Communist Party of Philippines issues cyclone ceasefire declaration

Vanguard December 2013 p. 7

(Above: Women soldiers of the New People's Army)

 

Statement issued by the Communist Party of the Philippines

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP-CC) hereby formally issues this ceasefire declaration to all concerned commands of the New People’s Army (NPA) and people’s militias in areas devastated by the recent super-typhoon Yolanda.

Concerned NPA units have, as a matter of course, ceased offensive operations since November 9. This ceasefire declaration will remain in effect up to 2359 hours of 24 November 2013. This ceasefire declaration covers the following regional commands of the NPA:

Eastern Visayas Regional Command
Panay Regional Command 
Central Visayas Regional Command
Negros Island Command

Respective regional commands are also to transmit this ceasefire declaration to the concerned provincial commands of the NPA, namely:

Masbate Island Command
Palawan Island Command
Mindoro Island Committee

Based on their assessment of the extent of the devastation of the recent super-typhoon in their areas of responsibility, the respective regional commands can extend the effectivity of this ceasefire declaration in their areas of concern, while other regional commands of the NPA can issue similar or limited ceasefire declarations in areas within the scope of their operations.
 

In line with standing policy and with the CPP’s call for calamity-related mobilization, the abovementioned NPA units have in fact already shifted their mode of operations even before super-typhoon Yolanda hit land on November 8. This ceasefire declaration, thus, is a positive declaration of the practical mode shift already in effect.

Until the aforementioned expiration of this declaration, all NPA units and people’s militias shall cease and desist from carrying out offensive military operations against the armed units and personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP) and other paramilitary and armed groups attached to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines.

While this ceasefire declaration is in effect, all units of the NPA and people’s militias shall remain in active defense mode. They will, however, remain ever militant and vigilant to the encroachment and hostile movements of the AFP within the territory of the people’s democratic government.

The people demand that the AFP cease its offensive operations under its Oplan Bayanihan war of suppression. The CPP denounces the AFP for using the calamity relief operations as cover for its combat and surveillance operations within and outside the areas of devastation. The Filipino people urges the AFP to withdraw its combat units from within the guerrilla zones and demand that relief operations be carried out by civilian agencies.

(Above: NPA soldiers training)

 

With this ceasefire declaration, all local and international relief organizations are assured of safe passage through and into the calamity-affected guerrilla zones. The masses and their revolutionary organizations and governmental committees within the guerrilla zones are ever ready to help facilitate the distribution of emergency supplies to the people, giving priority to the injured, children, nursing mothers, single parents, pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped and other vulnerable individuals.

This ceasefire declaration seeks to underscore the need to focus the attention of concerned NPA units and its Red fighters, as well as all units of the people’s militias to the immediate task of assisting the hundreds of thousands of people, especially small and landless peasants, farm workers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples and the unemployed masses in the poor coastal and mountainous areas whose homes and sources of livelihood have been severely ravaged by supertyphoon Yolanda and who suffered deaths in their families and vast losses in property. Except for the small urban area in Tacloban City, the majority of the areas devastated by the super-typhoon are poor agricultural and fishing communities.

Since November 8, all NPA companies in the concerned areas have trained their efforts at helping the people rebuild their houses, recover farm animals, help harvest root crops for food, rebuild infrastructure for sourcing drinking water and facilitate the distribution of emergency supplies. The people in the guerrilla zones have carried out organized efforts to carry on with economic and commercial activity through their mass organizations, barrio revolutionary committees, local CPP branches, people’s militias and their people’s army.

The CPP calls on all its forces, all progressive and democratic organizations, relief agencies, doctors and health workers, agricultural experts and others who are willing to lend their expertise to coordinate with the revolutionary organizations in the guerrilla zones to help the people recover swiftly from the devastation and resume their normal lives.

 

Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement stalled but still a threat

Vanguard December 2013 p. 7
Alice M.

US imperialism is having a hard time ramming through its Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement on the nations of the Pacific region.

Despite all its efforts to keep the detail of negotiations secret, Wikileaks has published a draft text of the Intellectual Property Rights chapter, which deals with issues such as medicines, biological patents, internet services, publishing and civil liberties.

The leak exposes continuing differences as the various nations; including Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Canada, Vietnam, Chile, Brunei and Mexico resist the pressure of US imperialism to comply with its demands. Shamefully, Australia is the most subservient, raising only a few quibbles and endorsing Obama’s demand to sign off by the end of the year.

A key issue in dispute is the extension of patents for medications, which cuts across the production of cheaper generic medications, resulting in higher costs for healthcare. There is also the threat to Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which subsidises many costs. "The Obama administration's shameful bullying on behalf of the giant drug companies would lead to preventable suffering and death in Asia-Pacific countries," Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's global access to medicines program, said in a statement.

Of great concern in the TPP is the proposal for Investor-State Rights which allow multinational companies to sue governments to compensate for any restriction or limitations placed on their business due to national laws or regulations – such protections as pollutions control, health and safety, quarantine, food standards, food labelling, etc. What this amounts to is control and monopolisation by US corporate monopolies of markets and production.

