudalism (Yes, there was real feudalism in Tibet.) in Tibet and made life better for most Tibetans. One thing no one tells you about the Free Tibet crowd was that the Dalai Lama presided over a particularly horrible modern form of feudalism, complete with castes and out and out slavery.
The site does provide a tremendous amount of evidence that the Chinese revolution has resulted in tremendous improvements in the lives of many Chinese minorities. Anti-Communists seem to be blind to that fact. Life in China in 1949 and the decades prior was no picnic!
It's pretty cool to have an anthropological overview of lots of interesting ethnic groups written strictly from a Marxist perspective. More typical is this one, still very well-done, but written by hardline Estonian anti-Communists. It deals with the ethnic groups of the Former Soviet Union.
I wasn't aware that the USSR had destroyed every single ethnic group in the country until these stalwart Balts informed me. I realize the Balts are pissed, but it needn't taint your scholarship.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Left Opposition In China
Here in the West, we don't get to hear much about the Left opposition inside China, or better yet, inside the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). For all the MSM tells us, it may as well not even exist.
So this document, from an Old Guard CCP member who is a member of the Left Opposition in the party, is interesting. What do they want? What are their beefs with the present regime? I really don't have time to analyze this document now, so I will just throw it out there and let you all go at it.
His critique of the present regime is trenchant, though. This is a classic Marxist document full of typical Marxist language, though, so for those who can't handle such things, you might want to forgo reading it.
I'm not taking a position on the Left opposition in the party right now except to say that they raise some interesting critiques about the present day party. I'm curious about what sort of economic outcomes the Left's project would result in.
Recall that under Mao, China had economic manufacturing growth of 10% per year during the entire period, even in the Cultural Revolution. Agricultural production grew at 3% per year, and by the mid-70's, the perennial problem of hunger in China seemed to have been solved. Under Mao, life expectancy doubled from 32 to 65 in a record shortest period of time, breaking the record set by Stalin earlier.
These are some of the achievements of the Chinese revolutionaries under Mao. We all know the costs - the media never tires of telling us.
Translated from the website Hongqiwang.
After 30 years of Reform it is time for the real Communist Party to draw its conclusions.
Changes in the past 30 have meant that capitalism has basically been restored in China. The principal contradiction in our country is still the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but the principal aspect of the contradiction has changed from the proletariat to the bourgeoisie. A new revolution is now facing the proletariat and the working masses.
The basis of the revolution before us is upholding the great banner of Mao Zedong's continuing revolution and carrying out the great socialist revolution against corruption, against selling out our country and against capitalist restoration.
The dictatorship of the proletariat no longer exists; therefore, our continuing revolution is no longer one being waged with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead, our continuing revolution is being waged against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The road ahead will be difficult and have many twists and turns.
Our revolution's main targets are the capitalist roaders and cliques of revisionist traitors within the Party who have seized the power from our Party. The revisionist groups are false communists who continue to hold onto the titles and stature of the Communist Party.
They have not thrown it away, because by inheriting the Party's title, they fool people and legitimize their rule. During the 17th Party Congress they held up the Thoughts of Deng Xiao-ping, Jiang Ze-ming, and Hu Jing-tao as an independent theories and uses them as guiding principles against Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong thought.
The reason why they mentioned Marx, Lenin, and Mao in the Party Charter was because they feared that without using them as a cover they would lose their legitimacy, which would lead to their downfall. Therefore, they will continue to name and refer to Marx, Lenin, and Mao to use as cover until the end.
The targets of our revolution are the bureaucratic and comprador bourgeoisie this is the essence of their class nature. They have wildly sold out the interests of our country and our people, and recently started opening up the financial sector of our economy, thus handing over the economic lifeline of our nation to the foreigners.
What they have done is beyond what reasonable people can understand. Their behavior shows that their connection with foreign powers run so deep that their interests can no longer be separated. They have already moved their families and assets abroad. They have sold themselves and their country out completely to act as slaves of foreigners.
They launched large-scale privatization movements and sold off State owned enterprises. Through the recently passed "Asset Ownership" law they raised the salaries of those in charge of the remaining State enterprises to very high levels. This means that qualitative changes have taken place. In terms of national consciousness they cannot even match (Russia's) Vladimir Putin.
Putin has at least dared to stand up to the United States. These people have lost all national aspiration; the way they try to appease the foreigners is comparable to how the officials acted in the Qing dynasty.
The State apparatus is totally corrupt. After our revolution succeeds we can no longer use the old State apparatus. We have to completely smash the State apparatus just like Lenin said in the State and Revolution. However, we need to understand that there are still many un-corruptible and exemplary Communist Party members. They will be our main strength.
The proletariat or the working class is still the leading class of our revolution. Among them, migrant workers are new additions. Peasants and working intellectuals are still trusted allies of the working class. It has been proven from our social practice that the proletarian class has shown unshakable faith in socialism, because their fate is so closely connected to that of socialism.
A worker poet, Wang Xue-zhong, wrote a poem called "The State Enterprise - Our Mother." Who else could write a poem like that? Only workers have such affection toward socialist State enterprises.
The Communist Party that the revolutionary Left wants to rebuild is a genuine Marxist revolutionary Communist Party which engages in struggle. We need to declare that the real Communist Party is the one that follows Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought. We are fighting against revisionists and bureaucratic and comprador bourgeoisie cliques.
They are traitors who seized power from the Party and who have betrayed the revolutionary line of Marxism and Mao Ze-dong. They are false communists and are corrupted and qualitatively different from the real communists. This could lead to a problem.
The masses in our country have been protesting against the many injustices they face - if a sudden incident inflames the people, the anger of the masses could bring the demise of both the real and the false communists.
Such a danger exists, because the masses now regard the Communist Party as negative. However, what the masses want to destroy is the corrupted Communist Party, which has been selling out our country and is only interested in enriching itself. They do not want to destroy the Communist Party of Mao's era.
Therefore, in our propaganda to the masses we need to clearly distinguish the real Communist Party from the false Communist Party. We need to begin to use the terms "real" Communist Party and "false" Communist Party and explain the difference between them in our writings and talks. Otherwise the masses may try to destroy the real with the fake, like what had happened in Hungary.
If that moment arrived, it would be too late for us to try to explain. For example in the June 4th incident, the majority of students and masses were protesting against corruption, but the ultra right leader Fang Li-zhi used the masses and the protest ended in tragedy.
Our slogan should be: We are the real Communist Party which represents the suffering masses. We are not the false Communist Party which represents the corrupted bourgeoisie! What we want is socialism based on public ownership.
In the past, when we talked about returning to Mao's revolutionary line, some people misunderstood and thought that that we wanted to return to the past completely. We need to admit that in the past we were not able to fully realize the masses' right to supervision.
Our goal now is to rebuild a new and even better socialist country following the principles of the Paris Commune. We need to promote real socialist democracy at a high level. Only proletarian democracy is real democracy in the broadest sense.
People and the masses should have the right to practice management, supervision, and elections, and have the right to impeach. We need to reduce the wage differentials and to limit bourgeois rights. These are principles of the Paris Commune.
In terms of forming a united front, we need to understand that our society is made up of three main forces. The first is revisionists who have the political power, the second is the proletariat and revolutionary masses, and the third is the ultra Right, which organized the Xi-shan Conference 1.
Because the bureaucratic and comprador bourgeoisie have been selling off our country, some people on the Left may think that we should unite those on the Right to fight those in power. We need to distinguish who our worst enemies are.
The main difference between the revisionist clique and the ultra Right is the revisionists are still wearing the cloak of communism, and in doing so, sometimes write articles that on the surface sound correct.
However, if the ultra Right seizes power, they will ruthlessly and bloodily suppress the masses. Those big capitalists, such as Wang Zhao-jun, who attended the Xi Shan Conference, hate communists in their bones and they are anti-communist to the end.
The current regime let these people get rich first and then welcomed them into the Party. They thought that doing so would win their gratitude. But the fact is, these people are full of hatred toward the Communist Party and they are hastily trying to construct legal proceedings to get rid of it.
The ultra Right is these people's political representatives. In the future we will be fighting the ultra Right to gain power. We on the Left are the common enemy of both the revisionist clique and the ultra Right. Our united front slogans should be:
Unite everyone on the left under the banner of fighting against capitalist restoration.
We will communicate with each other to exchange our views and give mutual support and encouragement.
We will find common ground and not to be bogged by minor differences.
All patriots untie under the banner of fighting against those who sell out our country.
All people unite under the banner of fighting against corruption.
Currently there is a strong tendency for government officials to deceive people. They have the advantage of all of the power and run the propaganda machine. The media shows that they frequently visited miners' family when accidents happen shedding tears in the homes of workers and peasants.
Their acting has confused some young people. Acting is one thing but we need to pay attention to what they actually do. After the 17th Party Congress these people took another step toward the Right. They insisted on continuing the Reform and sold off the last few State owned enterprises.
They forced more lay-offs, cut more workers' tenure, and further forced those who used to be the masters of the enterprises into wage labor. They are now going into realm of "labor laws". What they are doing is the same as American politicians who send soldiers to fight in Iraq and then go to the war front holding platters of turkey to thank them.
They choose not to make public or mention or criticize anti-communist articles written by Xie Tao, a leading anti-communist. They invited Li Rui, an open anti-communist, anti-Maoist to the 17th Party Congress. They ignored four letters written by Wang Zhao-jun in Anhui Province challenging the Communist Party.
On the other hand they arrested Zhang Qian-fu and sent him to jail for memorializing Mao Zedong. They shut down many websites on the Left. Isn't it clear what they really represent? What they call liberated thinking is in fact abandoning the three principles: abandoning Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought; abandoning workers, peasants and the masses; and abandoning revolution.
On the other hand, what they are leaning on are: the private market economy, the selling off of our country and domestic and foreign bourgeoisie, and the corrupt State machine to carry their fascist dictatorship.
Some people say that old cadres are privileged among the proletariat, because they have benefited from Third Plenary of the 11th Party Congress. They have received higher wages and are enjoying a good life, satisfied with their good health and peaceful old age. This is also true of intellectuals and other white-collar workers; they are happy about the current situation and think it is better than the past. They are satisfied with the current regime.
It is true that the old cadres are being treated well. Their expenses are being paid, but they are also being isolated. They do not know how to use the internet and have trouble understanding the real situation in our country.
We should do more propaganda work with them. After all, they lived through the struggles of earlier revolutionary times. They still have the ability to tell right from wrong. The majority of them are firmly against corruption and against selling off our country.
We on the Left basically agree on the nature of the Reform. Within us there are still differences on what the correct tactics should be. What are the correct tactics that will lead us to victory?
The correct tactics have to follow the correct overall strategy. Strategy is a matter of principle. We cannot go against principle, but tactics can be applied with flexibility. Revolution does not negate struggles within the legal system. We on the Left should use every opportunity to fight the ultra Right in all battles.
For example, people such as Li Rui, Xie Tao, and Yuan Ruo-fei are shameless, poisonous traitors and spies. On the other hand we also need to firmly oppose the Reform. Some suggest that we should make use of Deng and what he said - but Deng was a devious cheater and the root of all problems. We should not quote what he said anymore, lest we further confuse the masses and lead them in the wrong direction.
We should, instead, expose and tear open the falseness and pretense of these cheaters. We should do this on the internet and anywhere we can express what we think and propagate our views in order to win over the masses and expand our battlefields. When we do our propaganda we should refuse to follow our opponents' lead and avoid arguing in the framework that they define and set forth.
Our Slogans: Because of the nature of our revolution, our slogans are clear and will create heart-felt excitement:
We raise high the banner of Mao Zedong's continuing revolution. We will carry forward the great socialist revolution against revisionism, selling out our country, and the restoration of capitalism. (See point 6 for coalition slogans.)
Of course we do not just shout slogans. We need to do a lot of difficult work. In the past Deng Zhong-xia dressed himself as a worker and went to workers' homes to visit and to wait. Eventually he organized the big strike in Hong Kong that shook the world and turned Hong Kong (Fragrant Harbor) into a Foul Harbor. Another example is the heroic strike led by Lin Xiang-qian.
The reason that the Left is weak and being ignored is because we have not connected with the proletarian class and the great masses. We still do not have strong leaders. A few years back when there was a group protest in Da-qing, workers demonstrated their extraordinary capabilities, organizing for an orderly occupy an office building in Da-qing.
The economic status of the proletarian class determines that they are revolutionary and the most radical class. In order to move forward, intellectuals must ally themselves with workers and peasants.
