OPLAN BANTAY LAYA (OBL) EXTENSION EXPOSES
AQUINO’S REAL “PEACE” PLAN;
NDF-MINDANAO CALLS ON ALL REVOLUTIONARY FORCES
TO FRUSTRATE OBL COMPLETELY
Jorge "Ka Oris" MadlosNDF-MindanaoAugust 31, 2010The extension of the Arroyo regime’s brutal nine-year anti-insurgency campaign Oplan Bantay Laya exposes Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s real “peace” plan: to step up military offensives against the New People’s Army (NPA) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) - daydreaming of inducing revolutionary forces to capitulate and to impose its demands on the peace talks consistent with the US Counter Insurgency (COIN) strategy.
AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Ricardo David Jr., in his declaration of a new counter-insurgency plan by Jan 1, 2011, bragged that the new strategy would focus on the respect for human rights, admitting in effect that nine years of OBL were replete with human rights violations. The declaration, however, is betrayed with the extension of OBL for 6 months, the same OBL that spawned the extrajudicial killings of more than a thousand ordinary civilians, peasants and worker leaders, activists, religious and journalists, and committed countless other human rights abuses, including the dislocation of the socio-economic well-being of the people in the countryside.
OBL supposedly ended last June, but Noynoy Aquino, being the new commander-in-chief who fantasizes of ending the people’s democratic revolution in three years, ordered the fascist AFP to deploy its troops all over the country and intensify the AFP military campaigns and operations against the NPA beyond the OBL June deadline. Since Mr. Aquino’s inauguration on June 30, these nationwide combat operations have been met, with intensified and widespread tactical offensives of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Mindanao and in other parts of the country.
In the Southern Mindanao Region, Red fighters have launched about 20 attritive and annihilative tactical offensives, highlighted by the daring August 24 punitive attack in Brgy. La Fortuna, Veruela, Agusan del Sur against the abusive 26th Infantry Battalion. In this incident an army lieutenant and four enlisted personnel were killed, and resulted in the confiscation of one K3 light machine gun, 2 M-16 rifles, and ammunitions. Also in August, the NPA ambushed the Deep Reconnaissance Company (DRC) and the hooligans of Bagani Force leader and military agent Ruben Labawan, where 2 elements of the DRC died. Two M-16 rifles were confiscated. Similar NPA tactical offensives in the region were also launched in the hinterland areas of Davao City, in the municipalities of Maragusan, New Bataan and Monkayo, all in the Compostela Valley Province, in Mati, Bagganga and Cateel towns in Davao Oriental, in New Corella in Davao del Norte, and in the hinterlands of Davao del Sur and North Cotabato.
Since Noynoy Aquino assumed office, the NPA in North Eastern Mindanao has launched 27 tactical offensives to defend revolutionary forces and the masses against intensified military offensive operations in almost all the municipalities of the four provinces of the Caraga region. On August 13 alone, two consecutive NPA ambushes were launched: one against a Scout Ranger Company in Purok 5, Brgy. Pianing in Butuan City, and another against the 30th IB in Lusong, Brgy. Puting Bato, Cabadbaran City, which resulted in the death of 4 and the wounding of 6 enemy troops. Then, on August 28 alone, 3 NPA teams initiated 3 punitive actions against the five columns of the combined forces of the 14th SRC, 75th IB and SWAG unit whose forced occupation of the adjoining communities of Palonpon and Boringon, Brgy. Mahaba, all of Marihatag, Surigao del Sur led to the evacuation of peasants in said communities. These resulted in the death of 5 as well as wounding 3 other army personnel. A woman comrade heroically offered her life in the course of these battles.
In the Far Southern Mindanao Region, Red Fighters have, in August alone, launched 3 military actions: on August 3, harassed troops from the 39th Infantry Battalion at Dungan Pekong, Matan-ao, Davao del Sur, and on August 8, operating troops from the 27th Infantry Battalion were ambushed at Datal Blao, Colombio, Sultan Kudarat; and, on August 4, the death penalty was meted out against a combat intelligence personnel of the AFP.
NPA tactical offensives have also been carried out against AFP mercenary forces, specifically operating units under the 4th Infantry Division in North Central Mindanao region and against the operating battalions of the 1st Tabak Division of the Western Mindanao Command.
Frustrated over their miserable defeats in Mindanao, fascist AFP troops lashed out instead against helpless civilians, committing numerous brazen human rights abuses such as threatening entire peasant and Lumad communities, strafing, mauling civilians suspected of being NPA members, illegal arrests and detention, enforced disappearances, looting of houses and other acts of shameless disregard for human rights and the International Humanitarian Law. Incessant indiscriminate aerial bombings and cannon fire have led to the evacuation of civilians. In NEMR alone, there have been six incidents of civilian evacuation, particularly in Zapanta and Ansili of Kitcharao town, Surigao del Norte, Lusong in Brgy. Puting Bato, Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte, Palompon and Boringon in Brgy. Mahaba, Marihatag and Purok 3, 4, and 5, Brgy. San Isidro, Lianga, all in Surigao del Sur, and in Brgy. Pianing, Butuan City.
Clearly, military incidents in Mindanao have escalated as a direct consequence of OBL’s extension. Revolutionary forces only justly, and valiantly, fought back to defend the gains of the revolutionary movement, the masses and the revolutionary forces. Noynoy Aquino cannot play Pontius Pilate and excuse himself from culpability in the abuses and destruction wrought by the escalation of OBL’s bloodbath, because, as the new commander-in-chief of the reactionary state’s armed forces, it is he alone who can authorize these nationwide AFP massive offensives. Mr. Aquino is poised more for war than in creating the favorable atmosphere for just peace.
This is the first time in recent history for a new government to have deliberately opted to wage war nearly as soon as it was installed, denying the people of a more propitious condition for peace while deliberately stifling the countrysides with the stench of gunpowder. Previous regimes such as those of Gen. Ramos’s, Estrada’s, Noynoy’s mother Cory, and even of Arroyo’s, had some sense to allow military offensives to ebb in their first months in office, but not so in Noynoy Aquino’s case. He appears to be in a hurry to please his US imperialist masters, especially in laying the ground for the entry and the increase in profitability of mining companies and foreign-owned plantations such as Xtrata in South Cotabato and Dole Phils. in Surigao del Sur and Compostela Valley, and a host of other foreign monopoly capitalist investments.
Now that the OBL extension and the series of AFP combat operations have compelled the NPA to fight back in defense of its forces and the masses, Mr. Aquino should not whine about recent defeats and losses of the AFP particularly in Samar, Mindanao and in other parts of the country, where it lost numerous firearms to the NPA and cost the lives of scores of its troops.
With this, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in Mindanao (NDF-Mindanao) fears that peace talks are once again in danger of being derailed because of OBL’s extension, which has already led to the escalation of a new cycle of fascist attacks that may even surpass the Arroyo regime’s bloody campaign.
We call on the Filipino people to demand for the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to pursue the peace process and, if it is at all sincere, remove all obstructions that hinder its fruition.
We call on all the revolutionary forces to expose and oppose the deceptive scheme of the new regime! We call on all the units of the New People’s Army to intensify tactical offensives against legitimate military targets, defend the revolutionary forces and the Filipino masses, and completely frustrate the daydreaming of the US-backed Aquino regime to crush the revolutionary movement in three years.
* Url: http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2010/09/obl-extension-exposes-aquinos-real.html
