Reds warn of attacks vs US interests in RP

Economic interests of the United States located in the Philippines are targets of "calculated attacks" by the New People’s Army in retaliation for the Aug. 9 blacklisting by Washington of the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA as terrorist organizations, a senior CPP spokesman warned yesterday.

Gregorio Rosal, chief of the CPP’s information bureau, did not elaborate on the "calculated attacks." The blacklisting led to the freezing of the CPP-NPA’s funds.

But Rosal also alluded to the possibility of attacks against US troops who will jointly participate with Filipino soldiers in counter-insurgency operations.

At Malacañang, President Arroyo said the government would continue to consider the CPP-NPA and the National Democratic Front (NDF) as "terrorist" organizations as long as they do not renounce the "armed struggle" to gain power.

She commended the US, the Netherlands and Britain for freezing the rebel groups’ assets.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands-based Jose Ma. Sison, exiled leader of the CPP, said the "terrorist" label on the CPP-NPA was intended to "humiliate" the leadership of the communist movement and to "break up" peace talks between the Philippine government and the CPP-NPA-NDF.

In Camp Aquino in Tarlac City, the commander of the military’s Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) said "special teams" of elite soldiers have been deployed to do civic tasks such as setting up cooperatives among rural people, providing the youth with alternative education and community organizing in a bid to prevent communists from creating front groups through "barrio revolutionary committees."

Also yesterday, the Philippine Army said that two communists rebels were captured while two soldiers were wounded when Army troops from the 71st Infantry Battalion clashed with the rebels at 4 a.m. Friday.

In a statement, Rosal said the CPP-NPA could exploit the Arroyo administration’s "worsening political isolation and weakness amid worsening socio-economic crisis."

These "vulnerabilities demonstrate why and how the US and the Macapagal-Arroyo regime are bound to fail in their objective of finishing off the armed revolutionary movement in the Philippines," said Rosal, believed to be once the head of the NPA’s Mt. Banahaw Command.

The saber-rattling of the CPP-NPA leaders followed the Aug. 9 published decision by the US government on the CPP-NPA funds, which was followed by the Netherlands and Britain.

On Friday, Mrs. Arroyo said she hoped the rest of the world would follow the moves by Washington, the Hague and London.

Rosal said the "terrorist" tag was a pretext to allow increased US military involvement in the government’s anti-insurgency campaign.

In an event that US troops participate jointly with the Philippine government’s counter-insurgency drive, Rosal said "the US is bound to suffer growing casualties among American troops, who are all vulnerable targets of the tactical offensives" of the NPA.

The joint RP-US Balikatan 02-1 military exercise aimed at annihilating the Abu Sayyaf group ended on July 31. A bigger joint military anti-terror exercise is expected to begin in October.

The "blatant attempt" of the US government and the Arroyo administration to "demonize as terrorists" the CPP, NPA and NDF was meant to intimidate the rebel negotiating panel, said Sison, 64, who founded the CPP in December 1968.

He has sought asylum in the Netherlands since 1987 following his release from jail in 1986 by then President Corazon Aquino who succeeded Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos imprisoned Sison for nine years.

Philippine officials said the 12,000-member NPA also raises about P100 million every year from extortion and other illegal activities in the Philippines to finance one of the world’s longest-running insurgencies.

In her weekly radio address aired over the state-run Radyo ng Bayan, Mrs. Arroyo expressed full support for the moves by the US, the Netherlands and Britain to blacklist the CPP-NPA and to monitor their activities.

The NPA has a "primary goal" of bringing down the government and democracy through violence, she said.

She said the CPP-NPA have been participating in criminal activities such as violence against civilians, arson, extortion, assassination of political leaders, destruction of public utilities and infrastructure, communications and power lines and public transport utilities.

"We consider all these activities as acts of terrorism. And as long as the CPP has its armed component, we shall consider them as violators of our Constitution," Mrs. Arroyo said. – With reports from Marichu Villanueva, Artemio Dumlao, Benjie Villa