The Communist Party of the Philippines and the Khmer Rouge
Julian dela Cruz | 31.03.2009 12:21 | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Birmingham | World
For decades the Khmer Rouge regime has been exposed for its atrocities and genocides against its own people. Yet the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) nor its political arm, the National Democratic Front (NDF) nor any of its influenced and led organizations have issued any statement of condemnation. In fact in some of the statements issued by the CPP-NDF or interviews issued by its leaders, they seem to defend the Khmer Rouge.
Together with their praise for the dictatorial regimes of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il of North Korea plus its own human rights violations and massacres perpetrated in the past and present by the New People's Army (NPA) such as Kampanyang Ahos, Operation Missing Link, Olympia, Kadena de Amor, Digos Massacre, Operation Anti-VD, Operation Bushfire, etc. These statements and actions just show what sort of society they are going to establish once they grab political power.
See:
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=304&Itemid=72
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=305&Itemid=72
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=306&Itemid=72
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=450&Itemid=72
The following are excerpts of the statements and interviews issued by the CPP-NDF and by their avowed ideological leaders. I added emphasis by the use of capital letters. Comments within parenthesis are mine.
------------------------------------------------------------
Interview with NDFP Chief Negotiator Luis Jalandoni, member of the NDFP National Executive Committee, by Juan Escandor, Jr., on April 26, 2002
Juan Escandor Jr: The Pol Pot regime has been accused of murdering thousands of its citizens and the general ideological bases of their struggle were similar with the national democratic revolutionary movement in the Philippines. What could be the reason why the mass killings, like that of the Pol Pot Regime and the bloody purges in the revolutionary movement here, have to happen, even as the two groups were definitely different in contexts?
Luis Jalandoni: You must interview the surviving leaders of the KHMER ROUGE, SO THEY CAN TELL YOU HOW WELL THEY FOUGHT AGAINST THE ENEMIES OF THE CAMBODIAN PEOPLE and how complicated was a situation in which there were as many as three armies supposedly in alliance. The NDFP does not agree with superficially and sweepingly caricaturing and making the Philippine revolutionary movement the same as any of the caricature of another revolutionary movement abroad.
(Luis Jalandoni should interview the surviving Cambodians; a great majority will tell him who the enemies of the Cambodian people are. Surely they will answer none other than Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Notes on People's War in Southeast Asia
19 May 2007
By JOSE MARIA SISON
Founding Chairman, Communist Party of the Philippines
What obfuscated China's policy of liquidating people's war in Southeast Asia was its conspicuous support for Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 onwards and in the entire duration of the Third Indochina War from 1979 onwards, its opposition to the invasion of Kampuchea by Vietnam and its counter-invasion of Vietnam also in 1979 and its support for the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CDGK) based on the three-way alliance of the Party for Democratic Kampuchea (the erstwhile Communist Party of Kampuchea), the Sihanouk forces and the Khmer People's National Liberation Front led by Son Sann in 1982, extending up to 1991.
But the Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) was put in the position of being cornered by its two major allies in the coalition government. It was supported by China but it was also required to collaborate with the US and Thai governments to allow all allies in the coalition government to have bases along the Thai border and free passage of personnel and materiel to and from Kampuchea across Thailand. Democratic Kampuchea retained the UN seat of Kampuchea until 1982. Then this was passed on to the CGDK until 1993.
The Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) became bound to agreements in 1991 under the auspices of the UN to liquidate the people's war and attain national reconciliation among all political forces through elections in the 1993 under the supervision of the UN peacekeeping mission. The Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) was outmaneuvered by the other political forces, including its allies in the CGDK, and by the US, Chinese and Thai governments. It backed out of the agreements and resumed the people's war after realizing that it had been outmaneuvered. But by then, it had become isolated and deprived of the support of its former foreign supporters. The Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) went into a process of rapid disintegration from 1996 to 1998.
The war between Vietnam and Kampuchea disrupted the previous important relations and arrangements of the Communist Party of Thailand with the Communist Party of Kampuchea and the People's Revolutionary Party of Laos. China also used its support for the Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) and its allies in the coalition government to advise the Communist Party of Thailand to refrain from revolutionary radio broadcasts against the Thai government and finally to close down its Yunnan-based radio broadcasting station.
