Filipino Communist leader Comrade Bart captured

[scarletghoul]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12117009
5 January 2011 Last updated at 04:18 Share this page



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Philippine communist Ka Bart caught as truce ends

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50666000/jpg/_50666289_010940213-1.jpg Communist rebels marking 42 years of insurgency are vowing more "tactical offensives"
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A top communist rebel, Tirso Alcantara, known as Ka or Comrade Bart, has been captured, officials have announced.
The rebel leader was in charge of the important central province of Luzon for the New People's Army or NPA, the communists' armed wing.
The capture occurred at the end of a 19-day truce agreed for the festive season.
The Communist Party of the Philippines has agreed to enter peace talks with President Benigno Aquino's government.
Ka Bart was caught as he was trying to draw his gun in Lucena City, south of the Philippine capital, Manila, the army chief Lt Gen Arturo Ortiz said.
The communist was wounded in the buttocks and has been transferred to a medical facility in Fort Bonifacio army camp in Manila.
"He can be considered one of the legends of the NPA," General Ortiz told local television.
Mr Alcantara, who faces at least 23 murder charges, was commander of the Regional Operational Command of the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee when he was caught.
Talk time? He had been a spokesman for a highly successful rebel unit, and responsible for a party body which asserted political control over the NPA, before choosing to return to a military role, officials said.
The police chief from Quezon province, Ericson Velasquez, said an accomplice of Mr Alcantara was arrested with him.
The truce between government soldiers and communist fighters ended on Tuesday and was the longest such Christmas truce in a decade.
It was one of several confidence-building measures agreed by negotiators as a prelude to the resumption of peace talks.
These are due to begin next month in Norway.
Last month, President Benigno Aquino ordered the release of 43 health workers accused of being communist rebels.
Mr Aquino said "their right to due process" had been denied during nearly a year in detention.
The chief negotiator of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Louie Jalandoni, told the BBC recently that freeing the health workers was one of several confidence-building measures that they hoped to see ahead of the talks.
The government wants to end the 42-year insurgency by communist rebels, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
If the talks go ahead, they will break a five-year hiatus in the peace process.

[Yazman]

Aquino = corrupt gid

Fuck off Aquino and take your dynasty shit with you. Government doesn't care about Filipinos, they just want this conflict to end so they can stop having serious critics challenging the way they run the country (i.e. selling out the people to giant corporations, come on Aquino, lets go visit your 'industrial park' near Iloilo or the shithole factories up in cavite).

[Red Commissar]

"The communist was wounded in the buttocks"

I really hope that's just them relishing the story.

[internasyonalista]

The Aquino faction who is currently controlling the Philippine state is not only corrupt but a rabid defender of capitalism using his "popularity" gained from last May 2010 elections. Its populist slogan of "achieving peace" is just a preparation for war like what his mother (former president in 1986-92) did. His mother, Corazon Aquino was the brain behind the total war in 1987-1992.

The mainstream left-wing of capital in the Philippines, the maoist CPP-NPA is no different from the right-wing faction as far as using "peacetalks" to prepare for war.

Since 1986 the leftist maoists and the state are engage in "peacetalks" while killing each other in the urban and countryside. Thanks to their war hundreds of thousands of innocent Filipinos are displaced and tens of thousands already died since 1969.

[erupt]

Filipino insurgents are fucking tough, and the Filipino anti-communist indigenous people were fucking tough.
On a kind of side note, has anyone ever seen the Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations episode in the Phillipines? He goes to Manila and Cebu I think. Anyway, while there they meet some indigenous people, some of which used to be head-hunters. A head-hunter that took Bourdain and his crew into the Filipino rainforest had shrunk a lot of heads; I remember there was some indication of it either on his face or his clothing.

[internasyonalista]

Well, both the maoists and the state in the Philippines use the indigenous people thus dividing them, using them as cannon fodder on the war which is not their own.

The main problem in the Philippines is even the maoists and other leftist organizations don't know what really communism is.

[erupt]

Well, both the maoists and the state in the Philippines use the indigenous people thus dividing them, using them as cannon fodder on the war which is not their own.
That holds true for almost all indigenous peoples of the world. It was either that, living a some what normal life their ancestors lived, assimilate, or rebel. I'd like to add that the episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations in the Phillipines is not the episode I described; the described episode, I believe, was in Malaysia.

[Yazman]

The Aquino faction who is currently controlling the Philippine state is not only corrupt but a rabid defender of capitalism using his "popularity" gained from last May 2010 elections. Its populist slogan of "achieving peace" is just a preparation for war like what his mother (former president in 1986-92) did. His mother, Corazon Aquino was the brain behind the total war in 1987-1992.

The mainstream left-wing of capital in the Philippines, the maoist CPP-NPA is no different from the right-wing faction as far as using "peacetalks" to prepare for war.

Since 1986 the leftist maoists and the state are engage in "peacetalks" while killing each other in the urban and countryside. Thanks to their war hundreds of thousands of innocent Filipinos are displaced and tens of thousands already died since 1969.

More in the countryside than in urban areas though, although I know they have been moving north a bit and trying to 'branch out' into urban areas.

[internasyonalista]

More in the countryside than in urban areas though, although I know they have been moving north a bit and trying to 'branch out' into urban areas.

Yes because the maoist "strategy" is "surround the cities from the countryside". The main orientation of urban centers is "technical, material, financial and cadre support" to the countryside and "legal and defensive struggles" until the "people's army" declare its "strategic offensive".

However, this past 2 decades Philippine maoists are engaged more and more to paliamentarism and reformism using its mass mase in the countryside and its guerilla actions as "pressure fprce" for the parliamentary interests.

[internasyonalista]

In addition, from time to time they dispatch assassination teams in urban areas to liquidate/punish the "enemy of the revolution" including the leaders of the factions that split from the CPP in early 1990s. In the countryside also these armed factions are killing each other. Other than maoist CPP-NPA there are also other armed leftist factions in the countryside like the Revolutionary Workers Party-Revolutionary Proletarian Army and the Marxist-Leninist Party in the Philippines-Revolutionary People's Army. These two are splits from CPP-NPA.

[red cat]

However, this past 2 decades Philippine maoists are engaged more and more to paliamentarism and reformism using its mass mase in the countryside and its guerilla actions as "pressure fprce" for the parliamentary interests.

Forming tactical alliances with portions of the enemy is not engaging in parliamentarism or reformism.


In addition, from time to time they dispatch assassination teams in urban areas to liquidate/punish the "enemy of the revolution" including the leaders of the factions that split from the CPP in early 1990s. In the countryside also these armed factions are killing each other. More often than not the most notorious conspirators against the revolution are former members of the CP who know it well and hence can be priceless assets to the ruling class. It is good to hear that the Filipino CP is dealing with them correctly both in the cities and villages.