We are now under the fascist dictatorship. We are not allowed to speak up. We need democracy. Lenin said that there is no pure democracy, there is only class democracy. We do not want bourgeois democracy. Americans say, "We can curse out our President in the streets." However, when the American government sent troops to fight in Korea and Vietnam, to bomb Iraq and send Americans there to die, they had to obey!
What we want is democracy of the proletariat, the real democracy of the broad masses. The Communist Party is the vanguard of the proletariat and it must be supervised them. If the proletariat do not have the right to supervise and impeach Party representatives, then we are powerless when the Party Central Committee adopts revisionism.
Who says that whoever becomes the Party Secretary will have a higher level of understanding of Marxism? It is a joke to think whoever becomes the Party Secretary will also be a theoretician and can equal Chairman Mao! The position of Party Secretary is merely a job. The class as a whole needs to have power and political consciousness.
Only class can supervise the Party and manage the Party. Only when we reach that level of democracy the proletariat can control the Party and is the Party able to lead the proletariat. Then we will no longer be afraid of the Party's Central Committee becoming revisionist. This is our great historical lesson.
They posses the machine of dictatorship on all fronts the military, the political machine, the legal system and the media First they arrest you and give you a talking to (the lightest penalty), then they put you under surveillance We face many difficulties, and we need to again carry out revolution. This should be a ground up mass movement.
We will organize the working class to smash those in power. If we do not succeed the first time, there will be a second time and a third time. We need to do painstaking mass work. People want revolution; if they do not yet have the political consciousness, they will develop it. They will want revolution in the future, and we need to trust the masses.
Both the subjective and the objective conditions have not yet reached maturity, so we have to be careful and not become too anxious. We need to work underground and establish various kinds of study groups in many locations and hold discussion sessions and forums. We will create favorable conditions and work hard on mass work to raise the political consciousness of the masses.
There will be a day when the conditions reach maturity we can connect all the different segments in society and become a Party. Once the loose groups are organized, there is no force that can stop us.
So this document, from an Old Guard CCP member who is a member of the Left Opposition in the party, is interesting. What do they want? What are their beefs with the present regime? I really don't have time to analyze this document now, so I will just throw it out there and let you all go at it.
His critique of the present regime is trenchant, though. This is a classic Marxist document full of typical Marxist language, though, so for those who can't handle such things, you might want to forgo reading it.
I'm not taking a position on the Left opposition in the party right now except to say that they raise some interesting critiques about the present day party. I'm curious about what sort of economic outcomes the Left's project would result in.
Recall that under Mao, China had economic manufacturing growth of 10% per year during the entire period, even in the Cultural Revolution. Agricultural production grew at 3% per year, and by the mid-70's, the perennial problem of hunger in China seemed to have been solved. Under Mao, life expectancy doubled from 32 to 65 in a record shortest period of time, breaking the record set by Stalin earlier.
These are some of the achievements of the Chinese revolutionaries under Mao. We all know the costs - the media never tires of telling us.
Translated from the website Hongqiwang.
Some Thoughts Regarding Our Future Revolution by a Revolutionary Old Guard
Wei Wei
After 30 years of Reform it is time for the real Communist Party to draw its conclusions.
Changes in the past 30 have meant that capitalism has basically been restored in China. The principal contradiction in our country is still the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but the principal aspect of the contradiction has changed from the proletariat to the bourgeoisie. A new revolution is now facing the proletariat and the working masses.
The basis of the revolution before us is upholding the great banner of Mao Zedong's continuing revolution and carrying out the great socialist revolution against corruption, against selling out our country and against capitalist restoration.
The dictatorship of the proletariat no longer exists; therefore, our continuing revolution is no longer one being waged with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead, our continuing revolution is being waged against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The road ahead will be difficult and have many twists and turns.
Our revolution's main targets are the capitalist roaders and cliques of revisionist traitors within the Party who have seized the power from our Party. The revisionist groups are false communists who continue to hold onto the titles and stature of the Communist Party.
They have not thrown it away, because by inheriting the Party's title, they fool people and legitimize their rule. During the 17th Party Congress they held up the Thoughts of Deng Xiao-ping, Jiang Ze-ming, and Hu Jing-tao as an independent theories and uses them as guiding principles against Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong thought.
The reason why they mentioned Marx, Lenin, and Mao in the Party Charter was because they feared that without using them as a cover they would lose their legitimacy, which would lead to their downfall. Therefore, they will continue to name and refer to Marx, Lenin, and Mao to use as cover until the end.
The targets of our revolution are the bureaucratic and comprador bourgeoisie this is the essence of their class nature. They have wildly sold out the interests of our country and our people, and recently started opening up the financial sector of our economy, thus handing over the economic lifeline of our nation to the foreigners.
What they have done is beyond what reasonable people can understand. Their behavior shows that their connection with foreign powers run so deep that their interests can no longer be separated. They have already moved their families and assets abroad. They have sold themselves and their country out completely to act as slaves of foreigners.
They launched large-scale privatization movements and sold off State owned enterprises. Through the recently passed "Asset Ownership" law they raised the salaries of those in charge of the remaining State enterprises to very high levels. This means that qualitative changes have taken place. In terms of national consciousness they cannot even match (Russia's) Vladimir Putin.
Putin has at least dared to stand up to the United States. These people have lost all national aspiration; the way they try to appease the foreigners is comparable to how the officials acted in the Qing dynasty.
The State apparatus is totally corrupt. After our revolution succeeds we can no longer use the old State apparatus. We have to completely smash the State apparatus just like Lenin said in the State and Revolution. However, we need to understand that there are still many un-corruptible and exemplary Communist Party members. They will be our main strength.
The proletariat or the working class is still the leading class of our revolution. Among them, migrant workers are new additions. Peasants and working intellectuals are still trusted allies of the working class. It has been proven from our social practice that the proletarian class has shown unshakable faith in socialism, because their fate is so closely connected to that of socialism.
A worker poet, Wang Xue-zhong, wrote a poem called "The State Enterprise - Our Mother." Who else could write a poem like that? Only workers have such affection toward socialist State enterprises.
The Communist Party that the revolutionary Left wants to rebuild is a genuine Marxist revolutionary Communist Party which engages in struggle. We need to declare that the real Communist Party is the one that follows Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought. We are fighting against revisionists and bureaucratic and comprador bourgeoisie cliques.
They are traitors who seized power from the Party and who have betrayed the revolutionary line of Marxism and Mao Ze-dong. They are false communists and are corrupted and qualitatively different from the real communists. This could lead to a problem.
The masses in our country have been protesting against the many injustices they face - if a sudden incident inflames the people, the anger of the masses could bring the demise of both the real and the false communists.
Such a danger exists, because the masses now regard the Communist Party as negative. However, what the masses want to destroy is the corrupted Communist Party, which has been selling out our country and is only interested in enriching itself. They do not want to destroy the Communist Party of Mao's era.
Therefore, in our propaganda to the masses we need to clearly distinguish the real Communist Party from the false Communist Party. We need to begin to use the terms "real" Communist Party and "false" Communist Party and explain the difference between them in our writings and talks. Otherwise the masses may try to destroy the real with the fake, like what had happened in Hungary.
If that moment arrived, it would be too late for us to try to explain. For example in the June 4th incident, the majority of students and masses were protesting against corruption, but the ultra right leader Fang Li-zhi used the masses and the protest ended in tragedy.
Our slogan should be: We are the real Communist Party which represents the suffering masses. We are not the false Communist Party which represents the corrupted bourgeoisie! What we want is socialism based on public ownership.
In the past, when we talked about returning to Mao's revolutionary line, some people misunderstood and thought that that we wanted to return to the past completely. We need to admit that in the past we were not able to fully realize the masses' right to supervision.
Our goal now is to rebuild a new and even better socialist country following the principles of the Paris Commune. We need to promote real socialist democracy at a high level. Only proletarian democracy is real democracy in the broadest sense.
People and the masses should have the right to practice management, supervision, and elections, and have the right to impeach. We need to reduce the wage differentials and to limit bourgeois rights. These are principles of the Paris Commune.
In terms of forming a united front, we need to understand that our society is made up of three main forces. The first is revisionists who have the political power, the second is the proletariat and revolutionary masses, and the third is the ultra Right, which organized the Xi-shan Conference 1.
Because the bureaucratic and comprador bourgeoisie have been selling off our country, some people on the Left may think that we should unite those on the Right to fight those in power. We need to distinguish who our worst enemies are.
The main difference between the revisionist clique and the ultra Right is the revisionists are still wearing the cloak of communism, and in doing so, sometimes write articles that on the surface sound correct.
However, if the ultra Right seizes power, they will ruthlessly and bloodily suppress the masses. Those big capitalists, such as Wang Zhao-jun, who attended the Xi Shan Conference, hate communists in their bones and they are anti-communist to the end.
The current regime let these people get rich first and then welcomed them into the Party. They thought that doing so would win their gratitude. But the fact is, these people are full of hatred toward the Communist Party and they are hastily trying to construct legal proceedings to get rid of it.
The ultra Right is these people's political representatives. In the future we will be fighting the ultra Right to gain power. We on the Left are the common enemy of both the revisionist clique and the ultra Right. Our united front slogans should be:
Unite everyone on the left under the banner of fighting against capitalist restoration.
We will communicate with each other to exchange our views and give mutual support and encouragement.
We will find common ground and not to be bogged by minor differences.
All patriots untie under the banner of fighting against those who sell out our country.
All people unite under the banner of fighting against corruption.
Currently there is a strong tendency for government officials to deceive people. They have the advantage of all of the power and run the propaganda machine. The media shows that they frequently visited miners' family when accidents happen shedding tears in the homes of workers and peasants.
Their acting has confused some young people. Acting is one thing but we need to pay attention to what they actually do. After the 17th Party Congress these people took another step toward the Right. They insisted on continuing the Reform and sold off the last few State owned enterprises.
They forced more lay-offs, cut more workers' tenure, and further forced those who used to be the masters of the enterprises into wage labor. They are now going into realm of "labor laws". What they are doing is the same as American politicians who send soldiers to fight in Iraq and then go to the war front holding platters of turkey to thank them.
They choose not to make public or mention or criticize anti-communist articles written by Xie Tao, a leading anti-communist. They invited Li Rui, an open anti-communist, anti-Maoist to the 17th Party Congress. They ignored four letters written by Wang Zhao-jun in Anhui Province challenging the Communist Party.
On the other hand they arrested Zhang Qian-fu and sent him to jail for memorializing Mao Zedong. They shut down many websites on the Left. Isn't it clear what they really represent? What they call liberated thinking is in fact abandoning the three principles: abandoning Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought; abandoning workers, peasants and the masses; and abandoning revolution.
On the other hand, what they are leaning on are: the private market economy, the selling off of our country and domestic and foreign bourgeoisie, and the corrupt State machine to carry their fascist dictatorship.
Some people say that old cadres are privileged among the proletariat, because they have benefited from Third Plenary of the 11th Party Congress. They have received higher wages and are enjoying a good life, satisfied with their good health and peaceful old age. This is also true of intellectuals and other white-collar workers; they are happy about the current situation and think it is better than the past. They are satisfied with the current regime.
It is true that the old cadres are being treated well. Their expenses are being paid, but they are also being isolated. They do not know how to use the internet and have trouble understanding the real situation in our country.
We should do more propaganda work with them. After all, they lived through the struggles of earlier revolutionary times. They still have the ability to tell right from wrong. The majority of them are firmly against corruption and against selling off our country.
We on the Left basically agree on the nature of the Reform. Within us there are still differences on what the correct tactics should be. What are the correct tactics that will lead us to victory?
The correct tactics have to follow the correct overall strategy. Strategy is a matter of principle. We cannot go against principle, but tactics can be applied with flexibility. Revolution does not negate struggles within the legal system. We on the Left should use every opportunity to fight the ultra Right in all battles.
For example, people such as Li Rui, Xie Tao, and Yuan Ruo-fei are shameless, poisonous traitors and spies. On the other hand we also need to firmly oppose the Reform. Some suggest that we should make use of Deng and what he said - but Deng was a devious cheater and the root of all problems. We should not quote what he said anymore, lest we further confuse the masses and lead them in the wrong direction.
We should, instead, expose and tear open the falseness and pretense of these cheaters. We should do this on the internet and anywhere we can express what we think and propagate our views in order to win over the masses and expand our battlefields. When we do our propaganda we should refuse to follow our opponents' lead and avoid arguing in the framework that they define and set forth.
