Philippines — 2nd Front of "War On Terror" Experiencing Terror

Since January of this year, 38 leaders, members and allies of progressive organizations and their electoral parties have been killed. The dead include a priest, a town councilor, a lawyer and peasants massacred at Hacienda Luisita, a sugar plantation owned by the family of former President Corazon C. Aquino.

This wave of state terrorism began intensifying in 2001 when the country was declared the "second front" in the US-led supposed war on terrorism. The return of US troops to the country, regularly rotated from Okinawa, has so inspired the historically murderous Philippine military that it has targeted for open assassination members of BAYAN, the labor federation KMU, the peasant alliance KMP, the women’s alliance GABRIELA, the human rights group KARAPATAN as well as their allies. This policy of murder went into high gear when the military officer heading the Philippine contingent to Iraq returned. This officer was already famous for creating "killing fields." Quezon Province, where he operated, saw 183 women and children, mostly peasants, killed.

A petition is on line at www.petitiononline.com/nohrv05/petition.html

Two venerated congressional representatives, one from the workers’ organization, the other of the peasants’ organization, have gone on a protest three-day fast in front of the Philippine congress. The fast will become a hunger strike if the Philippine congress continues to ignore the assassinations, disappearances and harassments and arrests of activists and organizers.