Communist rebels call for protests before ASEAN summit

By Roy Ramos

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on Monday urged Filipinos to stage massive protests in cities and ordered its revolutionary forces to launch tactical offensives against government troops in the countryside ahead of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and related meetings next week in Manila.

“The CPP calls on the people of Asia and the world to unite and intensify their resistance against inter-imperialist collusion and rivalries through ASEAN, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (forum) and other imperialist instrumentalities which subject the toiling people to worsening forms of oppression and exploitation,” said a statement released on Philippine Revolution Web Central, the CPP’s official website.

The leaders of ASEAN’s 10 member states Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam along with dialogue partner-countries Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the United States will convene Nov. 10-14 to discuss a number of issues, including the South China Sea conflict and regional economic development.

The CPP also blasted Washington, which it “seeks to further break down economic barriers to favor U.S. monopoly capitalists”.

It also cited threats by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to launch a war against Pyongyang as a move to justify U.S. efforts to build up its military presence and strengthen its foothold in South Korea and around the South China Sea.

The communist rebels also slammed Trump’s visit to the Philippines, which will “cement the master-puppet relationship” of Washington and Manila under President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime.

“He (Trump) will surely be pleased by the Duterte regime’s vigorous push for further economic liberalization, particularly with its rush to further open the economy to full foreign control by trimming down the “negative list” of areas of the economy reserved to Filipinos,” said the statement.

The CPP cited the U.S. military’s presence, intervention and control of the Armed Forces of the Philippines as the Duterte administration’s subservience to U.S. imperialism.

When Duterte won the presidency in 2016, he launched new peace initiatives with the communists in a bid to end conflict, but the peace negotiations have faced challenges due to truce violations --- a string of communist rebel attacks, including the ambush of a convoy of the Presidential Security Group in July.

There had been over 40 rounds of peace negotiations under the country’s past five presidents which have failed for various reasons.

The party in July ordered its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), to carry out counteractions and offensives across the country when martial law imposed on the islands of Mindanao was proposed to be extended following clashes in the southern Philippine city of Marawi.

The NPA has been waging an insurgency since 1969 that has left tens of thousands of people dead.