Our Slogans: Because of the nature of our revolution, our slogans are clear and will create heart-felt excitement:
We raise high the banner of Mao Zedong's continuing revolution. We will carry forward the great socialist revolution against revisionism, selling out our country, and the restoration of capitalism. (See point 6 for coalition slogans.)
Of course we do not just shout slogans. We need to do a lot of difficult work. In the past Deng Zhong-xia dressed himself as a worker and went to workers' homes to visit and to wait. Eventually he organized the big strike in Hong Kong that shook the world and turned Hong Kong (Fragrant Harbor) into a Foul Harbor. Another example is the heroic strike led by Lin Xiang-qian.
The reason that the Left is weak and being ignored is because we have not connected with the proletarian class and the great masses. We still do not have strong leaders. A few years back when there was a group protest in Da-qing, workers demonstrated their extraordinary capabilities, organizing for an orderly occupy an office building in Da-qing.
The economic status of the proletarian class determines that they are revolutionary and the most radical class. In order to move forward, intellectuals must ally themselves with workers and peasants.
We are now under the fascist dictatorship. We are not allowed to speak up. We need democracy. Lenin said that there is no pure democracy, there is only class democracy. We do not want bourgeois democracy. Americans say, "We can curse out our President in the streets." However, when the American government sent troops to fight in Korea and Vietnam, to bomb Iraq and send Americans there to die, they had to obey!
What we want is democracy of the proletariat, the real democracy of the broad masses. The Communist Party is the vanguard of the proletariat and it must be supervised them. If the proletariat do not have the right to supervise and impeach Party representatives, then we are powerless when the Party Central Committee adopts revisionism.
Who says that whoever becomes the Party Secretary will have a higher level of understanding of Marxism? It is a joke to think whoever becomes the Party Secretary will also be a theoretician and can equal Chairman Mao! The position of Party Secretary is merely a job. The class as a whole needs to have power and political consciousness.
Only class can supervise the Party and manage the Party. Only when we reach that level of democracy the proletariat can control the Party and is the Party able to lead the proletariat. Then we will no longer be afraid of the Party's Central Committee becoming revisionist. This is our great historical lesson.
They posses the machine of dictatorship on all fronts the military, the political machine, the legal system and the media First they arrest you and give you a talking to (the lightest penalty), then they put you under surveillance We face many difficulties, and we need to again carry out revolution. This should be a ground up mass movement.
We will organize the working class to smash those in power. If we do not succeed the first time, there will be a second time and a third time. We need to do painstaking mass work. People want revolution; if they do not yet have the political consciousness, they will develop it. They will want revolution in the future, and we need to trust the masses.
Both the subjective and the objective conditions have not yet reached maturity, so we have to be careful and not become too anxious. We need to work underground and establish various kinds of study groups in many locations and hold discussion sessions and forums. We will create favorable conditions and work hard on mass work to raise the political consciousness of the masses.
There will be a day when the conditions reach maturity we can connect all the different segments in society and become a Party. Once the loose groups are organized, there is no force that can stop us.
Monday, November 03, 2008
New Sendero Attack
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
On October 20, 30 Senderistas (members of Sendero Luminoso or the Shining Path) invaded a mining site run by the Doe Run Mining Company in Huancavelica and took dynamite, radios, food and medicine.
One of the things that sustained Sendero in its long insurgency was a ready supply of explosives. There is all sorts of dynamite to be had in Peru, a country with a huge mining industry. Most bombs made by Sendero were apparently fashioned from dynamite.
The region is famous for mercury mining. Doe Run is probably involved in copper mining in the region. Sendero has traditionally had a strong presence in this region.
The Huancavelica Region in Peru. The capital city of Huancavelica has 400,000 mostly Indian inhabitants and is one of the poorest cities in Peru.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
On October 20, 30 Senderistas (members of Sendero Luminoso or the Shining Path) invaded a mining site run by the Doe Run Mining Company in Huancavelica and took dynamite, radios, food and medicine.
One of the things that sustained Sendero in its long insurgency was a ready supply of explosives. There is all sorts of dynamite to be had in Peru, a country with a huge mining industry. Most bombs made by Sendero were apparently fashioned from dynamite.
The region is famous for mercury mining. Doe Run is probably involved in copper mining in the region. Sendero has traditionally had a strong presence in this region.
The Huancavelica Region in Peru. The capital city of Huancavelica has 400,000 mostly Indian inhabitants and is one of the poorest cities in Peru.Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Maoists Are Ruling Nepal
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated December 7:
The news has been pretty confusing for a long time coming out of Nepal. The Nepalese Maoists laid down their guns and gave up armed struggle for a variety of reasons, after a brutal civil war in which 13,000 people were killed, 10,000 of them by the security forces.
The Maoists decided to try to seek power by peaceful means. They seem to have won about 1/3 of the vote in the nation's first real democratic elections. They got into power, apparently in a coalition with some other parties.
They are now part of a ruling coalition in Nepal. One of the first things this new government did was to get rid of the Nepalese monarchy. The next agenda was to call for a Constituent Assembly, apparently in order to rewrite the Constitution. This was their program toward the end of the war - an end to monarchy, a constituent assembly, a true multiparty democracy with the right to dissent.
I've been reading quite a few interview with these guys, especially with their leader, Prachandra. He has taken the position that Marxists need to toss out Stalin, Lenin and even Mao, or at least not follow them to the letter. He says that they all had some good ideas too, but Marxism has moved beyond them. In particular, he takes the fascinating position that modern Marxists should support full democracy.
His argument is that in Nepal, the Maoists' program will be so popular that they hope to get re-elected over and over. It is true that this party has managed to get huge support on the ground. He also says that socialism has to be completely democratic, with civil liberties for all.
One of Prachandra's arguments is that with the world in such a death grip of imperialism these days, Communists have to adjust themselves to that reality and try to make some sort of peace with imperialism, at least in order to survive.
This has caused quite a rift in the International Communist Movement. Most non-Maoists haven't had much to say about it, but the debate in Maoist circles has never quit. There are supporters of the CPN-M and opponents of them.
The opponents take the line that the CPN-M should not take part in parliamentary politics ("parliamentary cretinism", according to Lenin) and instead should have a dictatorship of the proletariat and a people's republic. Prachandra seems to take the position that the dictatorship of the proletariat is through.
If it really is over, we can say goodbye to some of the harshest criticism of Communists for being cruel and wicked dictators who denied basic civil liberties and deliberately killed millions of people. I feel this is an albatross off the neck of the movement. Capitalism does such a great job of killing people as it is. Why should Communists be killing anyone once they get into power. Leave the killing to the capitalists. They do it so well.
The CPN-M seems now to have split into two lines - a hardline faction wanting to go straight to a people's republic (And dictatorship of the proletariat?) and the more moderate faction surrounding Prachandra and his followers.
Prachandra has made some disturbingly pro-imperialist statements, including saying he wanted to work with the World Bank and the IMF. But maybe in today's Nepal, if you blow off the World Bank and the IMF, you are screwed.
The people around Prachandra also want a positive relationship with China, and have taken tours to China to see Chinese socialism (or socialism with Chinese characteristics) in action.
The hardline Maoist position that China has reverted to capitalism is not correct. Chinese villagers still live much better than Nepalese villagers, and the differences are in large part due to the achievements of Chinese socialism. The countryside still retains a cooperativist and collectivist nature, and in general, private ownership of farmland is not yet allowed, although this may be about to change.
This article from a couple of years ago shows us just how much the Maoists have achieved in Nepal in the course of their revolution.
At the time, CPNM controlled 80% of the countryside in the country. The rural situation is dire because most Nepalese are cut off from trade, schools, hospitals, mostly due to the lack of roads. The monarchist regime in Nepal has had a century to build roads in the country and they have completely failed.
In an extremely sexist nation, the Maoist army had a very large number of female fighters - 40% of PLA was female. The All-Nepal Womens Association (Revolutionary) - has 2 million women members. The situation for women in Nepal is horrible -women cannot own land or vote, die 13 yrs sooner than men, and are routinely trafficked as sex slaves to India at age 10.
Prior to the revolution, land could not support the people, but due to the changes instituted by the Maoists, now it does. Previously, men had to migrate to other areas to work at day labor to survive.
The party has placed solar panels in many villages to wire them up for electricity, and has set up seven party radio stations that broadcast in different languages. Language rights is one thing that Communists have generally pushed better than most groups.
Nepali is the language of the feudal upper class (yes, Nepal still has a feudal to semi-feudal land tenure system) and languages other than Nepali are banned in Nepal for official purposes such as education. The Maoists have instituted mother tongue education and literacy classes. Literacy figures in Nepal are horrible - below 50%, much lower figures for women and in rural areas.
It's pretty amazing that here we are in 2008, and a Maoist Communist Party is leading the government of a country after a successful revolutionary war. They have re-evaluated the many long-held Marxist tenets and are calling for a radical re-evaluation in Marxist thinking. Here's hoping they succeed.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Updated December 7:
The news has been pretty confusing for a long time coming out of Nepal. The Nepalese Maoists laid down their guns and gave up armed struggle for a variety of reasons, after a brutal civil war in which 13,000 people were killed, 10,000 of them by the security forces.
The Maoists decided to try to seek power by peaceful means. They seem to have won about 1/3 of the vote in the nation's first real democratic elections. They got into power, apparently in a coalition with some other parties.
They are now part of a ruling coalition in Nepal. One of the first things this new government did was to get rid of the Nepalese monarchy. The next agenda was to call for a Constituent Assembly, apparently in order to rewrite the Constitution. This was their program toward the end of the war - an end to monarchy, a constituent assembly, a true multiparty democracy with the right to dissent.
I've been reading quite a few interview with these guys, especially with their leader, Prachandra. He has taken the position that Marxists need to toss out Stalin, Lenin and even Mao, or at least not follow them to the letter. He says that they all had some good ideas too, but Marxism has moved beyond them. In particular, he takes the fascinating position that modern Marxists should support full democracy.
His argument is that in Nepal, the Maoists' program will be so popular that they hope to get re-elected over and over. It is true that this party has managed to get huge support on the ground. He also says that socialism has to be completely democratic, with civil liberties for all.
One of Prachandra's arguments is that with the world in such a death grip of imperialism these days, Communists have to adjust themselves to that reality and try to make some sort of peace with imperialism, at least in order to survive.
This has caused quite a rift in the International Communist Movement. Most non-Maoists haven't had much to say about it, but the debate in Maoist circles has never quit. There are supporters of the CPN-M and opponents of them.
The opponents take the line that the CPN-M should not take part in parliamentary politics ("parliamentary cretinism", according to Lenin) and instead should have a dictatorship of the proletariat and a people's republic. Prachandra seems to take the position that the dictatorship of the proletariat is through.
If it really is over, we can say goodbye to some of the harshest criticism of Communists for being cruel and wicked dictators who denied basic civil liberties and deliberately killed millions of people. I feel this is an albatross off the neck of the movement. Capitalism does such a great job of killing people as it is. Why should Communists be killing anyone once they get into power. Leave the killing to the capitalists. They do it so well.
The CPN-M seems now to have split into two lines - a hardline faction wanting to go straight to a people's republic (And dictatorship of the proletariat?) and the more moderate faction surrounding Prachandra and his followers.
Prachandra has made some disturbingly pro-imperialist statements, including saying he wanted to work with the World Bank and the IMF. But maybe in today's Nepal, if you blow off the World Bank and the IMF, you are screwed.
The people around Prachandra also want a positive relationship with China, and have taken tours to China to see Chinese socialism (or socialism with Chinese characteristics) in action.
The hardline Maoist position that China has reverted to capitalism is not correct. Chinese villagers still live much better than Nepalese villagers, and the differences are in large part due to the achievements of Chinese socialism. The countryside still retains a cooperativist and collectivist nature, and in general, private ownership of farmland is not yet allowed, although this may be about to change.
This article from a couple of years ago shows us just how much the Maoists have achieved in Nepal in the course of their revolution.
At the time, CPNM controlled 80% of the countryside in the country. The rural situation is dire because most Nepalese are cut off from trade, schools, hospitals, mostly due to the lack of roads. The monarchist regime in Nepal has had a century to build roads in the country and they have completely failed.
In an extremely sexist nation, the Maoist army had a very large number of female fighters - 40% of PLA was female. The All-Nepal Womens Association (Revolutionary) - has 2 million women members. The situation for women in Nepal is horrible -women cannot own land or vote, die 13 yrs sooner than men, and are routinely trafficked as sex slaves to India at age 10.
