NYC SJP Condemns Attack on Kidapawan Farmers

Youth and students unite to fight imperialism from the Philippines to New York to Palestine

As students, workers and community members in solidarity with Palestine and all oppressed nations, New York City Students for Justice in Palestine stands in solidarity with the people of Kidapawan, after the massacre in which several farmers were killed, hundreds were injured and dozens remain missing.

During a devastating drought in the Cotabato region of Mindanao, over 5,000 farmers and indigenous Lumad marched on the Cotabato-Davao highway and formed a human barricade to demand relief in the form of 15,000 sacks of rice. Responding to this show of power by the people of Cotabato, the Philippine National Police (PNP) opened fire on the barricade, killing at least three people, injuring more than 100, and arresting more than 80 others. After the massacre, the protestors found sanctuary in the United Methodist Church compound, where the PNP continues to harass them under the pretext of“searching for firearms”. US imperialism, represented by the Government of the Philippines, will try to halt the growth of the revolutionary movement in the Philippines by any means available, as shown by the recent massacres in Hacienda Lusita and Kidapawan, disappearances and extrajudicial killings of indigenous activists from the Cordillera mountains to Mindanao, and the armed campaign against the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

NYC SJP recognizes the parallels between the reactionary government in the Philippines and the settler-colonial state of Israel. Like the Zionist state, the Aquino regime in the Philippines depends on U.S. imperialist aid to survive, receiving $79 million in U.S. military aid in 2015. AnakBayan NY notes, “This aid goes directly to the repression of the people’s just resistance against their oppressors as this recent incident in Cotabato shows. The shooting of unarmed protestors exposes the cowardice of the Malacañang government and their desperation to hold onto their power.” Similarly, Israel ranks as thenumber one recipient of U.S. military aid, receiving $3 billion in 2015, in addition to regularly receiving annual lump sums as much as $1.9 billion. Both the Government of the Philippines and the Israeli state operate as U.S. outposts in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, advancing the interests of U.S. hegemony at the expense of the Filipino, Palestinian, and oppressed nations all over the globe.

While the police and military in the Philippines prevent the people of Cotabato from accessing necessities like food, the Israeli state imposes a crippling siege on Gaza. The siege results in extreme food shortages, water sources in which 96% of the coastal aquifer is contaminated with chloride and nitrate, chronic unemployment and damaged and destroyed crucial infrastructure. This air, naval, and land siege is used to collectively punish the Palestinian people for their continuous resistance, in the various forms it takes, both armed and unarmed. However, the siege of Gaza is but one aspect of the national oppression Israel inflicts on the Palestinian people. The struggle for the liberation of Palestine is a struggle for the liberation of all of Palestine from the river to the sea, and must be led by Palestinians wherever they may be–in Gaza, the West Bank, ‘48 Palestine, the camps, and the wider diaspora. Similarly, the struggle for National Democracy and Socialism in the Philippines is a struggle not only against the Aquino regime, but a struggle for genuine democracy and liberation, against semi-feudalism, bureaucrat capitalism and U.S. imperialism.

Our role as progressive and revolutionary youth and students in the imperialist center is to weaken the Empire and incapacitate its reach, so that space is created for revolutionary movements to flourish in nations like the Philippines and Palestine, and they are able to self-­determine their futures, free of imperialist and colonial domination. While the benefactors of Empire seem all-powerful, in reality they are weak and dependent on imperialism, illustrated by the Zionist’s need to dip into the U.S. ammunition stockpiles during the 2014 Israeli aggression on Gaza. Neither the puppet government in the Philippines, nor the settler state on Palestinian land have any chance of surviving without support from the imperialists. Logically then, our tasks must be to both organize in solidarity with Palestine through tools like BDS, as well as consciously and intentionally move forward the struggles rooted in national questions within the U.S. prison-house of nations.

We call on all Palestine solidarity organizations, and other progressive and revolutionary organizations to stand with the people of Cotabato not out of moralistic grandstanding, but out of revolutionary, internationalist necessity. As we have previously stated,“Advances of one anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle both objectively strain the resources of oppressor nation(s), and subjectively inspire anti-imperialist struggles around the world by proving these struggles are possible in practice. As SJPs organizing within the center of US imperialism, we are in a position to advance the anti-imperialist and anti-settler-colonial struggles here, and in particular the national liberation struggles of internal colonies within the borders of the US (the struggles for national self-determination of Blacks/New Afrikans, Chicanos, First Nations, etc.). By doing so, we will actively advance Palestinian liberation by undermining the ability of the US imperialist state to so extensively support Israel.”

