{UAH} LEAVE OF ABSENCE

This is to inform all and sundry that I am very much alive and in in
good health. I have been dealing with personal tragedies here in the
UK and in Uganda, but more importantly I am part of an international
team trying to revive the Philippines Peace process. There is a good
chance we can get it back on track. For those who don't know, the
Phillippines civil war has been raging since 1948. It beban after the
end of the world war and the return of the American imperialists.
During the war itself, after the USA fled the Philippines, the puppet
land-lord government entered into a surrender agreement which allowed
the Japanese to ocuppy the Philippines. Japanese occupation was
particularly brutal, just as it was in all most all countries and
territories it occupied in Asia. Left on their own, local peasants,
especially in the central island of Luzon, led by communist
intellectuals from the cities, rose up in arms to fight Japanese
aggression and their puppet land-lord oppressors. When the Americans
returned to the Philippines after Japan had surrendered, they instead
supported the puppet land-lord government and embarked on a brutal
process of disarming the peasant rebels who had fought the Japanese
occupation in a very brutal war of attrition. The reason they gave
this time was that they were fighting "communism". This time supported
by land-lord organised militias and death squads, the Americans
embarked on a genocidal campaign in the islands of Luzon, killing
thousands of peasants. This led to hundreds of thousands of trade
unionists, students and intellectuals from the cities to mobilise
themselves into an armed querrilla movement. Led by the Communist
Party of the Philippines, this war has persisted ever since, becoming
the longest running civil war in the world, similar to the one in
Colombia.Nearly 1 million people have died since, a majority of them
peasants. The principle demand today of the resistance movement
grouped under the banner of the National Democratic Front of the
Philippines is a COMPREHENSIVE AGRARIAN REFORM PROGRAME which would
see at least 75% of all Philippines arable land returned to peasant
farmers. Most land in the Philippines was grabbed by Spanish and later
American colonisers and parcelled out to feudal landlords and big
corporations. This is the root of the insurgency in the Philippines
and the country will never know peace unless land is returned to the
peasants. Over more than 50 years, the peasants have demonstrated they
are willing to make sacrifices to get back their land.

The Dutch Government has agreed to be an independent interlocutor or
mediator in the Peace Talks, which will be held in the latter half of
this year in Utrecht. The stumbling block now is an agreement on
Immunity Guarantess as key negotiators for the National Democraticc
Front are either in jail in the Philippines, or on an American List of
so-called "Terrorists" and would be arrested if they entered the
European Union. So we are trying to get Immunity for these delegates,
as well as seeking their release from detention so that they can come
and attend the talks. Some of these prisoners have been detained for
almost 20 years and no peace talks can take palve without their
presence.

I am in Utrecht this weekend and then will travel to the Philippines
for a week. I should be back in circulation towards the end of this
month.

Happy New Year to Everyone.

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