Prior to the revolution, land could not support the people, but due to the changes instituted by the Maoists, now it does. Previously, men had to migrate to other areas to work at day labor to survive.
The party has placed solar panels in many villages to wire them up for electricity, and has set up seven party radio stations that broadcast in different languages. Language rights is one thing that Communists have generally pushed better than most groups.
Nepali is the language of the feudal upper class (yes, Nepal still has a feudal to semi-feudal land tenure system) and languages other than Nepali are banned in Nepal for official purposes such as education. The Maoists have instituted mother tongue education and literacy classes. Literacy figures in Nepal are horrible - below 50%, much lower figures for women and in rural areas.
It's pretty amazing that here we are in 2008, and a Maoist Communist Party is leading the government of a country after a successful revolutionary war. They have re-evaluated the many long-held Marxist tenets and are calling for a radical re-evaluation in Marxist thinking. Here's hoping they succeed.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Many New NPA Attacks in the Philippines
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated November 3:
The NPA* has staged a wide variety of attacks all over the Philippines in the past few weeks. In addition, the AFP has gone on the offensive in Mindanao in Negros Oriental.
October 29, 8 AM: In Pantukan town, Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao, NPA guerrillas on a motorcycle shot dead a policeman as he was waiting for a bus . Later, 1 of the NPA team was shot dead and 2 more were wounded in a firefight.
Pantukan municipality in Compostela Valley Province in Southern Mindanao. The NPA have been very active here for some time now.
October 29, 10:20 AM: In Santa Teresita village, Bayugan City, Agusan del Sur Province, Mindanao, 20 NPA guerrillas raided the Jose C. Aquino rubber company here, seizing firearms and a laptop computer.
Bayugan municipality of Agusan Del Sur Province on Mindanao.
October 29: In San Jose village, Prosperidad town, Agusan del Sur Province, Mindanao, Guerrillas set up a checkpoint and stopped a civilian bus on the road, confiscating the weapons of a government soldier on the bus. My, what humanitarian rebels! They didn't even kill the guy.
Prosperidad municipality in Agusan Del Sur Province of Mindanao.
October 29: In Negros Oriental, the NPA warned biofuel corporations in SE Negros such as the Tamlang Valley Agricultural Development Corp that they would carry out punitive operations against them because they worsen the food crisis in the Philippines and cause military harassment of villagers.
Negros Occidental. This island has been practically ruined. 96% of the tropical forest here has been cut down and the rest is under continuous threat. There are many rare and endangered species on this island, some of them critically endangered. In addition to habitat loss, some critically endangered animals here face hunting pressure. An AFP offensive against the NPA is currently underway in this area, where the NPA have been building up forces for some time now.
October 26, 6:15 PM: A large NPA force dressed as Drug Enforcement agents attacked the Quezon Provincial Jail in Lucena City, Quezon Province, Luzon and freed 7 NPA prisoners. 2 policemen and 2 civilians were wounded in a shootout afterward.
The city of Lucena in Quezon Province, Luzon, near Manila. Despite the proximity to the capital of the Philippines, the NPA has a heavy presence in Quezon.
October 25, 10 AM: NPA guerrillas attacked militiamen in Barangay Luna Sur, Makilala town, Cotabato Province, Mindanao, killing 1 and wounding 4 more. They also seized 16 weapons.
Makilala municipality in Cotabato Province on Mindanao. There has been some heavy fighting in this area recently.
October 23, 5 AM: NPA guerrillas attacked government militiamen in Paradise Embac, Paquibato district, Davao City, Mindanao, killing 1 militiaman and wounding 2 more. 1 NPA guerrilla was killed in the attack.
Davao City in Davao Del Sur Province in Mindanao. This is one of the larger cities in the Philippines.
October 25, AM: The NPA attacked an AFP Special Forces outpost in Canidkid village, Montevista town, Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao, killing 1 soldier.
Montevista Province in Compostela Valley Province in Mindanao. There has been some very heavy fighting in this area lately.
October 25, 11 AM: NPA guerrillas attacked government soldiers in Barangay Olaycon, Monkayo town, Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao, while they were carrying the body of one of 8 soldiers who were killed in guerrilla attacks in the area the previous day to another town. The attack wounded 1 soldier.
Monkayo municipality in Compostela Valley Province. NPA guerrillas recently killed 8 AFP forces here.
October 24: NPA guerrillas ambushed a military truck with a roadside bomb and then strafed it with gunfire in Monkayo town, Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao, killing 7 soldiers and wounding 2 more.
October 23, 3 PM: There was a shootout between militiamen and the NPA in Barangay Hilawan, San Andres town, Catanduanes, but there were no casualties on either side.
Catanduanes is an island that is also a province. It's off the southeast coast of Luzon. This is a map of San Andres municipality in Catanduanes Province. I didn't even realize that the NPA were active here.
October 19: NPA guerrillas attacked a hacienda, Hacienda Santa Ana, in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental Province, causing 1 million pesos in damage. In the past eight months, guerrillas here have caused 30 million pesos in property damage.
Cadiz City municipality in Negros Occidental Province.
NPA guerrillas overpowered and disarmed a policeman in Balintawak village, Escalante City, Negros Occidental Province recently. A lot of times these guys just refuse to fight and hand over their weapons.
Escalante City municipality in Negros Occidental Province.
Guerrillas attacked the Globe Telecom cell phone tower in Cauayan municipality, Negros Occidental Province recently.
Cauayan municipality in Negros Occidental Province.
*This blog supports the NPA to the hilt. Our view is that system in the Philippines is such total crap that it needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Updated November 3:
The NPA* has staged a wide variety of attacks all over the Philippines in the past few weeks. In addition, the AFP has gone on the offensive in Mindanao in Negros Oriental.
October 29, 8 AM: In Pantukan town, Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao, NPA guerrillas on a motorcycle shot dead a policeman as he was waiting for a bus . Later, 1 of the NPA team was shot dead and 2 more were wounded in a firefight.
Pantukan municipality in Compostela Valley Province in Southern Mindanao. The NPA have been very active here for some time now.October 29, 10:20 AM: In Santa Teresita village, Bayugan City, Agusan del Sur Province, Mindanao, 20 NPA guerrillas raided the Jose C. Aquino rubber company here, seizing firearms and a laptop computer.
Bayugan municipality of Agusan Del Sur Province on Mindanao.October 29: In San Jose village, Prosperidad town, Agusan del Sur Province, Mindanao, Guerrillas set up a checkpoint and stopped a civilian bus on the road, confiscating the weapons of a government soldier on the bus. My, what humanitarian rebels! They didn't even kill the guy.
Prosperidad municipality in Agusan Del Sur Province of Mindanao.October 29: In Negros Oriental, the NPA warned biofuel corporations in SE Negros such as the Tamlang Valley Agricultural Development Corp that they would carry out punitive operations against them because they worsen the food crisis in the Philippines and cause military harassment of villagers.
Negros Occidental. This island has been practically ruined. 96% of the tropical forest here has been cut down and the rest is under continuous threat. There are many rare and endangered species on this island, some of them critically endangered. In addition to habitat loss, some critically endangered animals here face hunting pressure. An AFP offensive against the NPA is currently underway in this area, where the NPA have been building up forces for some time now.October 26, 6:15 PM: A large NPA force dressed as Drug Enforcement agents attacked the Quezon Provincial Jail in Lucena City, Quezon Province, Luzon and freed 7 NPA prisoners. 2 policemen and 2 civilians were wounded in a shootout afterward.
The city of Lucena in Quezon Province, Luzon, near Manila. Despite the proximity to the capital of the Philippines, the NPA has a heavy presence in Quezon.October 25, 10 AM: NPA guerrillas attacked militiamen in Barangay Luna Sur, Makilala town, Cotabato Province, Mindanao, killing 1 and wounding 4 more. They also seized 16 weapons.
Makilala municipality in Cotabato Province on Mindanao. There has been some heavy fighting in this area recently.October 23, 5 AM: NPA guerrillas attacked government militiamen in Paradise Embac, Paquibato district, Davao City, Mindanao, killing 1 militiaman and wounding 2 more. 1 NPA guerrilla was killed in the attack.
Davao City in Davao Del Sur Province in Mindanao. This is one of the larger cities in the Philippines.October 25, AM: The NPA attacked an AFP Special Forces outpost in Canidkid village, Montevista town, Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao, killing 1 soldier.
Montevista Province in Compostela Valley Province in Mindanao. There has been some very heavy fighting in this area lately.October 25, 11 AM: NPA guerrillas attacked government soldiers in Barangay Olaycon, Monkayo town, Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao, while they were carrying the body of one of 8 soldiers who were killed in guerrilla attacks in the area the previous day to another town. The attack wounded 1 soldier.
Monkayo municipality in Compostela Valley Province. NPA guerrillas recently killed 8 AFP forces here.October 24: NPA guerrillas ambushed a military truck with a roadside bomb and then strafed it with gunfire in Monkayo town, Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao, killing 7 soldiers and wounding 2 more.
October 23, 3 PM: There was a shootout between militiamen and the NPA in Barangay Hilawan, San Andres town, Catanduanes, but there were no casualties on either side.
Catanduanes is an island that is also a province. It's off the southeast coast of Luzon. This is a map of San Andres municipality in Catanduanes Province. I didn't even realize that the NPA were active here.October 19: NPA guerrillas attacked a hacienda, Hacienda Santa Ana, in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental Province, causing 1 million pesos in damage. In the past eight months, guerrillas here have caused 30 million pesos in property damage.
Cadiz City municipality in Negros Occidental Province.NPA guerrillas overpowered and disarmed a policeman in Balintawak village, Escalante City, Negros Occidental Province recently. A lot of times these guys just refuse to fight and hand over their weapons.
Escalante City municipality in Negros Occidental Province.Guerrillas attacked the Globe Telecom cell phone tower in Cauayan municipality, Negros Occidental Province recently.
Cauayan municipality in Negros Occidental Province.*This blog supports the NPA to the hilt. Our view is that system in the Philippines is such total crap that it needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
New Maoist Group in Bhutan
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated October 24:
A pretty interesting new development in Bhutan - a new Maoist group has formed, with links to Maoists in Nepal and India. It's been growing in the refugee camps of Bhutanese refugees for some time now. They've been threatening to start a people's war in Bhutan for some time now. I think the real goal here is just that they want to go back to Bhutan.
It has its roots in the expulsion of 100,000 Bhutanese of Nepali origin who have been living in Bhutan for over 100 years. They tend to live in the lowlands and resemble Indians. The people in the uplands tend to look more Asian.
Bhutan has traditionally been a horribly backwards country with some of the worst health and social figures on Earth. The monarchy has instituted a campaign to improve education and health care in the nation and seems to have done a pretty good job of it.
There was no reason except sheer racism for the expulsion of the Nepali-Bhutanese from Bhutan in the early 1990's. At that time, they made up a majority of the country, and I guess the Asian types living in the uplands felt that they were not "real Bhutanese". But they were perfectly legal residents resident in Bhutan for 100 years, and all were citizens.
They have festered in refugee camps in Nepal, agitating for return to Bhutan. Now a lot of the Bhutanese are starting to leave the camps with offers of settlements in 3rd countries. It is in this context that the Bhutan Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) has grown to a large size.
The caption tells the story here. These folks seem pretty passionate about their cause. They've clearly gained a lot of inspiration from the Nepalese Maoists, who have been so successful that they are now leading the government.
A few small bombs were set off in Bhutan during the elections early this year, but I don't think there were any casualties. There were a few arrests. I'm dubious that these rebels will find many converts among the Asian Bhutanese.
Despite the move to democracy in the past year (the King abolished the monarchy) the BCP-MLM says that the monarch is still running the show behind the curtains. Apparently the nation is still feudal to semi-feudal. This would be in the tradition of the Buddhism in the region.
Few realize that the Dalai Lama headed up a horribly feudal Buddhist theocracy in the 1950's when China got rid of it. I do support Tibetan independence, but the feudal regime should not be romanticized.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Updated October 24:
A pretty interesting new development in Bhutan - a new Maoist group has formed, with links to Maoists in Nepal and India. It's been growing in the refugee camps of Bhutanese refugees for some time now. They've been threatening to start a people's war in Bhutan for some time now. I think the real goal here is just that they want to go back to Bhutan.
It has its roots in the expulsion of 100,000 Bhutanese of Nepali origin who have been living in Bhutan for over 100 years. They tend to live in the lowlands and resemble Indians. The people in the uplands tend to look more Asian.