While the differences have stalled the negotiations somewhat, a big factor in the reluctance of the different countries to toe the line is the enormous popular opposition to the TPP which has arisen as more details come out.

All participating countries now have active protest groups among unions, small manufacturers, local councils, health workers, farmers, etc. that hound their politicians and warn them not to sell out their national interest..

The Australian people will be shocked to learn that the text of this far-reaching agreement is only available to three un-named people and will not be debated by parliament. On the other hand, 600 'trade advisers' from US corporations such as Chevron, Halliburton, Monsanto and Walmart get to see their parts of the text.

Julian Assange has referred to Australia’s "cringingly obsequious" role in endorsing the position of the US negotiators. In this Labor before and the Abbott government now have been united.

We must be vigilant and oppose and defeat any attempts to force this evil treaty on the Australian people.

People demand action on climate change!

Vanguard December 2013 p. 8
Bill F.

(United Firefighters Union Federal President Greg Northcott told the Adelaide rally: "There are no climate change sceptics on the end of fire-hoses!"

On November 17^th hundreds of thousands of people in cities and towns across Australia demonstrated their continuing demand for more concerted action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The rallies were held just days after the World Meteorological Organisation(WMO) released data showing that the volume of atmospheric CO₂ grew faster in 2012 than in the previous decade, reaching 393.1 parts per million (ppm), 41% above the pre-industrial level and well above the nominal ‘safe’ level of 350ppm.

Another report from the Warsaw conference on Climate Change pointed to a 26% increase in ocean acidification due to the absorption of atmospheric CO_2.  This will threaten the viability of many shell species – corals, clams, crabs, prawns, scallops and mussels, and further reduce the stocks of tuna and anchovies.

According to the UN Environment Programme, by the year 2020 greenhouse gas emissions are predicted to reach 8-12 billion tonnes over the level required to keep global warming below 2 degrees, and could reach that point in just 40 years.

These most recent reports are bracketed by the massive bushfires in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and the devastating Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (where it is known as Typhoon Yolanda) - more evidence of extreme weather events hitting our part of the world, more evidence of global warming.

Multinationals motivated by greed

The only way to make a significant reduction in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions is to phase out coal mining and export, together with the use of coal and gas for electricity generation.

These industries are largely owned or controlled by US, European and Asian multinational corporations and are financed by foreign banks and shareholders. They are motivated by greed and vehemently oppose any restrictions on their ability to increase their rate of profit. They want to expand their monopoly business into even more polluting ventures such as coal seam gas and brown coal exports.

These champions of capitalism hate competition. In fact, they bankroll selected politicians (and pseudo-scientists) to discredit and de-fund alternative sources of power generation, such as solar, wind and geothermal.

They will not be stopped by timid irritations such as an emission trading scheme (where they can pass on the costs) or a carbon tax (where they can claim generous offsets). Certainly, Abbott’s so-called ‘direct action’ scheme of handing over tax-payers’ dollars to favoured enterprises isn’t going to worry them.

A different kind of ‘direct action’

A government that truly represented the interests of the people would regulate greenhouse gas emissions like any other toxic or polluting substance, issuing licences with set limits and heavy penalties for violations, including “three strikes and you go to jail”.

In the end, however, the only guarantee of making a transition to clean energy is to nationalise the mining and power generation industries and place them under the supervision of the working people.

Instead of shipping profits and dividends overseas, these could be channelled into funding the construction of large scale base-load solar power stations for the cities and smaller clean energy power sources for regional and remote areas.

 

"...stand by each other to defend our rights and liberties"

Vanguard December 2013 p. 8
Alice M.

 

 

There’s a growing public concern about the relentless erosion of democratic rights and civil liberties in Australia.

The main target of the new wave of anti-democratic, anti-worker state and federal laws are unions, civil rights and community groups, farming and rural communities, resisting big business attacks on their working conditions, livelihoods, living standards and the environment.

Moslem communities, migrant workers and motor bike clubs are marginalised and demonised by the ruling class whipping up fear, and used as a pretext to push through the anti-democratic laws directed against all.

The new wave of draconian anti-democratic, anti-worker laws and regulations are a part of the big business’ ruling class preparations to suppress the people’s resistance and struggle against the deeper austerity agenda and crushing of wages and conditions demanded by the ruling class of monopoly capital.

On 13 November, 180 people attended a public forum in Melbourne on the erosion of human and democratic rights in Australia. The forum pulled together the seemingly separate laws, developments and actions against the people in struggle. A picture emerged of systematic attacks on people’s struggles.

Speakers included Rob Stary, well known democratic rights lawyer; ACTU President Ged Kearney; Ann O’Rourke, Vice-President of Liberty Victoria and Humphrey McQueen, well known Australian historian and activist in the working class movement.

The meeting focused on the wide sweeping attacks on workers’ and union rights to organise, take industrial action, strike, the unions’ right of entry and disappearing job security.

Speakers and representatives from unions pointed out that the ABCC is intended against all organised sections of the working class and unions who refuse to submit to the big business agenda of intensified exploitation of workers, lower pay and loss of many hard won workplace conditions.