We stand forever in solidarity with the struggle in the Philippines, and with our comrades in AnakBayan – USA. The crimes in Kidapawan and Gaza will not go unpunished.

“As long as the imperialists globalize their system, we will globalize as well.”

-Leila Khaled, Quezon City, Philippines

#BigasHindiBala

!يسقط الإستعمار

IMPERYALISMO IBAGSAK!

Source: NYC SJP CONDEMNS ATTACK ON FARMERS IN KIDAPAWAN

Filipinos demand: Free journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq and all Palestinian political prisoners!

Feb. 18, 2016 — The Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association (PPFA) stands in solidarity with Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, currently under detention without defined charges and trial by the Israeli occupation forces, as he approaches the critical stage in his hunger-strike to obtain his complete and unconditional release.

Al-Qeeq was abducted by Israeli forces inside his home in Ramallah at 2:00 am on Nov. 21, 2015. He was shackled, blindfolded, left in the open air, interrogated for long hours, thrown in an isolation cell, and afterwards, issued him a six-month administrative detention order authorizing his continued incarceration. He has no access to charges against him, which are kept in classified files by Israel.

Al-Qeeq is now on his 91st day of hunger strike. He has lost over half his body weight, and is unable to see or talk properly; and appears to be close to death. Despite the urgency of his situation, Israeli authorities have adamantly refused his petition to seek medical treatment in a Palestinian hospital.

Despite the urgency of his situation, Israeli authorities have adamantly refused his petition to seek medical treatment in a Palestinian hospital.

With his health rapidly deteriorating, the Israeli Supreme Court has been forced to “suspend” his administrative detention. Al-Qeeq, however, has rightly rejected the gesture as he is demanding his complete freedom and the cancellation of his administrative detention.

The illegal arrest and detention of al-Qeeq is part of the Israeli agenda to impede and gag journalists and activists from speaking publicly about Israel’s genocidal war in Palestine and the continued colonisation of their lands by illegal settlers.

Israel’s use of administrative detention is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Conventions which prohibit an occupying power from detaining members of the occupied population outside the occupied territory and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which requires it to inform those arrested of the reasons for the arrest at the time, promptly inform them of the charges against them, and provide a fair and public trial.

Currently, Israel is holding around 6,800, mostly political prisoners, and 660 of them are being held in administrative detention. The number of Palestinian journalists languishing in Israeli jails is at 17.

The harassment, silencing, and abuse of rights of activists and dissenters are experiences that Palestinians and Filipinos share as nations struggling against violent occupying powers.

According to the Philippine-based rights watchdog and PPFA steering committee member-organisation Karapatan, there have been 911 cases of illegal arrest and detention documented from 2010 to 2015 under Pres. Benigno Aquino’s term. Almost 500 political prisoners are in various penitentiaries. Last Jan. 8, 2016 political prisoner and former peace consultant for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) died in prison after succumbing to a heart attack. He had endured 11-long years in prison owing to false charges that the court eventually dismissed.

According to the Philippine-based rights watchdog and PPFA steering committee member-organisation Karapatan, there have been 911 cases of illegal arrest and detention documented from 2010 to 2015 under Pres. Benigno Aquino’s term. Almost 500 political prisoners are in various penitentiaries.

In 2015, Reporters without Borders ranked Philippines as 8th of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Since Aquino’s assumption as president in 2010, 26 journalists have been murdered according to Human Rights Watch.

We call on all the Filipino people to support and mobilise for al-Qeeq’s just demand to due process and to seek treatment from the medical provider of his choice. We call on all human rights advocates and media workers organisations to condemn Israel’s persecution of journalists and for stifling free media and democracy.

We call on all freedom loving citizens of the world to demand the release of all Palestinian and Filipino political prisoners.

Free Mohammed al-Qeeq! Free all Palestinian political prisoners!

Free all Filipino political prisoners!

From the Philippines to Palestine, occupation is a crime!