In connection with its policy of peace, stability and economic development and policy of supporting the resistance in Kampuchea, the Chinese authorities had advised, pressured and induced the Communist Party of Malaya to make a peace agreement with both the governments of Malaysia and Thailand since the early 1980s. The peace agreement was done in 1989. Subsequently, the Malayan Communist Party liquidated itself, surrendered its arms to the Thai authorities and converted the former revolutionary base at the Thai-Malaysian border into a tourist spot.
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=544&Itemid=73&limit=1&limitstart=5
(In this long notes written by the “great guide and teacher”, Jose Maria Sison did not mention the atrocities and genocides done by the Khmer Rouge to the Cambodian nation. Some estimates about a fifth of the Cambodian people perished in the hands of the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Annotations on the anti-CPP attacks of the so-called PKP-1930
08 November 2005
By Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas -1930 strongly supported Vietnam's internationalist assistance for the liberation of Cambodia, even while the Maoist CPP CONSISTENTLY SUPPORTED THE GENOCIDAL KHMER ROUGE REGIME. Later, concerned about the growing non-class concepts in the period of "perestroika", the PKP criticized Gorbachyov's pronouncements which tended to accept the continuation of US military bases in the Philippines, even while the masses of our people were agitating for their immediate dismantling. Sadly, the PKP failed to criticize more forcefully the rightist trends within the CPSU which led to the demolition of the USSR and the socialist community by the imperialist-applauded Gorbachov-Yeltsin-Shevardnadze gang.
Annotation: The above paragraph may be described as big words of a small toad, blaming Maoists and not the revisionists for splitting the international communist movement and belatedly saying that it could have done more to criticize “rightist trends” in the CPSU. If it had done any criticizing, it would have lost all the free plane tickets and hotel accommodations provided by the Soviet bloc of revisionist parties for attending so many congresses and conferences.
Right now, PKP-30 is trying to toady up to a party in Southern Europe that still invites it to gatherings and pays for its plane tickets and hotel accommodations. The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist CPP is clear-headed about the revisionist line from Khruschov through Brezhnev to Gorbachov that ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union. The Soviet revisionists and their criminal collaborators ultimately went for barefaced and full-blast restoration of capitalism in 1989-91 to fully legalize their loot and further privatize public assets. For a comprehensive critique of the collapse of the CPSU and the Soviet Union, we invite readers to study the CPP Stand for Socialism Against Modern Revisionism.
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=323&Itemid=73
(In other words, no rebuttal regarding their support for the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime)
See:
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=304&Itemid=72 http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=305&Itemid=72 http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=306&Itemid=72 http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=450&Itemid=72 The following are excerpts of the statements and interviews issued by the CPP-NDF and by their avowed ideological leaders. I added emphasis by the use of capital letters. Comments within parenthesis are mine.
------------------------------------------------------------
Interview with NDFP Chief Negotiator Luis Jalandoni, member of the NDFP National Executive Committee, by Juan Escandor, Jr., on April 26, 2002
Juan Escandor Jr: The Pol Pot regime has been accused of murdering thousands of its citizens and the general ideological bases of their struggle were similar with the national democratic revolutionary movement in the Philippines. What could be the reason why the mass killings, like that of the Pol Pot Regime and the bloody purges in the revolutionary movement here, have to happen, even as the two groups were definitely different in contexts?
Luis Jalandoni: You must interview the surviving leaders of the KHMER ROUGE, SO THEY CAN TELL YOU HOW WELL THEY FOUGHT AGAINST THE ENEMIES OF THE CAMBODIAN PEOPLE and how complicated was a situation in which there were as many as three armies supposedly in alliance. The NDFP does not agree with superficially and sweepingly caricaturing and making the Philippine revolutionary movement the same as any of the caricature of another revolutionary movement abroad.
