DPRK says it will probe truth of "Cheonan" warship case

DPRK says it will probe truth of "Cheonan" warship case

English.news. cn
2010-07-30 23:12:37

PYONGYANG, July 30 (Xinhua)The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Friday that its people and army would probe the truth about the "Cheonan" warship case "to the end."

The DPRK's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that this was announced by the DPRK's representative to the third round of the DPRK-U.S. colonel-level military working contact.

According to the KCNA, the DPRK believes that the U.S. proposal for creating a "joint assessment group" and inspecting DPRK's military base at the last round of the contact was "a politically motivated provocation" as it infringes upon the sovereignty and dignity of the DPRK.

The proposal made by the U.S. side was "nothing but a sinister intention to link the "Cheonan" case with the DPRK," it noted.

The U.S. was in collusion with South Korea on the "Cheonan" case and their investigation results were "unilateral and unscientific" , KCNA said.

The DPRK warned that its army and people would take stronger counteraction unless the U.S. stops military provocations against it and stops "wrecking peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula."

The KCNA reported that both sides agreed to hold the fourth round of the DPRK-U.S. senior colonel-level military working contact to probe the truth about the "Cheonan" case in Panmunjom around Aug 9.

The DPRK and the U.S. have held two rounds of DPRK-U.S. colonel-level military working contacts on July 15 and 23rd.

The KCNA said that an agreement was reached in the contact, including the time, venue, members and topics of the DPRK-U.S. general-level talks.

On March 26, South Korea's 1,200-ton frigate Cheonan, with 104 crew members aboard, sank near the maritime border with the DPRK after an unexplained explosion. Only 58 sailors were rescued alive shortly after the sinking.

South Korean investigators released their results of the investigation on May 20, claiming that the "Cheonan" was sunk by a DPRK torpedo.

Meanwhile, a spokesman from the DPRK National Defense Commission issued a statement May 20 rejecting the claim of South Korea and requesting to send an DPRK inspection group to South Korean to verify material evidence.

South Korea, however, rejected that request, the KCNA added.

GEORGE GROSZ: What if he went to the Philippines?

GEORGE GROSZ: What if he went to the Philippines?

Regarding his drawings and similarities with the Pilipino context

by Lualhati Madlangawa-Guererro

Last time, I borrowed a book entitled "George Grosz: Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic" by Beth Irwin Lewis. That book, upon reading it, tackles much of his life, not just totally about his profession, but also as an activist and a propagandist and lastly, a "saddest man on Europe" as what they described him.

But,
As I continue reading his life and staring at the drawings, paintings and the like, especially during his Spartakusbund and the KPD days in the Weimar Republic, it somewhat mirrors the status of the Pilipino society both past and present as a rotten society. Calling it as corrupt, decadent, semi-feudal, semi-colonial, backward. And through the drawings and paintings Grosz made, for sure we may notice that it emphasizes societal criticism of the system in general, as well as in specific events indicated.

And,
I even think also that if George Grosz, the "saddest man on Europe" may have tried visiting the Philippines and analyzing the entire society for his works, perhaps he may have illustrated the conditions happened today same as in the early days of the Republik Deutschand:

1.) Having a reformist president called the reactionary leaning military and police to quash the activists, radicals through force and deceit, the Mendiola and Hacienda Luisita massacres were quite similar to the events the Freikorps, being called by the moderate Ebert, done a series of massacres against the revolting peasants and workers during the early days of the German Republic.

2.) The extravagance of the Elite whilst the poor masses forced to content in their poverty, a feature of a rotten system the government neglected or if being given welfare, limited to a propaganda use treated as if a "charity."

3.) The degeneration of culture, controlled and regulated by the elite and the church, as well as the decadent lumpenproletariat and lumpenbourgeois,

and lastly,

4.) The Putschists, military Adventurists, and wingnuts around creates similarities both the past-current status of the country and the events during the early and the middle years of the Weimar Republic-the Kapp putsch, the Beer hall putsch, and the former imperial generals surrounding the regime in general. The Philippines somehow shared the same experience of having mutinies, coups and wingnut-leaning military officers in the government.

These events, again are being depicted at Grosz's drawings and paintings regarding German life, and shows "nearly" similarities, if not carbon copies to the Pilipino society.