Philippines Solidarity Week Statement

On the occasion of Philippines Solidarity Week, New York City Students for Justice in Palestine extends our firmest solidarity to the Filipino people in their struggle for genuine democracy and national liberation. As youth and students in solidarity with Palestine, we are proud to call the revolutionary youth of Anakbayan USA our comrades in the struggle against U.S. imperialist domination and exploitation. The solidarity week is commemorated every February 4th, the anniversary of the Philippine-American War, the first U.S. imperialist war of aggression in Asia. This war marked the early stages of the period of global imperialism, which we have yet to shake off, and remains a crucial point of origin in the genealogy of anti-imperialist resistance in oppressed nations all over the world.The anti-imperialist struggle for national democracy in the Philippines is a struggle that demands the unwavering support of revolutionary and progressive organizations in the U.S and abroad. The Filipino people have been waging an uninterrupted battle against U.S. imperialism and its puppets for well over a hundred years, and have ousted several U.S.-backed regimes since the artificial granting of “independence” from the U.S. in 1946. Today, the U.S. has 6,000 troops stationed in the Philippines, more than double the amount it has left in Iraq, despite the 1991 decision by the Philippine Senate to reject the renewal of a treaty allowing US military bases on Philippine soil. Facilitated by the ongoing presence of the U.S. military, American soldiers continue to commit violence against and exploit the Filipino people with impunity, evidenced by innumerable cases of murder and rape. It is clear that the U.S. will go to great lengths to protect and maintain its political and economic interests in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, and even clearer is the necessity of international solidarity with those struggling against it. The revolution in the Philippines represents one of the most advanced and developed revolutions against reaction and imperialism in the world today, and is one that demands our unwavering support.

In January of 2016, members of New York City Students for Justice in Palestine traveled to the Philippines with Anakbayan-NY, a revolutionary Filipino youth and students organization. The trip provided SJP members with the opportunity to witness firsthand the concrete conditions of the National Democratic movement, and to highlight the importance of international solidarity, from New York to Palestine to the Philippines.

NYC SJP received a warm welcome from revolutionary workers, students, professors, indigenous activists and people in general who reiterated their undying commitment to the liberation of Palestine and oppressed peoples within the United States. In addition to us learning from the experiences of the movement there, the Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association (PPFA), formed during the International League of Peoples Struggle conference in November 2015, extended their solidarity to us by meeting to coordinate campaigns and actions in support of the Palestinian struggle in the Philippines.

Students for Justice in Palestine held discussions with students, professors, and academic staff at the University of the Philippines, Diliman Quezon City

Often, surplus military equipment that the Israeli Defense Forces do not need is sold off to the Armed Forces of the Philippines to be turned on the Filipino, Moro, and indigenous people of the Philippine Islands. Although the geography changes, when these weapons are transferred, the basic nature remains the same: a U.S. funded weapon stays trained on an oppressed nation.Since these two nations are bound together by the yoke of U.S. imperialism, internationalism is not only our duty as revolutionaries, it is a necessity to strain and weaken the ability of the empire to exert its hegemony over the oppressed nations.

We salute the fellow revolutionary youth of Anakbayan-USA in their continued struggle for genuine democracy in the Philippines, and wish them unprecedented success in their current upsurge movement. On Philippines Solidarity Week and beyond we hope to build an ever growing relationship of concrete camaraderie in the struggle.

LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!
IMPERYALISMO IBAGSAK!

Source: Philippines Solidarity Week Statement

End the Occupation! Resist Imperialism!

Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association’s statement on Nov. 29 International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Media Release

Nov. 28, 2015

From the Philippines to Palestine:

End the Occupation! Resist Imperialism!

 

On Nov. 29, 2015, the Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association joins the international community in commemorating the UN international day of solidarity with the Palestinian peoples. We condemn the brutal attacks of Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in East Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied territories. We support the heroic resistance of the Palestinian peoples for national liberation and self-determination, and demand an end to the US-Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.

The wave of terror conducted by Israel’s security forces between October and November resulted in 92 Palestinians, including 20 children, killed, and 10,346 injured according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Human rights organizations have raised questions about Israel’s “shoot to kill” policy for any Palestinian suspected of involvement in attacks on Jewish Israelis. Suspected or real assailants, even when they no longer posed mortal danger, were shot to death by Israeli security forces. We reiterate that the wilful killing of a person, regardless of the extent of danger she or he poses at the time, is a patent violation of international humanitarian laws and other relevant human rights norms.

The slew of violence in East Jerusalem is fueled by Palestinians’ legitimate concerns over Israel’s increasing encroachment into the al-Aqsa mosque compound, discriminatory practices such as enclosures and checkpoints, and ongoing attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians. Most recently, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has approved the marketing of land for the construction of 454 homes in two illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. Israel has also announced the construction of five new Jewish-only communities in the Negev region of the country’s south, two of which will be on top of a pair of Palestinian Bedouin communities. These decisions are part of the Israeli government’s objective to push Palestinians out of their ancestral lands and transform these areas in accordance with the Zionist vision.