Bhutan has traditionally been a horribly backwards country with some of the worst health and social figures on Earth. The monarchy has instituted a campaign to improve education and health care in the nation and seems to have done a pretty good job of it.
There was no reason except sheer racism for the expulsion of the Nepali-Bhutanese from Bhutan in the early 1990's. At that time, they made up a majority of the country, and I guess the Asian types living in the uplands felt that they were not "real Bhutanese". But they were perfectly legal residents resident in Bhutan for 100 years, and all were citizens.
They have festered in refugee camps in Nepal, agitating for return to Bhutan. Now a lot of the Bhutanese are starting to leave the camps with offers of settlements in 3rd countries. It is in this context that the Bhutan Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) has grown to a large size.
The caption tells the story here. These folks seem pretty passionate about their cause. They've clearly gained a lot of inspiration from the Nepalese Maoists, who have been so successful that they are now leading the government.A few small bombs were set off in Bhutan during the elections early this year, but I don't think there were any casualties. There were a few arrests. I'm dubious that these rebels will find many converts among the Asian Bhutanese.
Despite the move to democracy in the past year (the King abolished the monarchy) the BCP-MLM says that the monarch is still running the show behind the curtains. Apparently the nation is still feudal to semi-feudal. This would be in the tradition of the Buddhism in the region.
Few realize that the Dalai Lama headed up a horribly feudal Buddhist theocracy in the 1950's when China got rid of it. I do support Tibetan independence, but the feudal regime should not be romanticized.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Clashes Continue In the Philppines
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated October 30:
There has been very heavy fighting between the NPA and AFP lately. In addition to heavy fighting in the last two weeks of September and early October that left 19 AFP troops dead and 23 wounded, there has been an upsurge in attacks in recent days.
Monday, October 13, 4 AM: A group of 60 NPA attacked an AFP 72nd Infantry Battalion base in Kingking village, Pantukan municipality in Compostela Valley Province on Mindanao. Three hours of fighting ensued that left 2 guerrillas and 1 government militiamen dead.
Pantukan municipality in Compostela Valley Province in Southern Mindanao. The NPA have been very active here for some time now.
Monday, October 13, 6 AM: An AFP patrol came upon an NPA group of undetermined size in the Sitio Pasalilo, Mabini village in the municipality of Mulanay in Quezon Province in southern Luzon. Fighting ensued and 1 guerrilla was killed. The NPA has always been strong in Quezon.
Mulanay municipality in Quezon Province on Luzon. The NPA have been pretty active here in the past few years, but they are also active in other places in Quezon, including urban slums. This area is just southeast of Manila.
Monday, October 13, 10 AM: An NPA force attacked the AFP 60th Infantry Battalion in Palma Gil village, Talaingod municipality, Davao del Norte Province in Mindanao. 2 guerrillas were killed in the fighting.
The location of Talaingod municipality in the southern part of Mindanao, long a hotbed of NPA activity.
Monday, October 13, 2:20 PM: 7 NPA guerrillas fired on government militiamen in Sitio Likupon, Sanghay village in Mati City municipality, Davao Oriental Province on Mindanao. A 12-minute firefight followed in which one militiaman was wounded by an M203 grenade launcher fired by the NPA.
Mati City municipality in Davao Oriental in Southern Mindanao. As you can see, all of this fighting has been in the same general vicinity. They are quite active in this area too, where they have apparently linked up with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in recent times. The MILF is a very well-armed Muslim insurgency in Mindanao currently in a shaky truce with the government.
Monday, October 13: An NPA force ambushed a military truck carrying provisions to troops in Palma Gil village, Talaingod municipality, Davao del Norte in Mindanao. 2 AFP soldiers were killed in the fighting.
A photo of Talaingod municipality in Davao Norte, Mindanao. Typical Philippines tropical rainforest here. The NPA has been very active here for a very long time. They were extremely active here 17 years ago and prior and had tons of support.
That's quite a bit of fighting for this usually sleepy war. A Filipina I know from Sampaloc, Manila, told me that the NPA "is recruiting everywhere now, especially at the universities." She also said that most Filipinos who live in big cities are apathetic about the conflict since it does not effect them. They dislike both the NPA and the government but are not very passionate about either party. They are almost neutral.
This sort of pragmatic fence-sitting is very common in civil conflicts. If guerrillas can get to the point where they have the support of 30% of the population, they are doing well. In the American Revolution, 1/3 supported the colonists, 1/3 supported the British and 1/3 were neutral. And the colonists won.
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Updated October 30:
There has been very heavy fighting between the NPA and AFP lately. In addition to heavy fighting in the last two weeks of September and early October that left 19 AFP troops dead and 23 wounded, there has been an upsurge in attacks in recent days.
Monday, October 13, 4 AM: A group of 60 NPA attacked an AFP 72nd Infantry Battalion base in Kingking village, Pantukan municipality in Compostela Valley Province on Mindanao. Three hours of fighting ensued that left 2 guerrillas and 1 government militiamen dead.
Pantukan municipality in Compostela Valley Province in Southern Mindanao. The NPA have been very active here for some time now.Monday, October 13, 6 AM: An AFP patrol came upon an NPA group of undetermined size in the Sitio Pasalilo, Mabini village in the municipality of Mulanay in Quezon Province in southern Luzon. Fighting ensued and 1 guerrilla was killed. The NPA has always been strong in Quezon.
Mulanay municipality in Quezon Province on Luzon. The NPA have been pretty active here in the past few years, but they are also active in other places in Quezon, including urban slums. This area is just southeast of Manila.Monday, October 13, 10 AM: An NPA force attacked the AFP 60th Infantry Battalion in Palma Gil village, Talaingod municipality, Davao del Norte Province in Mindanao. 2 guerrillas were killed in the fighting.
The location of Talaingod municipality in the southern part of Mindanao, long a hotbed of NPA activity.Monday, October 13, 2:20 PM: 7 NPA guerrillas fired on government militiamen in Sitio Likupon, Sanghay village in Mati City municipality, Davao Oriental Province on Mindanao. A 12-minute firefight followed in which one militiaman was wounded by an M203 grenade launcher fired by the NPA.
Mati City municipality in Davao Oriental in Southern Mindanao. As you can see, all of this fighting has been in the same general vicinity. They are quite active in this area too, where they have apparently linked up with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in recent times. The MILF is a very well-armed Muslim insurgency in Mindanao currently in a shaky truce with the government.Monday, October 13: An NPA force ambushed a military truck carrying provisions to troops in Palma Gil village, Talaingod municipality, Davao del Norte in Mindanao. 2 AFP soldiers were killed in the fighting.
A photo of Talaingod municipality in Davao Norte, Mindanao. Typical Philippines tropical rainforest here. The NPA has been very active here for a very long time. They were extremely active here 17 years ago and prior and had tons of support.That's quite a bit of fighting for this usually sleepy war. A Filipina I know from Sampaloc, Manila, told me that the NPA "is recruiting everywhere now, especially at the universities." She also said that most Filipinos who live in big cities are apathetic about the conflict since it does not effect them. They dislike both the NPA and the government but are not very passionate about either party. They are almost neutral.
This sort of pragmatic fence-sitting is very common in civil conflicts. If guerrillas can get to the point where they have the support of 30% of the population, they are doing well. In the American Revolution, 1/3 supported the colonists, 1/3 supported the British and 1/3 were neutral. And the colonists won.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sendero Raids a Town in Ayahuanco
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated October 16:
Columns of the Shining Path raided villages in the Viracochán, Ayahuanco and Santillan Districts of Huanta Province in Ayacucho Department, distributing leaflets and painting slogans on the walls. This is known as armed propaganda. They have been active in this region for a very long time.
A really nice map of Ayacucho. It's all in Spanish, but no matter. One of the best maps of this area on the Internet.
If this group would completely renounce it's evil behavior of the past, when they wantonly killed men, women and children for obscure reasons, such as being neutral, executed fair employers solely for being bosses and therefore "exploiters", and on and on, maybe they could actually get somewhere.
As it is, they were so brutal and stupid for so many years that they have enemies all over Peru. It's stupid for guerrillas to kill the people. What's the point of that? Terrorize people into supporting you? Get real.
Police said that this was the first time Sendero had been in this region this year, although they have been active in La Mar.
Huanta Province is in the far north. It's a mix of Andes and jungle. Sendero has been very active here since the beginning of the war, and they never really left. Many people left in the mid-1980's due to the war and went to Lima and they started coming back in the mid-1990's.
It's really the northern half of Ayacucho that has seen all the fighting - La Mar, Ayahuanco, Victor Fajardo, Huanta, Huamanga, Cangallo, Sucre, Huancasancos, Vilcashuaman. The war started in Cangallo Province on May 17, 1980.
A photo from President Alan Garcia's previous term, apparently taken in Ayahuanco. Those are peasants lined up against the side of the road for some creepy reason. Sendero's brutality was probably exceeded by the military, but you would never know that from reading most histories of the war.
A convent in Huanta Province, Ayacucho. Pretty typical terrain for the region. It's more forest than Andes.
Some of you may be wondering why I am writing so much about Sendero. It's not that I support them, love them, hate them, or am even obsessed with them. It's similar to why I write a lot about Jews. I ended up reading and learning a lot about Jews for several years, so now I know a lot about them and they are interesting to me.
I have been studying Sendero for around 20 years now and I have read almost every book that has ever been written on them, plus many magazine articles and pieces on the Internet. So I'm sort of an amateur Senderologist.
I will say that the Peruvian system in general is complete shit and needs to be gotten rid of - I would go so far as to say wipe it off the face of the Earth. Some sort of revolution is probably the only way to do that, but I am not sure if these Sendero crazies are the folks to do not. I've always been bothered by their cruelty and fanaticism.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Updated October 16:
Columns of the Shining Path raided villages in the Viracochán, Ayahuanco and Santillan Districts of Huanta Province in Ayacucho Department, distributing leaflets and painting slogans on the walls. This is known as armed propaganda. They have been active in this region for a very long time.
A really nice map of Ayacucho. It's all in Spanish, but no matter. One of the best maps of this area on the Internet.If this group would completely renounce it's evil behavior of the past, when they wantonly killed men, women and children for obscure reasons, such as being neutral, executed fair employers solely for being bosses and therefore "exploiters", and on and on, maybe they could actually get somewhere.
As it is, they were so brutal and stupid for so many years that they have enemies all over Peru. It's stupid for guerrillas to kill the people. What's the point of that? Terrorize people into supporting you? Get real.
Police said that this was the first time Sendero had been in this region this year, although they have been active in La Mar.
Huanta Province is in the far north. It's a mix of Andes and jungle. Sendero has been very active here since the beginning of the war, and they never really left. Many people left in the mid-1980's due to the war and went to Lima and they started coming back in the mid-1990's.It's really the northern half of Ayacucho that has seen all the fighting - La Mar, Ayahuanco, Victor Fajardo, Huanta, Huamanga, Cangallo, Sucre, Huancasancos, Vilcashuaman. The war started in Cangallo Province on May 17, 1980.
A photo from President Alan Garcia's previous term, apparently taken in Ayahuanco. Those are peasants lined up against the side of the road for some creepy reason. Sendero's brutality was probably exceeded by the military, but you would never know that from reading most histories of the war.
A convent in Huanta Province, Ayacucho. Pretty typical terrain for the region. It's more forest than Andes.Some of you may be wondering why I am writing so much about Sendero. It's not that I support them, love them, hate them, or am even obsessed with them. It's similar to why I write a lot about Jews. I ended up reading and learning a lot about Jews for several years, so now I know a lot about them and they are interesting to me.
I have been studying Sendero for around 20 years now and I have read almost every book that has ever been written on them, plus many magazine articles and pieces on the Internet. So I'm sort of an amateur Senderologist.
I will say that the Peruvian system in general is complete shit and needs to be gotten rid of - I would go so far as to say wipe it off the face of the Earth. Some sort of revolution is probably the only way to do that, but I am not sure if these Sendero crazies are the folks to do not. I've always been bothered by their cruelty and fanaticism.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
New Fighting in Peru and the Philippines
According to World War 4 Report , fighting between government troops and Shining Path guerrillas on Saturday, October 12, 2008, in Mazangaro, in Junín Department, killed one government soldier. This area is in the Vrae, the region where the Apurimac and Ene Rivers come together. It's Amazonian rain forest.
The Peruvian military has lost 16 troops along with 8 wounded in four days.
Photos of the Vrae are on this blog here.
