NPA disarming of US mining firm an enforcement of the people's policy
of protecting the national patrimony against foreign monopoly firms*
Rigoberto F. Sanchez
Merardo Arce Command,
NPA-Southern Mindanao
13 May 2011
Guerillas belonging to the 3rd Pulang Bagani Company of the Merardo Arce Command-Southern Mindanao Regional Operations Command of the New People’s Army (3rd PBC-MAC-SMROC-NPA) disarmed a security unit of the Russel Mining and Minerals Incorporated -- an American mining company -- in Sitio Lawaan, Barangay Kingking Pantukan, Compostela Valley province yesterday afternoon. Four M4 high-powered rifles were confiscated. One of the mining firm’s armed personnel who tried to give battle to the NPA unit was killed while the others who did not were left unhurt.
This NPA tactical offensive is an enforcement of the People’s Policy of defending the national patrimony against the onslaught of the US-driven imperialist globalization that has gone even faster in the country under the current US-Aquino regime. This pro-Filipino and pro-environment policy requires the people and their People’s Army to oppose every reactionary regime’s drive of allowing foreign monopolies to take over the country’s natural resources, especially its rich mineral resources.
The Aquino regime has accelerated the sellout of the national patrimony, especially in the mining, agriculture and energy sectors. In the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao Oriental, South Cotabato, Surigao and in the district of Paquibato in Davao City, foreign large-scale mining companies and their big bourgeois comprador partners have been permitted to explore, extract and export as raw materials the area’s ore deposits. Small-scale miners, peasants and whole IP (indigenous people) communities are nowhere in the agenda of the US-Aquino government.
Russel Mining and Minerals Incorporated -- an affiliate of the US global mining company St. Augustine -- and other large-scale mining corporations target the gold ore deposits in the mountains of Pantukan town. It maintains a sizable group of armed personnel who secure their exploration area and the Americans who run the 4,000-hectare operations. And to protect the interests of big foreign and local big businesses, the 10th Infantry Division-Philippine Army-Armed Forces of the Philippines stationed its 71st Infantry Battalion in Pantukan. Combat and CMO operations disguised as “peace and development operations” are conducted in conjunction with the program of imperialist plunder.
It is therefore in the genuine interests of the poor people that the AFP violators of human rights and protectors of the rich classes and their armed security adjuncts are hit by NPA tactical offensives.
* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/05/npa-disarming-of-us-mining-firm.html