The Zionist apartheid regime of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians is a war funded by US imperialism. A few weeks ago, Netanyahu and US president Barrack Obama met to strike a new deal to expand US military aid to Israel by another $1.5 bn. Since its founding, Israel has received $124.3bn in military assistance from the US, according to a recent US congressional report. US imperialism continues to prop up the apartheid state of Israel as part of its long-term strategy to maintain US economic and military hegemony in the region.

The Palestinian peoples are justified in resisting Zionist occupation and US imperialism. The new generation of fearless Palestinian youth is leading a new intifada to attain for their country and people the right to self-determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property from which they had been displaced.

The Filipino people support our Palestinian comrades fighting for freedom and sovereignty. The Filipino and Palestinian peoples stand to benefit from the defeat of our respective national and imperialist oppressors. We are united by our common vision for a socially just world, free of imperialist wars of aggression, occupation, and plunder.

On Nov. 17, at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, people’s movements, human rights organizations, religious sectors, and Palestinian leaders officially launched the Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association (PPFA) to promote solidarity between the peoples of Palestine and the Philippines. ###

Solidarity Association between Palestinian and Filipino Peoples Launched

On November 17, 2015, the Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association was officially launched at the Balay Kalinaw at the University of the Philippines, Diliman Quezon City. The Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association is an initiative to promote strong solidarity links between the Filipino and Palestinian peoples and highlight their common struggles against imperialism to achieve national self-determination and liberation.
Guest speakers included Palestinian resistance icon Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,Mohammed Khatib of the European Coordination of Committees and Association for Palestine, and Dr. Edelina dela Paz of the Health Alliance for Human Rights.

Khaled expressed solidarity with the Lumad indigenous people in the Philippines and discussed the mutual histories of displacement by colonialism and struggle for return, and the common struggle of the Palestinian people with other oppressed peoples in Asia, Africa and around the world. The PPFA, according to Khaled, “is a step forward for the relations between the Filipinos and Palestinians. This association is important in fostering common activities and campaigns in support of our common struggles. The association can provide the Philippine component to the ongoing Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement to exert political and economic pressure against Israel for its various violations of human rights and humanitarian laws.”

Dr. Delen dela Paz of the People’s Health Movement highlighted the need for a common anti-imperialist front in the struggle for national liberation and self-determination of both countries.

“The US’ support for Israel is driven by its imperialist ambition in the Middle East and in the rest of the world. For the US, control of the region’s resources serves the purpose to secure a vital commodity, provide a source of profits, and as a cudgel with which to influence rival powers within the global marketplace. The Philippine government works in complicity with US imperialism in exploiting the natural and human resources of the country. The PPFA will serve as a conduit to bridge the struggles of the Palestinian and Filipino peoples against imperialism to achieve national liberation, democracy, and peace based on justice.”

Various representatives of people’s organisations and civil society from different parts of the world attended to event to express their message of support.

Concluding the event, Khatib and dela Paz exchanged Keffiyeh and Katipunan scarves to symbolize the solidarity between Palestinian and Filipino peoples.

The campaign initiators of PPFA are Kilusang Mayo Uno – KMU, GABRIELA | A National Alliance of Women, Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Humang Rights in the Philippines, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, KARAPATAN Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights, the League of Filipino Students and Philippine Interfaith Solidarity Forum on Palestine. ###

‘World better without APEC, Israeli occupation’ – Leila Khaled

Marya Salamat

November 14, 2015
Originally published in Bulatlat.com 

“My call to the peoples of the world is to organize resistance in their respective countries to the regional level.”

Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled: People under occupation have the right to resist by all means. Including through armed struggle. (Photo by Raymund Villanueva / Bulatlat.com)

MANILA — Leila Khaled, iconic fighter for Palestinian freedom and current member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), laughs off a joke that her being in Manila for anti-APEC meetings may have been one of the reasons why all flights in Manila are canceled during the APEC Summit.

Khaled is the first female hijacker in history. After she hijacked her first plane in 1969, her lovely face became the international pinup of armed struggle. Since then a lot of things have changed, and PFLP had reportedly explicitly excluded hijacking from the list of its actions for Palestinian liberation. Khaled had also clarified her hijacking incident never hurt nor killed anyone. She had done that to bring to light the forcible occupation of Palestine lands by the Israeli.

Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled: People under occupation have the right to resist by all means. Including through armed struggle.