Meanwhile, on October 7, in Sitio Kapihan, Barangay Concepcion in Valencia municipality of Bukidnon Province on Mindanao Island, the NPA detonated a roadside bomb against a military vehicle from the Army’s 29th Infantry Battalion, wounding 3 AFP soldiers. Afterward, there was a 5-minute firefight ensued between soldiers and NPA fighters from Front Committee 6.
A photo of a peasant in Valencia municipality, Bukidnon Province, Mindanao. Photo by Bobby Timonera. This could be Guatemala or Ecuador.
Things seem to be hotting up in both Peru and the Philippines lately. A Filipina friend of mine told me yesterday that the NPA are "recruiting everywhere" now, especially on university campuses. A lot of urban Filipinos are apathetic about the conflict and tend towards neutrality. They don't like the NPA much, but they don't really hate them either. Most of them don't seem to think much of the state either.
In Peru, a lot of peasants are pretty much neutral too. There is widespread contempt for the Peruvian state and Peruvian capitalism, which has completely failed to develop the country or provide a bare minimum of a living standard for most people.
I assume there is a draft in both countries. If I were an average Peruvian or Filipino drafted into the military to fight guerrillas, I think I would legitimately ask what the Hell I was even fighting for anyway. I would ask that even if I had little sympathy for the rebels. Why the Hell should I fight and die for a venal, corrupt oligarchy that has been doing nothing but screwing me and mine for decades or centuries. Gimme a reason.
The Peruvian military has lost 16 troops along with 8 wounded in four days.
Photos of the Vrae are on this blog here.
Meanwhile, on October 7, in Sitio Kapihan, Barangay Concepcion in Valencia municipality of Bukidnon Province on Mindanao Island, the NPA detonated a roadside bomb against a military vehicle from the Army’s 29th Infantry Battalion, wounding 3 AFP soldiers. Afterward, there was a 5-minute firefight ensued between soldiers and NPA fighters from Front Committee 6.
A photo of a peasant in Valencia municipality, Bukidnon Province, Mindanao. Photo by Bobby Timonera. This could be Guatemala or Ecuador.Things seem to be hotting up in both Peru and the Philippines lately. A Filipina friend of mine told me yesterday that the NPA are "recruiting everywhere" now, especially on university campuses. A lot of urban Filipinos are apathetic about the conflict and tend towards neutrality. They don't like the NPA much, but they don't really hate them either. Most of them don't seem to think much of the state either.
In Peru, a lot of peasants are pretty much neutral too. There is widespread contempt for the Peruvian state and Peruvian capitalism, which has completely failed to develop the country or provide a bare minimum of a living standard for most people.
I assume there is a draft in both countries. If I were an average Peruvian or Filipino drafted into the military to fight guerrillas, I think I would legitimately ask what the Hell I was even fighting for anyway. I would ask that even if I had little sympathy for the rebels. Why the Hell should I fight and die for a venal, corrupt oligarchy that has been doing nothing but screwing me and mine for decades or centuries. Gimme a reason.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Sendero Stages Deadliest Attack in 10 Years
On Thursday night, October 9, 2008, Shining Path guerrillas attacked a Peruvian military column as it sounded a bend in Tintaypunco, in the Tayacava Province in Huancavelica Department.
A map of Tayacava Province in Huancavelica Department. It's part of the Vrae region of Amazonian rain forest.
The attack left 13 soldiers and 2 civilians dead (earlier reports of 12 soldiers and 7 civilians killed were wrong) and 11 others wounded (8 soldiers and 3 civilians).
The civilians were being transported by the military convoy. The convoy was returning to the Cochabamba Grande military base when it was hit.
A typical road in the Vrae region. Not much, is it? The convoy was probably traveling on a road like this when it was hit.
Sendero attacked the convoy of four trucks with a roadside bomb first, then followed up with automatic weapons fire. The result was a battle that lasted for hours. Vizcatán is in the far northwest corner of Ayacucho Province, in the La Mar District.
A map of the Vizcatán region where Junin, Huancavelica and Ayacucho all come together in the Vrae. Sendero has been holed up here forever and there doesn't seem to be any way to get rid of them.
The previous day, Sendero attacked a military vehicle in Vizcatán, killing 1 soldier.
So far, the offensive has killed 20 soldiers and left 27 more wounded.
Last month, the army said it killed 5 Senderistas on September 14 in Vizcatán, but the rebels denied it. It now appears that the army killed 5 farmers instead. The area of the killings was in Pichis Río Seco, Huarcatán municipality, Ayahuanco District, Huanta Province in Ayacucho Department.
The area is in the jungle near where the Ene and Apurimac Rivers merge, known as the Vrae in Spanish.
A photo of the Apurimac River in the Amazon jungle of Peru. Pretty good sized river, no? A typical swollen, muddy Amazonian river.
Vizcatán is the name of a mountain in the area, a stronghold of Senderistas. Sendero Luminoso has been here for a very long time, and to be honest, they have never been dislodged.
This is a photo of the Vrae region, where the Apurimac and Ene Rivers come together. Amazonian rain forest.
Army forces have recently been carrying out an offensive in the area in the usual fashion, destroying any villages they come upon and and "disappearing" several civilians accused of "links to the guerrillas", whatever that means. Disappearing in this case usually means they are taken away to be killed.
"It is no secret to anyone that Vizcatán is a complicated conflict zone," said Defense Minister Antero Flores-Araoz. "All the people who were in Vizcatán were terrorists, narco-terrorists or collaborators."
Great guy. Any civilian in the area is a collaborator. Kill him. I guess then Sendero has a right to kill any civilian who "collaborates" with the state then? See where this BS mindset heads?
Typical residents of the Vrae. They are very much Amerindian. Wow, they even paint their faces. Guerrillas have actually gotten a fair amount of support from the Indians in the region. They've been treated like shit for hundreds of years. They were slaves far up into the 20th Century, enslaved by rubber tappers who first came to the region in the late 1800's.
This was how this brutal war was fought for many years. 70,000 were killed in this war and though over 50% of the deaths are blamed on guerrillas, actually, the overwhelming majority of the "civilians" killed by Sendero were members of rural militia called rondas.
Sendero now has an estimated strength of 800, quadrupled from 200 in recent years. Abimael Guzman, otherwise known as Presidente Gonzalo, is thought to be directing the war once again through visits to his attorney. He was denied all contact for many years, but now he is being allowed to talk to his lawyer. He supposedly renounced armed struggle in recent years, but I guess he has changed his mind.
I fear that Sendero may be making a comeback at some of the universities that it more or less took over 20 years ago. There's some strange rhetoric in the air and some scary posters on the walls at the University of San Marcos these days. A few years back, I heard Sendero was recruiting in the shantytowns of Lima again. Flush with drug money, they are offering good salaries to join the guerrilla army.
The Los Angeles Times describes the situation in Peru as "deteriorating into virtual civil war". That's probably about right.
This is one hardcore, badass, bunch of crazy guerrillas. They nearly took over in 1992. I don't support them at all, at least not in their former form.
The new Sendero is supposedly on a lot better behavior, paying for livestock and other things from villagers instead of just taking them, and having a much more civilized attitude towards the masses. They are apologizing for their brutal behavior of the past, and in some cases, they are being forgiven and gaining some support again.
Most peasants in these areas are pretty much neutral. The state has never done crap for them anyway, and the guerrillas are often just local men and women. The two main areas of strength these days are the Vrae and the Upper Huallaga Valley.
Sendero is taxing and protecting the coca (cocaine) trade here bigtime, and they are starting to make a lot of money. The government says that Sendero has abandoned its ideology and turned into drug-runners. That sounds dubious to me.
If you want to read some of the most fanatical armed Leftist revolutionaries out there, check out Red Sun, published by the Peru People's Movement, which, in my opinion, is just the Shining Path. Whether it's the Shining Path inside Peru (dubious) or the Shining Path supporters and former leadership outside Peru, especially in Europe, is up in the air.
I suspect that this is published by the Shining Path support committee in Sweden. Anyway, for all intents and purposes, it's just Sendero.
Radical enough for you? They hate the NPA in the Philippines. Sellouts. They despise the revisionists in North Korea. A monarchy and a cult (Well, I do agree with that much). They pour scorn on the Nepalese Maoists. Sellouts, having given up Maoism for parliamentary cretinism. (See Lenin, Two Letters). Hugo Chavez? Fascist. Evo Morales? Same, fascist.
This stuff is nuts, endless ranting and raving, but it's entertaining reading. It's very well-written. The writers are Peruvian intellectuals with a lot of knowledge of economics, history, political science, etc., with a deep emphasis on Peru. One wonders that Peru must have a really horrible system to produce such a fanatical and furious bunch of revolutionaries.
A recent PPP communique is here.
A map of Tayacava Province in Huancavelica Department. It's part of the Vrae region of Amazonian rain forest.The attack left 13 soldiers and 2 civilians dead (earlier reports of 12 soldiers and 7 civilians killed were wrong) and 11 others wounded (8 soldiers and 3 civilians).
The civilians were being transported by the military convoy. The convoy was returning to the Cochabamba Grande military base when it was hit.
A typical road in the Vrae region. Not much, is it? The convoy was probably traveling on a road like this when it was hit.Sendero attacked the convoy of four trucks with a roadside bomb first, then followed up with automatic weapons fire. The result was a battle that lasted for hours. Vizcatán is in the far northwest corner of Ayacucho Province, in the La Mar District.
A map of the Vizcatán region where Junin, Huancavelica and Ayacucho all come together in the Vrae. Sendero has been holed up here forever and there doesn't seem to be any way to get rid of them.The previous day, Sendero attacked a military vehicle in Vizcatán, killing 1 soldier.
So far, the offensive has killed 20 soldiers and left 27 more wounded.
Last month, the army said it killed 5 Senderistas on September 14 in Vizcatán, but the rebels denied it. It now appears that the army killed 5 farmers instead. The area of the killings was in Pichis Río Seco, Huarcatán municipality, Ayahuanco District, Huanta Province in Ayacucho Department.
The area is in the jungle near where the Ene and Apurimac Rivers merge, known as the Vrae in Spanish.
A photo of the Apurimac River in the Amazon jungle of Peru. Pretty good sized river, no? A typical swollen, muddy Amazonian river.Vizcatán is the name of a mountain in the area, a stronghold of Senderistas. Sendero Luminoso has been here for a very long time, and to be honest, they have never been dislodged.
This is a photo of the Vrae region, where the Apurimac and Ene Rivers come together. Amazonian rain forest.Army forces have recently been carrying out an offensive in the area in the usual fashion, destroying any villages they come upon and and "disappearing" several civilians accused of "links to the guerrillas", whatever that means. Disappearing in this case usually means they are taken away to be killed.
"It is no secret to anyone that Vizcatán is a complicated conflict zone," said Defense Minister Antero Flores-Araoz. "All the people who were in Vizcatán were terrorists, narco-terrorists or collaborators."
Great guy. Any civilian in the area is a collaborator. Kill him. I guess then Sendero has a right to kill any civilian who "collaborates" with the state then? See where this BS mindset heads?
Typical residents of the Vrae. They are very much Amerindian. Wow, they even paint their faces. Guerrillas have actually gotten a fair amount of support from the Indians in the region. They've been treated like shit for hundreds of years. They were slaves far up into the 20th Century, enslaved by rubber tappers who first came to the region in the late 1800's.This was how this brutal war was fought for many years. 70,000 were killed in this war and though over 50% of the deaths are blamed on guerrillas, actually, the overwhelming majority of the "civilians" killed by Sendero were members of rural militia called rondas.
Sendero now has an estimated strength of 800, quadrupled from 200 in recent years. Abimael Guzman, otherwise known as Presidente Gonzalo, is thought to be directing the war once again through visits to his attorney. He was denied all contact for many years, but now he is being allowed to talk to his lawyer. He supposedly renounced armed struggle in recent years, but I guess he has changed his mind.
I fear that Sendero may be making a comeback at some of the universities that it more or less took over 20 years ago. There's some strange rhetoric in the air and some scary posters on the walls at the University of San Marcos these days. A few years back, I heard Sendero was recruiting in the shantytowns of Lima again. Flush with drug money, they are offering good salaries to join the guerrilla army.
The Los Angeles Times describes the situation in Peru as "deteriorating into virtual civil war". That's probably about right.
This is one hardcore, badass, bunch of crazy guerrillas. They nearly took over in 1992. I don't support them at all, at least not in their former form.