And as I further reading the entire book, there also lies the strength of the people being drawn in his works creating a counterpart, a bloc against the system, and for sure we may likely to understand about it as what it speaks of in that work:

An avenging Proletarian

The worker's and peasant's army marching

Again,
It also mirrors Pilipino life, both past and present, also in the works of a Weimar-era artist. Looks weird, but true as you may understand every scene being depicted, of orgies and of tragedies happened in our lives as an individual. Worse as we experience blood-sucking fools trying to enslave us and sucking all of our lives in a hell-like existence in a modern-day world, to the fact that the Philippines is a backward state!

And to my expectations if Grosz may do so in visiting the Philippines, even in spirit may hath do the same as the pictures you've seen!

AFP backs Aquino call to resume peace talks with NDFP

AFP backs Aquino call to resume peace talks with NDFP

JV, GMANews.TV
07/28/2010 | 12:28 AM

(Updated 2:28 am) Saying that it has "tried everything" to defeat the insurgency, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Tuesday expressed support for President Benigno Aquino III’s proposal for resuming the long-stalled peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

AFP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta said peace talks may provide a better solution to the decades-long insurgency problem since the military has already tried all options.

“At this point, we have tried everything and we will give it [the peace talks] a try," he told reporters in an interview at the military headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.

Although admitting that the negotiations may be a better option, Mabanta also said that the military will always be ready to fight armed groups if necessary.

“At this point, we feel that the ceasefire or the peaceful solution can be given a chance rather than opt for a more aggressive (military) option. But depending on the situation, we will not, the Armed Forces will never lose its warrior spirit and we will confront all of the armed groups if needed," he said.

Aquino said during his first State of the Nation Address on Monday that he is open to a ceasefire and peace talks between the government and the communist-led NDFP. (See: Aquino ready to talk peace with MILF, CPP-NPA-NDF)

Mabanta said the military is “looking forward" to the proposed negotiations, saying the the AFP “will benefit most" from the plan to talk peace with the communist rebels.

CPP: No to ceasefire before peace talks

In his SONA, Aquino had challenged the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to come to the negotiating table with concrete suggestions, asking the rebels rhetorically: “To the CPP-NPA-NDF: are you prepared to put forth concrete solutions rather than pure criticism and finger-pointing?"

NDFP chief political consultant Jose Ma. Sison, for his part, reminded the government that the revolutionary movement has already put forward “substantive and concrete proposals" for the government in the past, and likewise challenged the Aquino administration to immediately form a negotiating panel to discuss these proposals with the NDFP panel.

Sison and other key NDFP negotiators are based in The Netherlands, where they have lived in exile since the late 1980s.

Sison, who admits to having been the CPP’s “founding chairman," also rejected Aquino’s proposal to have a ceasefire first before resuming peace talks with the Philippine government.

Sison said it is “unjust" to expect the communist party to engage in a ceasefire and surrender before peace negotiations.

“It is unjust for anyone to expect the revolutionary forces and the people to simply cease fire and surrender to a rotten ruling system that shuns patriotic and progressive demands and refuses to engage in basic reforms," he said in a statement posted on the CPP’s website on Tuesday.

The NDFP chief political consultant said that the ceasefire should come during the later stage of the peace negotiations, when substantive agreements have already been made between the two parties.

In a separate interview with RPN 9's Paolo Capino, chief of the NDFP negotiating panel Luis Jalandoni also suggested that the Aquino government "consider the concrete proposal made by the NDFP on 27 August 2005: 'Concise Agreement for Immediate Just Peace' which was personally handed over to the GRP Panel in Oslo on 28 August 2005."

Jalandoni added, in an apparent swipe at the government's peace advisers, that "Mr. Aquino appears not adequately informed about this and the other above-mentioned concrete proposals of the NDFP."

*Url: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/197141/afp-backs-aquino-call-to-resume-peace-talks-with-ndfp

CPP stands pat vs ceasefire before talks

CPP stands pat vs ceasefire before talks*

Jerrie M. Abella/JV, GMANews.TV
07/29/2010 | 02:27 AM

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) stood pat Wednesday on its position against a ceasefire before resuming peace talks with the government.