This Friday in Quezon City, she spoke at the press conference led by the ILPS (International League of Peoples’ Struggle). Amid a high level police and military preparation by the Aquino government to secure the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, and despite the veiled threats against protest actions of global and local activists including Khaled in Manila, she expressed strong assertions for the peoples’ right to resist.
“People have the right to resist, it’s their duty, it’s not a grant to them,” Khaled said.

She added that whatever or however the media portrays this, some of the media being “controlled by imperialist,” peoples under occupation and repression are humiliated.

“I’m here to say that it is our role to resist occupation in our homeland, that we have the right to resist.”

She said this right is guaranteed by the United Nations and the international community, “as it should be,” although unfortunately, she thinks the UN is now controlled also by imperialists.

Resistance a people’s duty, not a grant

With the 350 plus delegates of global activists from nearly 40 organizations operating in 91 countries, Khaled is set to join protest actions to counter the lies that, they said, are being peddled by trade and political formations such as APEC. She delivered a speech at the conference of International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) happening today till November 16.

In this conference, they are discussing liberation struggles, human rights, trade unions, children, science and technology and environment, migrants, among others. They tackle also socio-economic issues and how it impact on peasants, women, youth, indigenous peoples, teachers, health, media and the arts.

“After this, we’ll go to our countries to explain the danger of formations like APEC,” Khaled said.

The global activists see the need for governments and policies to change, for the 99% of the population who actually produce the wealth of the world to benefit from it, and not the 1% or the rich. They said formations like APEC only represent and work for that 1%.

Khaled said conferences like what they are set to do in ILPS, their resolve and continuing “dialogue with our people,” is the real democratic way.

To face down the threats hurled their way by APEC, she said “We have to raise our voices.”

She is questioning why there are American bases all over the world. “To protect the world?” She believes not.

“US has enough space in their country to put their military there.” She said it should do that and not spread its military to control the world.

She links the spread of American military power to the forcible Palestine occupation by the Israeli.

She also said the police are not being told to protect the people, but the interest of the 1%. “People have to bear with police violence, with every improvement in technology used by the police, because the government tells the police not to protect the people.”

‘Israel established by massacring Palestinians’

“In 1948, before Israel established their country on our land, they fought our people through massacres. The most widely known massacre happened in 1948,” Khaled recalled.

“They said all Palestinians are to be massacred, or they should just leave,” she added.

“After Israel established their state in our homeland, at our expense, they made more massacres. That’s their ideology. Make more massacres so they’ll win. That’s how they replace the people in our homeland,” Khaled explained.
One of Leila Khaled’s most copied pinup for armed struggle

Since then, her people, the Palestinians, face all the atrocities of this occupation. And it is ongoing. “Every time, the Israeli government creates all means to perpetrate atrocities on our people. Men, women, even children, if they pass by they’re killed. If they don’t die, they’re interrogated.”
She warned against the use of religion in making this happen.

It has been a trend, she noted, that whenever anyone criticizes Israel, it is construed or presented like it means they’re criticizing the Jews.

Khaled calls it “a political movement using religion, but they’re not really protecting religion.”

Instead, she said, they are creating anarchists, extremists – and now they’re expanding.

She said Isis is an imperialist creation, and creating something like this has been seen in American occupation of Iraq and other countries.

“US always finds tools, in Iraq, and those countries,” Khaled said. These, like Isis (Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines) are tools to direct public anger to, and for the US and allied local militaries to cite as justification for war.

Khaled draws parallels between APEC, an economic trade bloc and also a political regional formation under US, and Zionism.

Zionism, for her, is a political movement seeking control of the world, through the economy, military and use of religion.

Khaled is appealing to the public to prompt their mind to think beyond what the imperialist-controlled media and the politicians are dishing out for example with regard to “religious war,” and “war on terrorism.”

“The world would be a better world without APEC, without occupation,” she said.

Asked what specifics they can do to bring about change, Khaled says ”We have to first liberate our land.”

She talks about the rights of Palestinian refugees, estimated to be 6 million to 9 million, to return to their homeland.

“We have this right, we have to fight for it,” Khaled said.

Others living under occupation, estimated to be 3 million to 4.5 million, also have more reasons to mobilize, she said. As Israel occupies their lands, building walls on Palestinian lands, also taking away resources including water, Khaled said these resources should benefit the people, and it is not for the government of the few to decide on.

In the ILPS conference, she said, they will further share ideas. “My call to the peoples of the world is to organize resistance in their respective countries to the regional level. ILPS will do these, strengthen solidarity and action, broaden organizations, advance the anti-imperialist struggle all over the world.”