Jose Maria Sison, center.

Since the Philippines' days as a colony of the USA--which formally ended in 1946--the USA has endeavored to undermine Philippine efforts at genuine self-determination. After independence, the USA worked with the Philippine puppet government to stamp out a legitimate insurgency led by those who had prosecuted the war against the Japanese invaders in World War II. The USA never ceased in its efforts to maintain the Philippines as a neo-colony and major base area for US military operations in Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, the Philippines was a major site for the launching of air attacks against North Vietnam. It also served as a major base area of land, air and sea forces.

Jose Maria Sison was part of a group that reconstituted the Communist Party of the Philippines and pursued a struggle for the genuine independence of the Philippines from the USA. As its first chairman, Sison became a major leader, not only in the Philippines but eventually internationally in Left circles. The decision of the CPP to launch a guerrilla war against the hated regime of Ferdinand Marcos put Sison and many others in the bull's-eye, not only of Marcos and his henchmen, but also of the USA.

Arrested by Marcos' forces, Sison served time in prison, eventually being released with the overthrow of Marcos. Eventually Sison went into exile, living and working in the Netherlands, and serving as a consultant to the National Democratic Front, the alliance led by the CPP which has pursued the major insurgency in the Philippines. Sison worked steadily to advance genuine peace talks with the Philippine government, but this was largely frustrated after the 11 September 2001 Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the USA, when the Bush administration decided to announce its alleged war against terrorism. From that moment on, the terrorist designation was used to identify any real or potential enemy of the interests of the ruling circles of the USA. In 2002, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the CPP and its military wing, the New People's Army, would henceforth be formally classified as "terrorist organizations." It was also at that moment that Sison and the CPP became, once again for the USA, devils to isolate and smash. Needless to say, this coincided with the interests of the Philippine puppet government, which had been seeking means of escalating the war against the CPP and the New People's Army.

The CPP leads a legitimate insurgency. It has a significant mass base in the Philippines and has been, as we noted, long-running. Sison, however, is no longer the chairperson of the CPP. The charges against Sison go back to a time when he was actually imprisoned by the Philippine government. The Dutch authorities, with the apparent connivance of the Philippine government, are alleging that Sison ordered the murders of two former political associates.

This arrest follows months of harassment of Sison and the NDF in the Netherlands. It is clear that the Philippine puppet government has decided that it will go all-out to smash the insurgency and anyone associated with it.

Given the special relationship that has existed between the USA and the Philippines, i.e., that the Philippines has been a neo-colony of the USA, it is critical that progressive forces in the USA openly oppose this arrest and repression and resist all efforts to cow opponents through the use of the word "terrorist." We should, at a minimum, flood the embassy of the Netherlands with phone calls and emails denouncing this act and demanding the release of Sison. But we should be clear that this act by the Dutch government was at the urging of the USA and their Philippine puppets. This means that we must better understand the situation in the Philippines and support all those insisting that the Philippines must be free of US interventions. Step number one is the freedom of Jose Maria Sison!