In a statement posted on its website, the CPP also reminded President Benigno Aquino III that previous peace talks during the administration of his mother, the late Corazon Aquino, failed largely because of a ceasefire as a condition to the talks.

"Aquino should know better than to insist on peace negotiations premised on a ceasefire agreement which was proven unsuccessful during the term of his mother as president," the statement said.

Besides, the CPP said engaging in peace talks while their weapons are tied up "virtually holds us hostage."

"It would be foolish for us to expect to talk on fair and equal terms regarding life-and-death questions with the other side, when we have our arms dropped while the forces on other side have the barrels of their guns pointed at our heads," it said.

The CPP said a three-month ceasefire in late 1986 to early 1987 did not result in any fruitful agreement in terms of addressing the roots of the armed conflict.

Worse, it said the government used the lull to "induce inertia among the revolutionary armed forces, and for the puppet reactionary armed forces and intelligence agents to freely enter and intensify surveillance in revolutionary areas."

The CPP said it was only when the government under then-President Fidel Ramos agreed to throw away the earlier premise of tying the talks to an immediate and prolonged ceasefire agreement did the peace negotiations become fruitful.

In that period, said the CPP, aside from The Hague Joint Declaration of 1992 which set forth the framework, principles and sequence of peace negotiations, other important agreements mutually signed by the NDFP and GRP include the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) signed in 1995 and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) signed in 1998.

"If Aquino insists on having peace talks premised on an immediate ceasefire, he will be reducing his peace declarations to empty rhetoric," pointed out the CPP.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda earlier said the government is standing by its proposal to implement a ceasefire before resuming talks with the communist-led National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). (See: Aquino ready to talk peace with MILF, CPP-NPA-NDF)

The Armed Forces of the Philippines also expressed support for the proposal, first mentioned by Aquino during his State of the Nation Address on Monday.

*Url: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/197242/cpp-stands-pat-vs-ceasefire-before-talks

Oppose mass rail transit fare hike, privatization plan-CPP

Oppose mass rail transit fare hike, privatization plan-CPP*

Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
July 31, 2010

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today urged the Filipino people to unite and oppose plans by the Aquino government to hike fares in the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems. Government officials have confirmed plans to raise the fare citing rising operational costs and plans to reprivatize government-owned shares.

"The rail transit fare hike plan shows that behind its rhetoric of concern about the poverty of the people, the new puppet reactionary regime is actually insensitive to the downtrodden masses' social and economic plight," the CPP said. "This increase would increase the daily cost of living of the impoverished masses, with 10% of their minimum income already being spent on transport fares." The MRT and LRT combined have an average of about a million riders a day.

The CPP added that the fare hike is actually meant to ensure the profitability of the mass rail transport systems and make them more attractive to potential buyers. "The fare hike is but a prelude to a more sinister agenda, that is the reprivatization of government-owned shares in the MRT."

The CPP said the new US-Aquino regime "is proving itself no different from past regimes in terms of upholding the policies of denationalization, privatization and deregulation imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that make the public become a milking cow for the private rentiers' superprofits.

"Because of this profit-oriented and anti-public service framework of the elite reactionary government, investments in the public railway system are being disparaged by the IMF--trained financial and public transport managers of the new puppet government as well as by imperialist institutions as losses instead of necessary social expenditures for the benefit of the public," said the CPP.

"Esential social services such as state public transport systems necessarily require government subsidies and should not at all be means for private profit," added the CPP. The CPP pointed out that a large part of the so-called losses being shouldered by the government are actually payments for guaranteed profits in the form of "equity rental payments" as well as for loans incurred by the Metro Rail Transit Corporation (MRTC) when it built the MRT under a 25-year "build-lease-transfer" (BLT) scheme in 1997.

The BLT contract guaranteed the consortium a 15% rate of profit. A large part of the so-called "government subsidies" also went to interest payments for debts to Export-Import Bank of Japan, the Sumitomo Bank, and other Japanese and Czech banks, as well as some local banks like the Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI) and the Ayala-led MRT Holdings Inc.

The majority of MRT shares is currently owned by the government after government financial institutions led by the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and the Landbank acquired 76% of MRT's assets for $800-$900 million starting December 2009. These shares were ordered transferred to the National Development Corporation last February to facilitate privatization.