The new Sendero is supposedly on a lot better behavior, paying for livestock and other things from villagers instead of just taking them, and having a much more civilized attitude towards the masses. They are apologizing for their brutal behavior of the past, and in some cases, they are being forgiven and gaining some support again.
Most peasants in these areas are pretty much neutral. The state has never done crap for them anyway, and the guerrillas are often just local men and women. The two main areas of strength these days are the Vrae and the Upper Huallaga Valley.
Sendero is taxing and protecting the coca (cocaine) trade here bigtime, and they are starting to make a lot of money. The government says that Sendero has abandoned its ideology and turned into drug-runners. That sounds dubious to me.
If you want to read some of the most fanatical armed Leftist revolutionaries out there, check out Red Sun, published by the Peru People's Movement, which, in my opinion, is just the Shining Path. Whether it's the Shining Path inside Peru (dubious) or the Shining Path supporters and former leadership outside Peru, especially in Europe, is up in the air.
I suspect that this is published by the Shining Path support committee in Sweden. Anyway, for all intents and purposes, it's just Sendero.
Radical enough for you? They hate the NPA in the Philippines. Sellouts. They despise the revisionists in North Korea. A monarchy and a cult (Well, I do agree with that much). They pour scorn on the Nepalese Maoists. Sellouts, having given up Maoism for parliamentary cretinism. (See Lenin, Two Letters). Hugo Chavez? Fascist. Evo Morales? Same, fascist.
This stuff is nuts, endless ranting and raving, but it's entertaining reading. It's very well-written. The writers are Peruvian intellectuals with a lot of knowledge of economics, history, political science, etc., with a deep emphasis on Peru. One wonders that Peru must have a really horrible system to produce such a fanatical and furious bunch of revolutionaries.
A recent PPP communique is here.
Bill Ayers, Rapist
Evidence here (Hat tip Entitled To An Opinion). I realize he's unrepentant about the bombings (Good for him!) but I sure hope he's repentant about this nefarious act.
It was long known that the New Left was full of a bunch of guys who spouted all the feminist bullshit when on prime time but when the doors were shut, were complete sexist pricks. "The best place in the movement for the women is on their backs." Geez, that's really crappy.
I still get chills thinking about Eldridge Cleaver, who was just nothing but a Black rapist criminal who especially loved to rape White women like so many Black rapists, defending rape (of White women) as an "insurrectionary act" in Soul on Ice. Oh, screw you, Eldridge. It's sad that books like that even got famous.
"I'm a Black criminal, I love to rape women because I'm evil, but the racist system made me rape White women." Nothing but criminals seeking to justify their behavior like they always do. Cleaver changed his name and calmed down.
Recall that I was a hippie back in the 1970's, when California dopers and longhairs looked up to a lot of these radicals like heroes. My friends were in the Brotherhood of Eternal Love in Laguna Beach where Timothy Leary and his pals cooked up huge doses of Orange Sunshine LSD and distributed it to the world. These guys were living in treehouses in Laguna Canyon in the 1970's and selling vast qualities of acid.
We ran around quoting Timothy Leary, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and believing that pot and psychedelics would transform mankind for the better.
I remember once I opened my top drawer and there were 1,000 hits of LSD in there. I ran around with pounds of psilocybin mushrooms in my briefcase, disguised as an office worker, or in my gym bag, disguised as a yuppie going to the gym. I never got caught and it was all in good fun. My friends knew Timothy and Rosemary Leary and used to hang out at his house in the Hollywood Hills.
I've known that Ayers raped a woman for some time now. I don't think I've ever done anything that evil.
I did support the Weathermen bombings though, and I still do. They only did property damage, they gave warning calls, and no one got hurt. In Summer 1980, I was riding around Long Beach, California on my bike, stoned out of my mind, with Prairie Fire Organizing Committee and a big red star scrawled on my t-shirt, pissing off rednecks.
Other than that, they were a bunch of New Left ultra-wackos. I recall a Weatherman standing up at some party meeting and saying that all White women must abort their White babies in order to drive the White race into extinction. This is where these clowns were really coming from. They were in with the really radical Black Separatist Black Power crazies from Day One.
One of their 1970's splits was called the George Jackson Brigade. All of the communiques of the George Jackson brigade are here (cool link!). I think that the GJB is nothing but the WU in the mid-1970's. As you can see, these nutjobs were allied with the Symbionese Liberation Army insane people. Patty Hearst and all that. It was a great time to be a Californian.
Note also where they say that 50% of the women in the movement were lesbians. Well, of course. That's one more reason these idiots leave me cold.
Jackson was some Black criminal who got sent to prison for armed robbery. While there, he turned into a radical and decided it was all the system's fault. Later, Angela Davis helped smuggle guns into a courtroom, and a judge got murdered. She got off, too, and so did her radical White attorney who smuggled the guns in in a wig or something.
Later, after more splits, the remains teamed up with Black Liberation Army separatist assholes, robbed a Brinks truck and murdered a cop and seriously wounded the Brinks driver.
As an aside, I used to subscribe to the journal of their above ground journal, called Breakthrough, published by the John Brown Book Club, in the late 1980's. The journal was actually OK. I subscribed just to piss off as many people as possible and as part of my ongoing effort to act as evil as I can legally get away with.
These guys were funny. I would write them a check for $6, and it would never clear. I would wonder what happened, until finally, 10 months later, they finally cash the $6 check. I guess they're a bunch of Commies who don't care about money.
PFOC is apparently still active in Seattle politics.
This interesting, but extremely radical blog seems to be coming from a similar point of view. They call themselves Maoist-Third Worldists. They often see workers in the First World as a de facto pro-imperialist grouping that is actively attacking Third World workers. I would not exactly put it that way, but sadly there is a bit of truth to that.
These characters are also some of the only folks out there anymore who will ferociously take on nationalism itself, not ultranationalism, not national-chauvinism, but, yes, nationalism itself, as a load of reactionary crap. There are times when I find myself nodding sadly.
They also say that what needs to be done is to get the Third World together and smash the First World. It's First World versus Third World, and it's a war, dammit. You find a lot of White nationalists on the Right insisting that this is the real Commie agenda, but I've been around Left circles for years and at least hardly ever heard anyone come out and say it. These guys are the real deal.
Does the Third World need to smash the Third World. As a 1st Worlder, I'm obviously biased. Um? I don't know? Camp of Saints, anyone?
Anyway, these guys are raising some pretty interesting questions, at the very least!
Just because someone is a radical doesn't mean he always has his head up his ass. Sometimes a radical is the just the only one nuts and ballsy enough to say what's really true. Everyone else has been brainwashed by whatever the Zeitgeist of the culture is.
In case they are still in business, here's where you order. Fight Republican dirty tricks! Become a Weather Underground supporter today! Haha.
Prairie Fire Organizing Committee
Breakthrough
PO Box 14422
San Francisco, CA 94114
$6 per year (4 issues)
Also: John Brown Book Club
Self-Description: Supports liberation of internal Black colony
Comments: Armed Struggle now. Descendant of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO, "The Weathermen").
It was long known that the New Left was full of a bunch of guys who spouted all the feminist bullshit when on prime time but when the doors were shut, were complete sexist pricks. "The best place in the movement for the women is on their backs." Geez, that's really crappy.
I still get chills thinking about Eldridge Cleaver, who was just nothing but a Black rapist criminal who especially loved to rape White women like so many Black rapists, defending rape (of White women) as an "insurrectionary act" in Soul on Ice. Oh, screw you, Eldridge. It's sad that books like that even got famous.
"I'm a Black criminal, I love to rape women because I'm evil, but the racist system made me rape White women." Nothing but criminals seeking to justify their behavior like they always do. Cleaver changed his name and calmed down.
Recall that I was a hippie back in the 1970's, when California dopers and longhairs looked up to a lot of these radicals like heroes. My friends were in the Brotherhood of Eternal Love in Laguna Beach where Timothy Leary and his pals cooked up huge doses of Orange Sunshine LSD and distributed it to the world. These guys were living in treehouses in Laguna Canyon in the 1970's and selling vast qualities of acid.
We ran around quoting Timothy Leary, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and believing that pot and psychedelics would transform mankind for the better.
I remember once I opened my top drawer and there were 1,000 hits of LSD in there. I ran around with pounds of psilocybin mushrooms in my briefcase, disguised as an office worker, or in my gym bag, disguised as a yuppie going to the gym. I never got caught and it was all in good fun. My friends knew Timothy and Rosemary Leary and used to hang out at his house in the Hollywood Hills.
I've known that Ayers raped a woman for some time now. I don't think I've ever done anything that evil.
I did support the Weathermen bombings though, and I still do. They only did property damage, they gave warning calls, and no one got hurt. In Summer 1980, I was riding around Long Beach, California on my bike, stoned out of my mind, with Prairie Fire Organizing Committee and a big red star scrawled on my t-shirt, pissing off rednecks.
Other than that, they were a bunch of New Left ultra-wackos. I recall a Weatherman standing up at some party meeting and saying that all White women must abort their White babies in order to drive the White race into extinction. This is where these clowns were really coming from. They were in with the really radical Black Separatist Black Power crazies from Day One.
One of their 1970's splits was called the George Jackson Brigade. All of the communiques of the George Jackson brigade are here (cool link!). I think that the GJB is nothing but the WU in the mid-1970's. As you can see, these nutjobs were allied with the Symbionese Liberation Army insane people. Patty Hearst and all that. It was a great time to be a Californian.
Note also where they say that 50% of the women in the movement were lesbians. Well, of course. That's one more reason these idiots leave me cold.
Jackson was some Black criminal who got sent to prison for armed robbery. While there, he turned into a radical and decided it was all the system's fault. Later, Angela Davis helped smuggle guns into a courtroom, and a judge got murdered. She got off, too, and so did her radical White attorney who smuggled the guns in in a wig or something.
Later, after more splits, the remains teamed up with Black Liberation Army separatist assholes, robbed a Brinks truck and murdered a cop and seriously wounded the Brinks driver.
As an aside, I used to subscribe to the journal of their above ground journal, called Breakthrough, published by the John Brown Book Club, in the late 1980's. The journal was actually OK. I subscribed just to piss off as many people as possible and as part of my ongoing effort to act as evil as I can legally get away with.
These guys were funny. I would write them a check for $6, and it would never clear. I would wonder what happened, until finally, 10 months later, they finally cash the $6 check. I guess they're a bunch of Commies who don't care about money.
PFOC is apparently still active in Seattle politics.
This interesting, but extremely radical blog seems to be coming from a similar point of view. They call themselves Maoist-Third Worldists. They often see workers in the First World as a de facto pro-imperialist grouping that is actively attacking Third World workers. I would not exactly put it that way, but sadly there is a bit of truth to that.
These characters are also some of the only folks out there anymore who will ferociously take on nationalism itself, not ultranationalism, not national-chauvinism, but, yes, nationalism itself, as a load of reactionary crap. There are times when I find myself nodding sadly.
They also say that what needs to be done is to get the Third World together and smash the First World. It's First World versus Third World, and it's a war, dammit. You find a lot of White nationalists on the Right insisting that this is the real Commie agenda, but I've been around Left circles for years and at least hardly ever heard anyone come out and say it. These guys are the real deal.
Does the Third World need to smash the Third World. As a 1st Worlder, I'm obviously biased. Um? I don't know? Camp of Saints, anyone?
Anyway, these guys are raising some pretty interesting questions, at the very least!
Just because someone is a radical doesn't mean he always has his head up his ass. Sometimes a radical is the just the only one nuts and ballsy enough to say what's really true. Everyone else has been brainwashed by whatever the Zeitgeist of the culture is.
In case they are still in business, here's where you order. Fight Republican dirty tricks! Become a Weather Underground supporter today! Haha.
Prairie Fire Organizing Committee
Breakthrough
PO Box 14422
San Francisco, CA 94114
$6 per year (4 issues)
Also: John Brown Book Club
Self-Description: Supports liberation of internal Black colony
Comments: Armed Struggle now. Descendant of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO, "The Weathermen").
References
Jacobs, Ron. 1997. The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. London & New York: Verso.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
The NPA Hammers the AFP In Mindinao
In the last 2 weeks of September, there was very heavy fighting in Mindanao between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the New People's Army (NPA).
This blog strongly supports the NPA because we feel that capitalism in the Philippines has completely failed, seems destined to continue to fail into the foreseeable future, and it's time to give something else a try. In other words, capitalism in the Philippines has had a good 100-200 years or so, and it's done nothing but fail. Just how much more time do we need to give it until the experiment finally starts working?
