| Submit your comments on this article | ||
| Southeast Asia | ||
| NPA gaining strength in the Philippines | ||
| 2003-12-30 | ||
| Christopher Suazo was in the jungle, wearing torn jogging pants and cradling an M-1 rifle. At 18, he had managed only three years of schooling when he joined the Communist Party three months ago. Like many others, Suazo was motivated by a perceived injustice. His father and uncle, both farmers, were killed in March — gunned down, he said, by the hired hands of a town mayor whom the military protects. Since September, Suazo has been moving around in the mountains here on the southern island of Mindanao, alert for enemies who lurk in the jungles below, but happy with his decision to join. "I can only be safe here with the New People’s Army," he said. The Communist rebellion in the Philippines began 35 years ago. It foundered but has regained strength and, according to military estimates, now counts 10,000 fighters in its armed wing, the New People’s Army. The Communists "are our utmost security concern at present," even though they have been overshadowed by Muslim insurgents, said Col. Daniel Lucero, a military spokesman. "We consider them a much bigger threat than the Abu Sayyaf, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or the Jemaah Islamiyah," he said. In their foggy camp high in the mountains of Compostela Valley Province, the Communists go about their business: training cadres in military tactics and martial arts, organizing the residents below and studying what they call the "evils of U.S. imperialism." "The U.S. is a brutal enemy," a guerrilla leader known as Richard told a dozen rebels during a class about the invasion of Iraq. "It will not hesitate to use or kill its own people." Rubi del Mundo, a guerrilla spokeswoman, said: "U.S. interventionism is even more blatant nowadays. It used to just influence the passing of Philippine laws to benefit the business interests of American companies here. Now the U.S. is directly involved in counterrevolutionary activities" in the Philippines. The number of rebels peaked at more than 25,000 in the 1980s, according to military estimates, but government spies began to penetrate the ranks of the New People’s Army. Party officials purged the movement, killing hundreds of suspected spies.
| ||
| Posted by:Dan Darling |