(Luis Jalandoni should interview the surviving Cambodians; a great majority will tell him who the enemies of the Cambodian people are. Surely they will answer none other than Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Notes on People's War in Southeast Asia
19 May 2007
By JOSE MARIA SISON
Founding Chairman, Communist Party of the Philippines
What obfuscated China's policy of liquidating people's war in Southeast Asia was its conspicuous support for Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 onwards and in the entire duration of the Third Indochina War from 1979 onwards, its opposition to the invasion of Kampuchea by Vietnam and its counter-invasion of Vietnam also in 1979 and its support for the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CDGK) based on the three-way alliance of the Party for Democratic Kampuchea (the erstwhile Communist Party of Kampuchea), the Sihanouk forces and the Khmer People's National Liberation Front led by Son Sann in 1982, extending up to 1991.
But the Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) was put in the position of being cornered by its two major allies in the coalition government. It was supported by China but it was also required to collaborate with the US and Thai governments to allow all allies in the coalition government to have bases along the Thai border and free passage of personnel and materiel to and from Kampuchea across Thailand. Democratic Kampuchea retained the UN seat of Kampuchea until 1982. Then this was passed on to the CGDK until 1993.
The Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) became bound to agreements in 1991 under the auspices of the UN to liquidate the people's war and attain national reconciliation among all political forces through elections in the 1993 under the supervision of the UN peacekeeping mission. The Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) was outmaneuvered by the other political forces, including its allies in the CGDK, and by the US, Chinese and Thai governments. It backed out of the agreements and resumed the people's war after realizing that it had been outmaneuvered. But by then, it had become isolated and deprived of the support of its former foreign supporters. The Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) went into a process of rapid disintegration from 1996 to 1998.
The war between Vietnam and Kampuchea disrupted the previous important relations and arrangements of the Communist Party of Thailand with the Communist Party of Kampuchea and the People's Revolutionary Party of Laos. China also used its support for the Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) and its allies in the coalition government to advise the Communist Party of Thailand to refrain from revolutionary radio broadcasts against the Thai government and finally to close down its Yunnan-based radio broadcasting station.
In connection with its policy of peace, stability and economic development and policy of supporting the resistance in Kampuchea, the Chinese authorities had advised, pressured and induced the Communist Party of Malaya to make a peace agreement with both the governments of Malaysia and Thailand since the early 1980s. The peace agreement was done in 1989. Subsequently, the Malayan Communist Party liquidated itself, surrendered its arms to the Thai authorities and converted the former revolutionary base at the Thai-Malaysian border into a tourist spot.
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=544&Itemid=73&limit=1&limitstart=5 (In this long notes written by the “great guide and teacher”, Jose Maria Sison did not mention the atrocities and genocides done by the Khmer Rouge to the Cambodian nation. Some estimates about a fifth of the Cambodian people perished in the hands of the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Annotations on the anti-CPP attacks of the so-called PKP-1930
08 November 2005
By Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas -1930 strongly supported Vietnam's internationalist assistance for the liberation of Cambodia, even while the Maoist CPP CONSISTENTLY SUPPORTED THE GENOCIDAL KHMER ROUGE REGIME. Later, concerned about the growing non-class concepts in the period of "perestroika", the PKP criticized Gorbachyov's pronouncements which tended to accept the continuation of US military bases in the Philippines, even while the masses of our people were agitating for their immediate dismantling. Sadly, the PKP failed to criticize more forcefully the rightist trends within the CPSU which led to the demolition of the USSR and the socialist community by the imperialist-applauded Gorbachov-Yeltsin-Shevardnadze gang.
Annotation: The above paragraph may be described as big words of a small toad, blaming Maoists and not the revisionists for splitting the international communist movement and belatedly saying that it could have done more to criticize “rightist trends” in the CPSU. If it had done any criticizing, it would have lost all the free plane tickets and hotel accommodations provided by the Soviet bloc of revisionist parties for attending so many congresses and conferences.
