Joma Sison is convinced communism is not dead but that it would be foolhardy for him to set a timetable for victory. More in this republished Newsbreak magazine piece from 2002:
Newsbreak magazine interviewed Jose Maria Sison over two decades ago – on October 19, 2002 – in his office in Utrecht. Sison
And so has he, in some ways. Sison now tinkers with the computer, a skill he admits learning only a year ago. That somehow liberates him from his well-known dependence on his wife, Julie, who for many years would patiently write down his winding thoughts – from calling comrades to arms to ditching the Philippine government’s latest policy.
Well, why not? That’s the gripe of some of his comrades, anyway, that he’s safely ensconced here, away from the rough life in the battlefield. This, while a Dutch TV station showed a 23-minute documentary favorable to Sison, which included soundbites from no less than Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. declaring that the NPA is not a terrorist organization.
His comrades say Sison didn’t intend to live in exile here. In late 1986, after his release from prison, he left Manila for a lecture tour of Asia and Europe. But he was relentless in his attacks against the government of Corazon Aquino, prompting her to cancel his passport while he was in the Netherlands.
Sison chose an asylum bid, but didn’t do what others like him were expected to do – keep quiet while his case was being heard. Sison appealed his case, and won temporary relief. A Dutch court ruled that while the government had every right to reject his asylum bid, they couldn’t throw him out because as a political refugee under the Geneva Convention, Sison enjoyed protection from any danger facing him should he be remanded to the Philippines.He is a recognized political refugee, under international humanitarian laws, but is not an accepted one by the host government.he rues.
Butalid puts it bluntly, “Joma is sincere about having peace talks because this is what keeps him politically relevant in the Philippines and also prevents the Dutch government from throwing him out.” Officially, Sison sits on the NDF peace panel as consultant. The US, he stresses, has its own “unilateral objective” of catching him and doesn’t care much about the peace talks. “I have talked to the best available lawyer here and they say extradition can overpower all prohibitions against expulsion.” The US apparently intends to use Sison’s statements against American troops in the Philippines as one of the bases for a case against him.
Yet, there are persistent reports of a rift between Sison and the Tiamzons over strategy and tactics, and that’s probably the reason Tiglao wants to seduce the couple. “That’s military intrigue,” Sison says, refusing to elaborate., and this Sison attributes to the back-to-basics campaign he launched a decade ago which caused the biggest split in the CPP since its birth in 1968.In the early 1990s, Sison repeatedly ordered the NPA to scale down the fighting in the countryside.
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