Stop Imperialist Global Plunder and Save Mother Earth!
An NDFP-Mindanao Statement of Solidarity for Earth Day
Today, the 22nd of April, as the world commemorates Earth Day, the NDFP-Mindanao wishes to renew its unwavering commitment in the struggle to save and to defend our one and only planet Earth. But sad to say, that today, the survival of our generation and the generations thereafter is seriously threatened by the seemingly unstoppable destruction of the habitat of the human race. This is so, mainly because of the imperialists’ global impunity to plunder and destroy our planet’s environ, placing super-profit above the interest and welfare of the whole humanity. Our commitment to Mother Earth is the commitment to fight side-by-side with all the peoples of the world in the struggle against the plunderer, oppressive and exploitative US imperialist-led global order.
The US-imperialist-led globalization and China’s modern revisionist block are scrambling to plunder both the human and natural resources of Third World countries such as the Philippines in their destructive capitalist competition for raw materials, thereby destroying the environment of these client countries, and degrading as a whole the global environment with their extremely pollutant factories and heavy industries.
Lately, the thousands of US-imperialist troops have come like conquerors masquerading through the “Balikatan” exercises, but in fact they are here to secure their plunder in our country and in the Asia Pacific region, in the same breadth that the Chinese modern revisionists wish to plunder our resource-rich islands in the West Philippine Sea to fill their need for raw materials. These are the very imperialist countries that have refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 attended by no less than 130 countries that aimed to drastically reduce the levels of pollution worldwide. Their unrestrained and unplanned over-production in the name of super-profit not only chokes our world environment, they also literally choke the lives of workers, peasants and the whole working class of the world, and imperil the very survival of the whole humanity.
We have seen how this has been happening in the last six decades here in Mindanao. First, there was the forest denudation due to wanton logging, then followed the land monopoly and complete scraping of vast tracts of lands for mono-crop plantations, and now the complete destruction and depletion of our mineral lands by large-scale mining. All of these resulted to periodic catastrophes with such disastrous effect to Mindanao, as was seen in the aftermath of typhoon Sendong.
Mindanao, once touted as the “land of promise,” held no promise for poor peasants, workers and even the middle classes, but for imperialists, big bourgeois compradors and big landlord classes in their insatiable pursuit for super-profit. These imperialists are the US, Japan, China, Great Britain and other countries with similar imperialist rapacity, colluding with big bourgeois compradors and big landlord classes such as Pangilinan, Zamora, Gutierrez, Enrile, Alcantara, Floreindo, Lobregat and others from their class. Although they are in cut-throat competition against one another, together as a class, they connive these past decades to deplete, destroy and denude our forests; they conspire with malevolence to grab and monopolize vast tracts of land for agri-business and to prevent land reform and national industrialization; and, they stop at nothing to build giant industries highly injurious to the ecosystem, causing erosion, landslides and siltation, poisoning and polluting land, air, water, and marine resources — all of which inflict unimaginable damage to property, and untold misery to our people in Mindanao.
They conspire with the reactionary regimes to create laws and policies that can satisfy their greed for super-profit, such as the policies on logging ban, Agrarian Reform Law, the Mining Act of 1995, CADT/CADC, and many other similar anti-people, anti-environment laws. They have funded media apologists and pseudo people’s and non-government organizations to peddle palliative solutions to our environmental woes, such as ecology-related campaigns and even faking land reform, passing on their environmental crimes to other sectors while veering away from the more fundamental issues of patrimony, sovereignty, genuine land reform and national industrialization.
As the people continue to oppose these devious schemes, fascist as they are, they crush all forms of resistance, if only to show that nothing can block their interest. We are witness to the massive militarization in the countryside in areas where large-scale multi-national mining corporations and large-scale plantations are operating, such as in mineral-rich Caraga, Compostela Valley and Davao Provinces; in the Cotabato provinces where the biggest gold mining in Southeast Asia, the SMI-Xstrata, and the Dole plantations are; in the Zamboanga Peninsula where the highly militarized Toronto Ventures Inc (TVI) is; and, in other parts of Mindanao.
The US-Aquino regime’s Oplan Bayanihan (OPB) combat and civil-military operations are designed to clear the area for the establishment and protection of these multinational corporations, such as the Taganito Mining Corporation, Sumitomo THPAL, SRMI, Xstrata, TVI, Del Monte, Sumifru, Dolephil plantations, and others. In behalf of these companies, the Army, Police, Cafgu and fanatical armed groups launch with impunity extra-judicial killings, RSOT/COPD, and sustained and periodic military campaigns and operations.
Saving Mother Earth is a must; we must act now! If left unchecked, our planet will no longer be a safe habitat for human beings, but for “mutants.” The principal plunderers and Earth destroyers must be punished, as we have done so to the large-scale mining companies of Taganito, SRMI, SMI-Xstrata, and to the plantations of Dole, Del Monte and Sumifru. They must be rendered incapable of inflicting even more large-scale damage to Mother Earth!
Thus, it is imperative for the Filipino people to unite and overthrow the puppet regime that allows these plunderers to trample on our sovereignty and patrimony. It is imperative for the Filipino people to unite with the peoples of the world to stop and set asunder the menace that plague Mother Earth — the imperialist global order.
The imperialists and their cohorts may appear invincible, but the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutionaries have shown to the world that, indeed, they can collectively defeat these imperialist paper tigers, drive them off their shores, and drown them in the sea of the people’s war. Defeating these imperialists and their local lackeys through a protracted people’s war in our soil is but one small contribution in the world scale fight to save our planet from total perdition, but surely a great one for our people’s national liberation.
Save our country, defeat the imperialist and their local running dogs!
People of the world unite, set asunder imperialist global order to save Mother Earth!
(Sgd.) Ka Oris
Spokesperson
NDFP-Mindanao
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