Dear friends,
March 20, 2003, Francis Wurtz, president of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament, sent a letter to Satur Ocampo concerning Bayan Muna’s stand on Kintanar assassination. Satur Ocampo replied April 15, 2003 and the GUE/NGL sent an answer, signed by Stellan Hermansson, Deputy Secretary-General, dated May 13, 2003.
You should have already received copies of these letters.
I would like to present here some personal comments on Satur Ocampo’s reply to the GUE/NGL.
The issue we are speaking of is of the utmost importance: can political assassinations inside the Left be tolerated? Can it be tolerated by progressives in the name of solidarity (!?) and, especially, by revolutionaries in the name of revolution? I’ll come back on this question in this letter’s conclusion. The present comments are too quickly written. I hope to be able to write later again on that issue.
Let’s start from the following quote of Satur’s letter: “It is not for us in Bayan Muna to justify Kintanar’s killing, even as we would like to understand the reasons which brought this about as we understand the criticisms which have been raised against such an extreme action. It is not for us either to denounce another organization for engaging in a revolutionary struggle which it sees as the most appropriate response to address the social condition unique to the Philippines.”
1. It is of course the responsibility of any political organization claiming to be progressive to take a clear stand on such an essential issue as the assassination of Kintanar (and others). Bayan Muna’s attempt to evade the question (“It is not for us...”) is simply unacceptable. And this is precisely what the GUE/NGL cannot accept.
2. Bayan Muna would like to “understand” both the reasons behind the killings and the criticisms. But the way Satur’s letter is written amount practically to a justification of the CPP-NPA policy of assassination. Such killings are presented as part of a “revolutionary struggle”, and, quote, “only those with criminal liabilities to the movement or the people, especially those who have become armed combatants, are made to answer for their offenses”. This is, in the name of Bayan Muna, the replica of the official CPP-NPA argument.
3. Satur urges the GUE/NGL “not be too quick to pass judgment without careful and thorough investigation”. Our parliamentary group did not base its judgment on governmental or journalistic sources. It has in fact two main sources of information:
– The most important source of information is the CPP itself, especially the statements and declarations of its spokesperson, Gregorio Rosal. The study of CPP official stands leaves no doubt whatsoever on the fact that it condemned to death in 1993-1994 many of its former leaders who were expelled or split in 1992. In the case of Kintanar, the CPP made it very clear that he was first condemned to death in 1993 and then again in 2002. It is also very clear that former CPP cadres, now members of various Left organizations, are still under threat of death penalty and that new assassinations could occur in the future. Gregorio Rosal denied that Rigoberto Tiglao, who left the CPP some thirty years ago (!), was on a “death list”; this can be taken for granted. But Rosal did not deny that others were charged with “criminal” offenses that could mean death penalty if they do not duly “repent”.
– The second source of information used by the GUE/NGL are the other Left and progressive organizations from the Philippines with which our group maintain relationships. Reports from the Left shows that the case of Kintanar is far from being isolated, that quite a number of underground and local mass cadres have been killed by the CPP-NPA, and that this trend is continuing.
Based on these two sources of information, the overall picture is very alarming.
4. Satur “suggests” that the GUE/NGL meet with the NDF in Europe for them “to present the other side of the issue”. Indeed, our parliamentary group already did meet two representatives of the NDF. And this meeting only increased our worries. The NDF representatives refused to engage themselves on the personal security of Ric Reyes, from Akbayan (one of those who were “sentenced” to death in 1993 and have been recently threatened again in CPP’s statements). They said that a so-called “people’s tribunal” could be called in the future to try him for “crimes” and that the NPA would then arrest him (and kill him if he resisted arrest). Other former members of the CPP were named during this meeting, who could face a “people’s tribunal”.
The “NDF side of the issue” is totally unacceptable for us.
Is it necessary to precise that the so-called “people’s tribunals” are bodies filled by CPP cadres, by Party Committees’ members? This is confirmed both by CPP documents and by testimonies of former party cadres. “People’s Tribunals” mean that the CPP leadership judges, condemns and implements death penalty in the name of the people.