The recently legislated anti-bikie club laws in Queensland, the anti-terror laws and the draconian laws against community and environmental protests are another layer of the capitalist state’s legal apparatus created in preparation for the suppression of people’s struggle and resistance.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is a tool of US imperialism to remove any impediments that stand in the way of profit maximisation by the multinationals. Many of these government regulations and standards on health and safety, protection of the environment, protection of local jobs have been forced on Australian governments by people’s mass actions.

Democratic rights do not sit above classes. In real life workers have few democratic rights. Thousands of workers are regularly sacked and lose their livelihood, whilst the rights and prerogatives of big business to maximise their profits and exploit the working class mercilessly are upheld as sacred and unchallengeable.

Multi-nationals like GMH and Ford, have unrestricted and unfettered rights to close down factories, throw tens of thousands of workers and their families on the scrapheap, so they can maximise their profits in the cheap labour markets in the developing countries, where workers have even fewer rights, if at all.

In his book Revolution and the Australian State, written in 1974, Ted Hill, the founding Chairman of CPA (M-L) sharply exposes the Australian capitalist state in all its functions, including the entire legal apparatus, as fundamentally dictatorship of the foreign and local monopoly capitalist class.

"In its essence, the (bourgeois) dictatorship is unrestricted by any laws other than the economic laws that govern capitalism. Those economic laws were elucidated by Marx... Suffice it to say that no amount of liberty, freedom of the press, habeas corpus, legal rights is of much use to the man (or woman) who is dismissed in exercise of the monopoly capitalist’s dictatorship or who is unable to get a job because of the monopoly capitalists’ unrestricted right to hire and fire."

"In the evolution of capitalism, a state apparatus to carry out these functions of dictatorship arose and developed. As class antagonisms have developed, so the apparatus of the state has been strengthened and refined."

"The legal apparatus in Australia is simply the system of repression built up in the course of British imperialist occupation and domination of Australia, then US imperialist extension to Australia and the collaboration of certain Australian monopolies with those imperialists."

"The formal liberties such as freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of organisation, what liberal traditions in the there are have an importance for the working class, and other patriotic people. They enable the workers to organise, to study, to fight. True there are limitations. The workers and other patriotic people work to understand that the struggle to preserve and extend democratic rights is not an end in itself but part of a revolutionary struggle for the seizure of state power."

Democratic Rights Public Forum

Time to move calls for an independent agenda to a higher stage

Vanguard November 2013 p. 1
Nick G.

(Above: An independent working class agenda demands the table, not just the crumbs!) 

Around Australia there is growing enthusiasm for an agenda that embraces the just demands and the democratic rights of the people and is independent of the parliamentary political parties.

We see it in the widespread support that community struggles such as the Tecoma McDonald’s campaign are able to garner.

We see it in the sentiment that is emerging in unions and workplaces for a revival of labour values despite their jettisoning by the Labor Party.

We see it in the reactions to exposures of US email surveillance and the erosion of legal protections of liberties once held to be sacred, even under bourgeois systems of law.

We see it in the willingness of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, the President of the ACTU, human rights lawyers and activists to open for public discussion their concerns about threats to human and democratic rights in Australia.

Basic principles and shared objectives

The CPA (M-L) has strongly advocated the development of an independent working class agenda which encompasses these and other issues.

In August 2012 we wrote: “It need not at this stage be a formal document to which various organisations must commit, but there should be a central core of demands that are put forward in various ways …”

It would not now be unrealistic to add to that a call for progressive-minded people to try to give that agenda something of a more concrete shape over the coming year so that when we talk of our agenda there is a common understanding of basic principles and shared objectives.

For those who retain a membership of and loyalty to the ALP it should not be seen as a line in the sand, an issue over which to split progressive ranks.  But even many of these people now see the ALP as an organisation to apply pressure to rather than an organisation on which to rely. 

The working class is not represented by the major parliamentary political parties

And this is key to further advancing an independent working class agenda, namely that it serves to focus and intensify the voice of the voiceless, to give confidence to those without much hope for the future, to unify and strengthen those who instinctively understand that their interests are not being represented in the parliamentary talking shops.

The major parliamentary parties are loyal only to the class interests of the rich.

They see only a future under US domination.

They try and outdo each other in schemes to privatise, to deregulate and to impose an objectionable burden on the people.

In spite of all the difficulties, the working people continue to rely on one another, continue to resist the attacks and continue to struggle for a better future.

Bringing the vision to life

It is only in the ranks of people uniting in struggle that a different vision for the future emerges.

That vision, of a just, democratic, independent and socialist Australia informs the agenda of which we speak and for which we work.

It is now time to lift spontaneous support for an independent working class agenda to a higher stage of more concrete demands and more conscious commitment.

Acknowledgement

Vanguard November 2013 p. 2

Most recently, an older comrade (a pensioner) made an exceptionally generous donation to express support and encouragement for the political work and line of Vanguard.

We also gratefully acknowledge all subscribers and donors who have supported the paper during the year, and we look forward to your continued support in the future. All your comments and financial contributions are very much appreciated.