Right now, PKP-30 is trying to toady up to a party in Southern Europe that still invites it to gatherings and pays for its plane tickets and hotel accommodations. The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist CPP is clear-headed about the revisionist line from Khruschov through Brezhnev to Gorbachov that ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union. The Soviet revisionists and their criminal collaborators ultimately went for barefaced and full-blast restoration of capitalism in 1989-91 to fully legalize their loot and further privatize public assets. For a comprehensive critique of the collapse of the CPSU and the Soviet Union, we invite readers to study the CPP Stand for Socialism Against Modern Revisionism.
http://ndfp.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=323&Itemid=73 (In other words, no rebuttal regarding their support for the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime)
Julian dela Cruz
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
The USuk owned Pol Pot
31.03.2009 14:30
For some reason the US doesn't like Vietnam but the Vietnamese liberation of Cambodia was one of the few genuinely humanitarian military interventions ever. They didn't invade to claim territory or steal resources or increase their influence. They invaded because millions of people were being tortured to death.
So, the US started training and massively funding the Khmer Rouge. After genociding his own people Pol Pot travelled in luxury helicopters provided free of charge by the US. Hundreds of millions of dollars were given to him. US special forces trained Khmer Rouge killers how to intimidate communities, such as shutting schools by sticking pencils into the kids ears until they came out the other side.
The US had to pull out after the Oliver North scandal, so they ordered Thatcher to send in the SAS to train the genocidal torturers.
Thatcher had no shame or decency. She sent arms, she sent money, but most of all she sent in the SAS on the side of the Khmer Rouge.
Kids, the west didn't become evil when Bush came to power. Our governments were always genocidal. Brown is a Thatcherite and just as genocidal. Obama is a Reaganite. If you don't know about this stuff then read up on it because it informs daily politics today.
Here is Margaret Thatcher on Blue Peter claiming to be repugnant of Pol Pot at a time she was his main financial and military backer - she repeatedly went on to childrens TV programmes to defend Khmer Rouge involvement in government.
One of the 'Blue Peter' interviews with Thatcher (unsurprisingly the most reasonable one despite her lies)
Remember that Britian SAS trained the Khmer Rouge
Uncle Sam and Pol Pot (by John Pilger)
The Khmer Rouge and the West
PS The cowardly, murderous SAS also trained Osamma Bin Laden in Scotland
And from personal experience the SAS still infiltrate activist movements including IM so beware.
Danny
So what...
31.03.2009 16:04
It is also naive to believe that the Vietnamese invasion was a humanitarian one. Perhaps "values" played a certain role but of course that expanding the area of influence of the Soviet Block was a good motivation for them too.
Good and bad guys are only in the movies. Reality and history are much more complex than than a "Western".
Howard
okay
31.03.2009 16:39
"Perhaps "values" played a certain role but of course that expanding the area of influence of the Soviet Block was a good motivation for them too."
Do you talk of the US Block too? You know, the superpower that is only collapsing now?
Life is more complicated than that sentence permits. Drop that and I'll enthusiastically support the rest of your post.
Danny
Smoke and Mirrors
03.04.2009 23:13
John Mr Year Zero Pilger, waffling on about his insider mate, gleaned from the dusty pages of Covert Action Quarterly ! That's the best reference you have to back up this comment?
What ever the truth about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge be The Vietnamese invaded and occupied a sovereign nation The UN especially the Asean countries objected......er......remember Iraq?
Its a pity also, you included this link!
Which if you had actually read through the forum thread, you would find it singularly fails to prove the points you are trying to make. It may even demolish them!
Kettle's Black
Is Hansard okay as a source?
14.04.2009 15:23
The first time a serving SAS officer ever broke ranks and went to the press was to complain about having to train the Khmer Rouge. That leak caused storm at the time, in the political pages at least, and prompted a government 'off-the-record' briefing campaign to justify it, plus a tacit admission in parliament by William Wadegrave.
Waldegrave makes tacit admission of SAS link to Khmer Rouge
Commons debate: The fighting in Cambodia
Judy Jones, Independent, 14 November 1989, page 10
A TACIT admission from a Foreign Office minister that SAS forces had trained Cambodian troops fighting alongside the notorious Khmer Rouge was claimed by Labour MPs in the Commons last night.
Danny