Judge uses the usual communist propaganda line in CPP-NPA decision

Last of 2 parts

ON Monday, I discussed how utterly absurd was Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar’s decision not to declare the Communist Party and the New People’s Army as terrorist organizations. Out of the thousands of incidents of CPP-NPA attacks on our uniformed men and civilians who were unwilling to support them — amounting to 30,000 casualties — she limits her evaluation to only nine cases — yes just nine, all occurring in 2020 and 2021 — to determine whether they are terrorist groups.

And absurdity piled on absurdity, she says these nine incidents could not make the CPP-NPA terrorists since they are not “widespread” as they involved only 12 Filipinos out of the 100 million Philippine population!

But not only that, Malagar’s decision itself shows her sympathetic regard for the communist movement, and her total ignorance of the issue — terrorism — that she was supposed to study.

In the very last sentence of the decision, Malagar tries to appear profound and declares, “Nothing is better attested by present realities than that terrorism does not flourish in a healthy, vibrant democracy.”

False

Is she living in some terrorist camp in Afghanistan? That statement is totally false. Terrorist attacks occur both in the most democratic countries and in the most politically backward nations, among these:

– The bombing of a federal building by two Americans that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City in the US, supposedly the beacon of democracy in the world;

– The mass shooting by a Norwegian that killed 77 mostly young people in Norway in 2011;

– The Charlie Hebdo attacks that killed 17 in Paris, France in 2015, and another in the same year that killed 200;

– The 2015 bombings in Brussels that killed 340;

– The suicide bombing in 2016 in Manchester, England that killed 22; and

– The 2016 mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand that killed 51.

The government’s petition to declare the CPP and the NPA as terrorist organizations reached her court in February 2018.

In the five years since it was submitted to her court, Malagar didn’t even try to do some research on terrorism?

Most democratic

But even if she discovered that terrorist attacks occur even in the most democratic countries, I guess she would dismiss such facts because she believes that terrorism — as well as the CPP-NPA insurgency — will disappear if the Philippines becomes a “healthy, vibrant democracy.”

Indeed this judge reveals her sympathy for the CPP-NPA’s rebellion when she wrote:

“Rebellion is rooted in a discontent of the existing order which is perceived to be unjust and inequitable to the majority, and favorable to the wealthy, ruling few. Rebels are usually compelled to resort to violence simply for lack of avenues to be heard, and in order to be in a position to significantly change the status quo… However, the CPP can only gain adherents for as long as the government remains insensitive to, and incompetent in addressing, the social realities of poverty and material inequality which bring with them the oppression of the marginalized.”

This kind of thinking is the propaganda tack of the CPP-NPA since its emergence, used with much success in recruiting young minds in colleges and even high school. Briefly, their propaganda tack is to claim that the CPP-NPA is engaged in armed struggle only because as the judge puts it, the “existing order is unjust and inequitable to the majority, and favorable to the wealthy few.”

Indeed, an SOP of CPP cadres is to take their recruits to a labor strike or a demonstration. When the police breaks up the picket, and arrests the recruit and throws him in jail, he’s totally convinced that the state is an instrument of the ruling class that must be smashed. I know, that’s what happened to me that led me to embrace the communist cause in my youth.

Strike

Malarga’s claim that terrorism and insurgency breaks out only in non-democratic countries is totally wrong and is not supported by facts. Out of the world’s 193 countries — 107 of which are poor, and having “unjust and inequitable” orders — only 15 countries have had communist insurgencies in the post-World War era, and only two or three insurgencies are ongoing and a threat to their nations’ peace and order situation.

There are unique reasons for the rise of communist insurgencies in a country, and they are not simply responses to “unjust orders.” The communist insurgencies in the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Burma in the 1950s and 1960s were inspired by and actively supported by the People’s Republic of China when Mao Zedong adopted the thinking that establishing socialism solely China would not survive the “imperialist encirclement.” Apart from funding, China provided these insurgencies with communist theory and tactics (and even refuge) which, at least for a time, proved crucial to their growth.

The insurgencies in Latin American countries on the other hand grew because of the almost total neglect by the governments there of the indigenous peoples living in the mountains, far from the cities. As crucial as that, there was the emergence of the Pan-American ideology (propagated by Che Guevarra) that Latin America would be liberated from landlord and imperialist rule only if simultaneous insurgencies were to break out in all South American nations. In the 1990s, these communist-led insurgencies (such as that in Colombia) struck alliances with drug cartels to raise funds for their organizations, which was crucial for their survival.

Malagar’s decision also repeated that bleeding-heart liberals’ standard claim that the fight against terrorism “necessitates a comprehensive approach comprising political, economic, diplomatic, military and legal means duly taking into account the root causes of terrorism.”

In practice, however, except for a few exceptions, the ending of insurgencies in the world involved intense military campaigns to weaken the rebels, and only after that will programs to dismantle “its root causes” succeed. Indonesia’s was the most brutal, with a million communists killed not just by government forces but by paramilitary, fiercely anti-communist organizations.

We of course don’t need that kind of solution. An intense, nonstop military campaign against the CPP-NPA will suffice.

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Judge uses the usual communist propaganda line in CPP-NPA decision
Source: Breaking News PH