Capitalism in the Philippines seems hopeless. A tiny, corrupt, semi-feudal, murderous elite monopolizes almost all of the land and most of the wealth.
Any attempts to make the situation the slightest bit more fair or democratic are met with repression, arrests, harassment, beatings torture, and murder. Hence, all peaceful avenues for change have been blocked and will continue to be blocked into the foreseeable future. In cases like this, armed struggle becomes a clear and logical option.
The NPA themselves have said that if there were a democratic opening for their movement, they might just lay down their arms. Factions of the NPA have broken off many times in the past few decades to try to run for office. Most have suffered repression and many have been killed outright. However, the NPA even has supporters in the Philippines Legislature, so the situation has become more democratic in recent years.
The corrupt, closed and semi-feudal nature of the Filipino elite has made it almost impossible to develop this country into a modern industrialized nation. Similarities with Nepal, Peru, Bolivia, Indonesia, India and other backwards 3rd World capitalist wrecks are appropriate.
The NPA is a vast movement with probably many millions of supporters across the Philippines. These are mostly in the rural areas, but there are also some in urban slums. It's pretty typical for militant students at the University of the Philippines to drop out at some point and head off into the hills to join the NPA.
In many areas, the NPA is the de facto government. Local producers and businesses must pay revolutionary taxes in order to operate in these areas, and workers' efforts to achieve higher wages are often negotiated through NPA intermediaries.
I had a Filipino physician back in the mid-1990's who was an NPA sympathizer, despite the fact that he made a very good income in the US. He said that a number of the kids he grew up with had joined the NPA. They had wanted him to join too after he got his MD, but he had declined.
He said that if you go to his rural village, you have to go through numerous rebel checkpoints. Along the way, you will see NPA forces walking down the side of the road with uniforms and machine guns as if nothing is out of the ordinary.
The size of the NPA is controversial, but I figure they have at least 20,000 regular forces under arms. Part-time militias probably number into the 100,000's. The support base is huge, surely in the millions.
The NPA is surely not as large as it was about 20 years ago. A series of insane and murderous purges badly damaged the movement and led many people to quit in disgust. The purges ended quite a while ago.
The NPA closely follows the rules of warfare and even refuses to use land mines, as they are considered banned weapons. In many attacks, government forces and police just surrender and give up their guns, because the NPA treats prisoners very well. In such cases, the local cops or soldiers are just disarmed, offered a chance to join the NPA and released if they choose not to.
The Bush Administration has labeled the NPA a terrorist organization, but that's a load of shit. They're one of the cleanest-fighting armies on Earth.
Being an archipelago, it's hard to supply the NPA with weaponry. Hence the NPA has to rely a lot on seized weapons.
It's true that the NPA has had serious problems making inroads with ordinary working class and middle class Filipinos in the big cities, most of whom dislike the movement without despising it. They simply see no value for themselves in the NPA project. This is a failure of the NPA in articulating how their project can benefit the average middle class to working class person in the big cities.
The NPA supports religion and has cultivated a friendly movement with the armed Moros in Mindanao (the sane ones anyway). There is a vast NPA support base in lay workers, parishioners and even priests in the country. Most cadres are Catholics and many priests openly support the movement, take up arms along with fighters, and minister over fighters and villagers in the base areas.
The NPA strongly supports women's rights, of course, but oddly for Maoists, they also support gay rights. This has been used by supporters of the Philippines government to portray the NPA as radical and out of step with a conservative, Catholic country.
Truth is that the Filipinos, despite the Catholicism and machismo, are easy-going SE Asians with a fairly open attitude about sex, in particular male homosexuality, which is widely accepted in Manila anyway.
Two NPA comrades getting married and sealing their marriage vows with a kiss. The NPA stunned the world when they came out for gay marriage, but really, it's a proper progressive stance. I always thought that the persecution of homosexuals by the USSR, the East Bloc, China, Cuba, Peru's Shining Path and Nepal's CPN-M was preposterous.
In the USSR, this was caused by Stalin's return to Great Russian Orthodox Christian-type social conservatism in the 1930's. The heavily-Jewish Bolsheviks from 1917-1927 actually supported gay rights.
A problem, nevertheless, is that the NPA has cultivated a seriously extremist form of Leftism that denounces most of the rest of the Left as revisionists or sell-outs. That's not so great for building movements.
In the last two weeks of September, the Brigade-size military operations in Eastern Mindanao by the composite 36th Infantry Battalion, Division Reconnaissance Company, 67th Infantry Battalion, Scout Rangers Company of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police's 1105th Provincial Mobile Force were hit head-on in the series of tactical offensives by the NPA under the Conrado Heredia Command of the Front 20 Operations Command of the NPA.
The AFP suffered 19 killed and 20 wounded in these operations. This area is in the mountains along the border of Surigao del Sur and Davao Oriental in west-central Mindanao on the coast.
Illegal logging in Bisling, Mindanao, on the coast near Linging where the heavy fighting took place last week. As you can see, this area is a tropical forest.
These logging trucks are waiting along the side of the road for the idiotic police to shut down their roadblocks at 5 PM (They go home for the day!). Then they will transport their illegal logs (all logging here is illegal) to a local paper mill after dark where the logs will be unloaded. Everyone knows what is going on here, but no one does anything about it. What a stupid, fucked-up, chaotic, corrupt, dysfunctional mess of a country. Photo credit Bob Martin.
September 22: the NPA launched two operations against the AFP: one against the 36th IB-AFP detachment in Cabunsuan in Linging township, and later, an ambush on AFP reinforcements.
September 24, 3:15 pm: The NPA ambushed the AFP in Bogak, also in Linging township in Surigao del Sur.
September 30: The NPA fighters engaged the AFP in Sumilao in Boston township, Davao Oriental.
During the offensives, one NPA fighter was wounded and later died of his wounds.
In the Surigao del Sur-Davao Oriental border area, the AFP troops are protecting American-Australian -owned Omega Gold and the gold mining ambitions of Asia's largest paper mill, PICOP. These multinational operations don't do anything for the locals, but the Filipino elite rakes in big money via their relationship with foreign capital.
NPA official website (really cool).
Official website of NPA Bicol Region (very well done).
This blog strongly supports the NPA because we feel that capitalism in the Philippines has completely failed, seems destined to continue to fail into the foreseeable future, and it's time to give something else a try. In other words, capitalism in the Philippines has had a good 100-200 years or so, and it's done nothing but fail. Just how much more time do we need to give it until the experiment finally starts working?
Capitalism in the Philippines seems hopeless. A tiny, corrupt, semi-feudal, murderous elite monopolizes almost all of the land and most of the wealth.
Any attempts to make the situation the slightest bit more fair or democratic are met with repression, arrests, harassment, beatings torture, and murder. Hence, all peaceful avenues for change have been blocked and will continue to be blocked into the foreseeable future. In cases like this, armed struggle becomes a clear and logical option.
The NPA themselves have said that if there were a democratic opening for their movement, they might just lay down their arms. Factions of the NPA have broken off many times in the past few decades to try to run for office. Most have suffered repression and many have been killed outright. However, the NPA even has supporters in the Philippines Legislature, so the situation has become more democratic in recent years.
The corrupt, closed and semi-feudal nature of the Filipino elite has made it almost impossible to develop this country into a modern industrialized nation. Similarities with Nepal, Peru, Bolivia, Indonesia, India and other backwards 3rd World capitalist wrecks are appropriate.
The NPA is a vast movement with probably many millions of supporters across the Philippines. These are mostly in the rural areas, but there are also some in urban slums. It's pretty typical for militant students at the University of the Philippines to drop out at some point and head off into the hills to join the NPA.
In many areas, the NPA is the de facto government. Local producers and businesses must pay revolutionary taxes in order to operate in these areas, and workers' efforts to achieve higher wages are often negotiated through NPA intermediaries.
I had a Filipino physician back in the mid-1990's who was an NPA sympathizer, despite the fact that he made a very good income in the US. He said that a number of the kids he grew up with had joined the NPA. They had wanted him to join too after he got his MD, but he had declined.
He said that if you go to his rural village, you have to go through numerous rebel checkpoints. Along the way, you will see NPA forces walking down the side of the road with uniforms and machine guns as if nothing is out of the ordinary.
The size of the NPA is controversial, but I figure they have at least 20,000 regular forces under arms. Part-time militias probably number into the 100,000's. The support base is huge, surely in the millions.
The NPA is surely not as large as it was about 20 years ago. A series of insane and murderous purges badly damaged the movement and led many people to quit in disgust. The purges ended quite a while ago.
The NPA closely follows the rules of warfare and even refuses to use land mines, as they are considered banned weapons. In many attacks, government forces and police just surrender and give up their guns, because the NPA treats prisoners very well. In such cases, the local cops or soldiers are just disarmed, offered a chance to join the NPA and released if they choose not to.
The Bush Administration has labeled the NPA a terrorist organization, but that's a load of shit. They're one of the cleanest-fighting armies on Earth.
Being an archipelago, it's hard to supply the NPA with weaponry. Hence the NPA has to rely a lot on seized weapons.
It's true that the NPA has had serious problems making inroads with ordinary working class and middle class Filipinos in the big cities, most of whom dislike the movement without despising it. They simply see no value for themselves in the NPA project. This is a failure of the NPA in articulating how their project can benefit the average middle class to working class person in the big cities.
The NPA supports religion and has cultivated a friendly movement with the armed Moros in Mindanao (the sane ones anyway). There is a vast NPA support base in lay workers, parishioners and even priests in the country. Most cadres are Catholics and many priests openly support the movement, take up arms along with fighters, and minister over fighters and villagers in the base areas.
The NPA strongly supports women's rights, of course, but oddly for Maoists, they also support gay rights. This has been used by supporters of the Philippines government to portray the NPA as radical and out of step with a conservative, Catholic country.
Truth is that the Filipinos, despite the Catholicism and machismo, are easy-going SE Asians with a fairly open attitude about sex, in particular male homosexuality, which is widely accepted in Manila anyway.
Two NPA comrades getting married and sealing their marriage vows with a kiss. The NPA stunned the world when they came out for gay marriage, but really, it's a proper progressive stance. I always thought that the persecution of homosexuals by the USSR, the East Bloc, China, Cuba, Peru's Shining Path and Nepal's CPN-M was preposterous.In the USSR, this was caused by Stalin's return to Great Russian Orthodox Christian-type social conservatism in the 1930's. The heavily-Jewish Bolsheviks from 1917-1927 actually supported gay rights.
A problem, nevertheless, is that the NPA has cultivated a seriously extremist form of Leftism that denounces most of the rest of the Left as revisionists or sell-outs. That's not so great for building movements.
In the last two weeks of September, the Brigade-size military operations in Eastern Mindanao by the composite 36th Infantry Battalion, Division Reconnaissance Company, 67th Infantry Battalion, Scout Rangers Company of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police's 1105th Provincial Mobile Force were hit head-on in the series of tactical offensives by the NPA under the Conrado Heredia Command of the Front 20 Operations Command of the NPA.
The AFP suffered 19 killed and 20 wounded in these operations. This area is in the mountains along the border of Surigao del Sur and Davao Oriental in west-central Mindanao on the coast.
Illegal logging in Bisling, Mindanao, on the coast near Linging where the heavy fighting took place last week. As you can see, this area is a tropical forest.These logging trucks are waiting along the side of the road for the idiotic police to shut down their roadblocks at 5 PM (They go home for the day!). Then they will transport their illegal logs (all logging here is illegal) to a local paper mill after dark where the logs will be unloaded. Everyone knows what is going on here, but no one does anything about it. What a stupid, fucked-up, chaotic, corrupt, dysfunctional mess of a country. Photo credit Bob Martin.
September 22: the NPA launched two operations against the AFP: one against the 36th IB-AFP detachment in Cabunsuan in Linging township, and later, an ambush on AFP reinforcements.
September 24, 3:15 pm: The NPA ambushed the AFP in Bogak, also in Linging township in Surigao del Sur.
September 30: The NPA fighters engaged the AFP in Sumilao in Boston township, Davao Oriental.
During the offensives, one NPA fighter was wounded and later died of his wounds.
In the Surigao del Sur-Davao Oriental border area, the AFP troops are protecting American-Australian -owned Omega Gold and the gold mining ambitions of Asia's largest paper mill, PICOP. These multinational operations don't do anything for the locals, but the Filipino elite rakes in big money via their relationship with foreign capital.
NPA official website (really cool).
Official website of NPA Bicol Region (very well done).
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