"Instead of raising fare rates, the Aquino government should have reviewed the lopsided BOT contract and possibly rescinded or renegotiated it with the public welfare in mind," pointed out the CPP. "The Aquino government should take advantage of its present majority ownership of the MRT to ensure that fare rates remain low and accessible to the people. Instead, it plans to re-privatize its shares in the MRT, completely ignoring the lessons of the past."

"In the face of the intense economic crisis and the already miserable plight of the toiling masses, the US-Aquino regime is poised to further its denationalization, privatization and deregulation offensive, selling off the few remaining assets of the state at the expense of social subsidies, making it no different from its predecessor," said the CPP.

The CPP urged the Filipino people to vigorously resist the unjustified mass rail transit fare hike plan as well as the new puppet regime's further denationalization, privatization and deregulation schemes.

*Url: http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2010/08/oppose-mass-rail-transit-fare-hike.html

Interview on GRP-NDFP Peace Negotiations With Luis Jalandoni

Interview on GRP-NDFP Peace Negotiations With Luis Jalandoni*

By Paolo Capino
RPN 9 News Desk Supervisor
July 28, 2010

Q.: Sir, do you have any pre-condition before you are willing to talk with the government?

We have no precondition for resuming formal peace talks with the Aquino government. We have repeatedly declared that we are ready to resume formal talks on the basis of The Hague Joint Declaration and other peace agreements signed from 1992 to 2004. The Hague Joint Declaration states that no precondition that negates the inherent character and purpose of peace negotiations may be imposed and that the agenda will take up human rights and international humanitarian law, social and economic reforms, political and constitutional reforms and end of hostilities and disposition of forces, in that sequence.

Q. Do you agree with a ceasefire?

We do not agree with Mr. Aquino's ceasefire ("malawakang tigil-putukan") as a precondition for formal talks. This precondition is a violation of The Hague Joint Declaration. It practically blocks the resumption of formal talks and prevents the negotiations on social, economic and political reforms to address the roots of the armed conflict. These reforms, such as genuine land reform and national industrialization, are necessary to respond to the basic aspirations and demands of the peasants, workers and other sections of the people. They are necessary to achieve social justice as the foundation of a just and lasting peace.

Q. What are your other thoughts on the peace talks and what other issues will you likely ask the government for the resumption of the talks?

We have the concrete proposal to resume formal talks on the basis of The Hague Joint Declaration and other agreements. We are suggesting that the Aquino administration send an emissary or team of emissaries to meet with us here in The Netherlands or in Norway to discuss preparations for the resumption of formal talks. Such emissaries were sent by former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos as well as Gloria Arroyo.

The release of political prisoners (as Cory Aquino did in 1986 and Ramos too from 1992), the indemnification of victims of human rights violations under the Marcos regime, the release of NDFP consultants (detained in violation of the agreement of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees), the resumption of meetings of the Joint Monitoring Committee (mandated to monitor the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), negotiation on social economic reforms, are among the points we will take up. But all these and other points both sides will bring up, can be discussed with the emissaries.

The Aquino government should also consider the concrete proposal made by the NDFP on 27 August 2005: "Concise Agreement for Immediate Just Peace" which was personally handed over to the GRP Panel in Oslo on 28 August 2005. Mr. Aquino appears not adequately informed about this and the other above-mentioned concrete proposals of the NDFP.

*Url: http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-on-grp-ndfp-peace.html

Noynoy Aquino will lead the Filipino people towards the path of deeper exploitation and deprivation-NDF

Noynoy Aquino will lead the Filipino people
towards the path of deeper exploitation and deprivation*

Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos
NDF-Mindanao
27 July 2010

Noynoy Aquino’s first SONA devoted fifteen minutes, or 43% of his speech castigating Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for graft and corruption and grave abuse of power. It is but proper for the Aquino government to run after GMA, Mike Arroyo and all their collaborators, including big tax evaders like Lucio Tan, and jail them. We are skeptical whether Mr. Aquino can achieve this within his six-year term, given that graft and corruption is deeply ingrained in a system ruled by the landed and comprador classes whose lackeys in government enrich themselves at the expense of deprived peasants and exploited workers. In fact, Cory Aquino’s regime miserably failed to stop corruption. It is not likely that Mr. Aquino’s “Truth Commission” will end the wanton pilferage of public coffers, and once and for all solve extra-judicial killings and other heinous crimes.

