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By Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Chief Political
Consultant National Democratic Front of the Philippines
US Ambassador to the Philippines
Kristie Kenney is blatantly lying by claiming that she was merely
invited to witness the aborted signing of the Memorandum of
Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), that she was ignorant of its
content and that the US government had nothing to do with the
GRP-MILF peace negotiations nor with the controversial MOA-AD.
It is a matter of public
knowledge that on behalf of the US government she frequently travels
to Mindanao and oversees US interests there, including US direct
investments, military forces and pseudo-development projects. She
has worked closely with the Philippine Facilitation Project of the
US Institute of Peace in steering the course of GRP-MILF peace
negotiations for the sake of US interests. The Filipino people know
that the US covets the oil and other natural resources of Mindanao
and wants to establish US military bases there to protect US
imperial interests.
There is documentary evidence to
prove that Ambassador Kenney is lying.
This is the Special Report 202 by
the US Institute of Peace, titled “Toward Peace in the Southern
Philippines” (A summary and assessment of the USIP Philippine
Facilitation Project) and dated February 2008. The report declares,
“In 2003 the US State Department ...engaged the United States
Institute of Peace [USIP] to facilitate a peace agreement between
the government of the Republic of the Philippines [GRP] and the MILF.”
It goes further, “Despite the
challenges, USIP managed to build productive relationships with both
the GRP and MILF, helped the parties come up with creative solutions
to stubborn issues of ancestral domain, and started dialogue between
disparate Moro ethnic groups.” It admits, “Through its
activities, USIP introduced concepts and approaches that were useful
to both government and MILF peace panels.”
The report is quite frank in
admitting the selfish interests of the US, “Today’s complex
diplomatic landscape increasingly requires new tools and techniques
of conflict management, including quasi- and nongovernmental actors,
to accomplish US foreign policy goals. Because of its ability to
deal with nonstate actors and sensitive issues underlying civil
conflict, USIP can be a useful instrument for advancing US
interests.”
The USIP is funded by the US
Congress and is an instrument of US foreign policy. But it
misrepresents itself as an independent and nonpartisan institution.
The chairman of the board is J. Robinson West who is chairman of PFC
Energy, Washington. Members ex-officio are Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Executive
director of the Philippine Facilitation Project is G. Eugene Martin,
a retired diplomat who once served as the deputy chief of mission at
the US Embassy in Manila.
The US is not interested in a
just and lasting peace in either Bangsamoro land or in the entire
Philippines. It is interested solely or mainly in advancing US
interests amidst conditions of armed conflict. It merely pretends to
facilitate the GRP-MILF peace negotiations when its sees big
advantages in doing so. But in the case of the GRP-NDFP peace
negotiations, it has outrightly sabotaged them by designating the
revolutionary forces as “terrorist” and emboldening the Arroyo
regime and its military forces to engage in gross and systematic
human rights violations under the guise of combating
“terrorism.”
[Popularly known as Joma Sison,
the author of this statement is in exile in the Netherlands and
accused by the Philippine government of various crimes. Most
journalists and scholars agree that Prof. Sison is the founder and
former chairman of the “Maoist-Leninist” Communist Party of the
Philippines and the author, using the name “Amado Guerrero,” of
the Maoist analysis of Philippine conditions Philippine Society and
Revolution]
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