5. It is true that Satur attended the wake of Rolly Kintanar, before the CPP publicly claimed responsibility for the murder. He claims that he was “surprised” that he could have become an agent of the government. He nevertheless knew perfectly well that Kintanar had been condemned to death in 1993 by the CPP leadership; and maybe he knew also that this condemnation was confirmed in 2002.
Kintanar’s assassination was a political decision from the CPP leadership with many and very grave implications, not a routine act of war. It has been used as a way to threat other Left parties and personalities, some of them being explicitly named in the CPP post-killing statements. All the other Left political parties understood it in that way, and all of them condemned the killing, whatever they thought of the political trajectory of Kintanar. Many cadres of these Left organizations feel now in danger.
Originally, the death condemnations and threats were an answer from the CPP leadership to the 1992 party crisis. The essential meaning of Kintanar’s murder is that, ten years after, the assassination policy of the CPP leadership escalates instead of fading away. A trend, which is confirmed by other less known murders, committed by the NPA in the provinces. That is the real question, not Kintanar’s personality.
Who was Kintanar at the time of his death? There are very contradictory assessments on that matter, and the answer will eventually have to come from the Philippines. I myself know little about his recent political evolution. But the following can be said. When he was in the underground, Kintanar led the NPA to its peak (about 25.000 fighters) and inflicted severe damages to the military. He is considered one the best field combatant and politico-military leader the CPP ever had. When he decided to become legal again, his life was in danger, both because of the military and because of his former comrades. According to some, in the underground, who knew him well, he tried both to protect himself from military revenge and to continue to help, from his position in the administration, several revolutionary organizations. If this was indeed what he attempted to do, it was a dangerous game that eventually cost his life. We shall probably know more in the future.
Whatever, Kintanar’s assassination is part of a broader pattern originated ten years ago by the CPP leadership, which now puts the whole Filipino Left in jeopardy.
6. Satur reminds the GUE/NGL that Bayan Muna, a legal organization, has to face state repression. That is true and has been condemned by our parliamentary group. But this does not mean that Bayan Muna cannot be asked to take a clear stand on the issue of political assassination by the CPP-NPA. In fact, Bayan Muna is the only political movement in the Philippines with which the GUE/NGL had regular relations and which did not condemn the killing of Kintanar and the CPP assassination policy. This is precisely why Francis Wurtz wrote to Satur Ocampo on that matter.
7. The CPP cannot kill members of the other Left organizations and ask maximum protection for itself. A political current (here, the “Reaffirms”) cannot “understand” these assassinations, and expect that no question will ever be raised in the progressive milieu internationally. It cannot expect that concerned people will keep silent in the name of the duty of solidarity, while members of progressive and revolutionary organizations in the Philippines are killed or are threaten to be killed.
One cannot build a progressive, socialist, project on the logic “All rights for us, no rights for the others”. One cannot build progressive international solidarity accepting such a logic, even from a revolutionary movement. And to reject the use of violence as a mean to answer political divisions in the workers and popular movements is a basic matter of principle.
These are death or life questions for the future of the Left internationally and for the socialist project. The revolutionary Left is at a crossroad. Either democratic pluralism becomes an integral part of the socialist and revolutionary projects. Or the revolutionary Left, as a progressive force, is doomed.
This is true internationally, after Stalinism. It is also especially true in the Philippines, after the terrible experience of the 1980s purges. May 10, 2003, the memory of the many (2000?) victims of these paranoid purges in the CPP was commemorated in the Philippines for the first time by their relatives, friends and former comrades. The CPP leadership claims that it has drawn all the lessons from these purges, unlike the 1992 splits which did not “rectify” (by “reaffirming” the 1968 line!). But it still labels “unrepentant criminals”, “agents” and “counter-revolutionaries” many of its former leaders, and members of other progressive and revolutionary Left organizations. Which means that it still uses “people’s tribunals” and death penalty as a threat to deny others the right to act independently.
The CPP still considers itself as the sole representent of the Filipino people. In a way which goes far beyond what is usually understood as “vanguardism”. Let’s say that the CPP behave as the leading faction of society. That question seems to me essential to understand. But it goes beyond the present comments on Satur Ocampo’s letter.
Hoping the best for all of you,
Pierre Rousset