Mr. Aquino’s SONA failed to show the true state of the nation because he evaded addressing the very root causes of the basic problems besetting the country, and offered the Filipino people nothing but tokenistic, palliative and myopic solutions.

Mr. Aquino deliberately avoided dealing with genuine land reform, an agenda essential to resolving the country’s fundamental economic problems, which is the root cause of poverty and deprivation. His overemphasis on post-harvest facilities would precisely serve the interest of the big landlords, big bourgeois comprador and imperialist agri-business and would only partly benefit the peasant masses. Mr. Aquino is scared of agrarian reform issues because he does not want to be hounded by the ghosts of the Mendiola and Hacienda Luisita massacres.

Nationalist industrialization, a key to economic self-reliance and workers’ emancipation, was sidestepped in Mr. Aquino’s SONA. Without a strong nationalized industry, the country’s economy would only crash and workers delivered towards more capitalist exploitation. He did not even mention a single line about increasing the wages and benefits of Filipino workers. What he offered instead was the build-operate-transfer (BOT) and “private and public partnerships,” which in truth are privatization schemes, that do not generate genuine employment, but would benefit his big bourgeois comprador and imperialist patrons. He had put on sale the nation’s patrimony at bargain prices, with the people getting nothing but loose change in return, getting “fried deep in their own fat.”

Mr. Aquino was misinformed, if not malicious, in quipping “mga rebeldeng nangongotong” against the New People’s Army (NPA). In fact, the NPA runs after the GRP’s “kotong” cops.

He failed to address the rapid destruction of the environment and the depletion of natural resources. Large mining and logging companies, including agri-business plantations, especially in Mindanao, continue to ravage the country’s forests, mountains, lakes, seashores, and other natural resources. Instead of putting up national industries as the alternative, Mr. Aquino preferred foreign monopoly industries that plunder the country’s resources and destroy the environment further, even at the risk of irreversible destruction.

In its approach towards the Moro people’s struggle in Mindanao, it must show sincerity in granting the Moro people’s struggle for the right to self-determination, and forge just agreements.

With regard to the peace negotiations, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) had always been interested, willing and ready to negotiate peace with the GRP. We have disseminated all the signed agreements to our constituents and implemented the Comprehensive Agreement for the Respect of Human Rights and the International Humantarian Law (CARHR-IHL). After 12 years since signing, the GRP has yet to disseminate and implement the CARHR-IHL. Mr. Aquino must be ignorant when he asked “Handa na ba kayong magbigay ng mungkahi?” The NDFP Peace Panel has been prodding the GRP to enter into the second substantive agenda, which is the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER), drafted twelve years ago. If Mr. Aquino’s government is sincere, it should not treat the CPP-NPA-NDF as “terrorists,” and release all convicted and detained peace consultants. Mr. Aquino’s call for an indefinite ceasefire is a veiled demand for the capitulation of the revolutionary forces. How can the New People’s Army continue to be a real people’s army when it is rendered inutile by an indefinite ceasefire?

The SONA, not so different from Mr. Aquino’s inauguration speech, only revealed that the Aquino regime has neither new nor better to offer the Filipino people to deliver them from the muck of misery and exploitation, because it wittingly dodged addressing the fundamental problems in Philippine society. The SONA has only led us to discover where Noynoy Aquino will take the country in the next six years: where else, but straight into the grinding machine of US imperialists, big landlords, and the comprador bourgeoisie.

We cannot leave the nation’s future in the hands of Noynoy Aquino and the rest of his ruling clique whom we know is basically no different from all other previous reactionary regimes. Our only way is to further advance the struggle for national liberation and new democracy, which aims to carry forward genuine agrarian reform and nationalist industrialization free from US imperialist machination and dictates.

The National Democratic Front in Mindanao (NDF-Mindanao) calls on the Filipino people to unite under the banner call of the people’s nationalist and democratic revolution and, together, strive hard to reach a higher stage of the protracted people’s war. The people’s democratic revolution is the only solution to the basic problems of the Filipino people!

*Url: http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2010/07/noynoy-aquino-will-lead-filipino-people.html