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New People's Army
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The New People's Army (NPA), is a paramilitary group fighting for communist revolution in the Philippines. It was formed on March 29, 1969. The Maoist NPA fights a "protracted people's war" as the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The NPA is classified as a terrorist organization by the US and the EU.[1][2]
The NPA's roots can be traced from the Hukbalahap, the armed wing of the earlier pro-Soviet Philippine Communist Party. The Huks first mobilized and fought against the Japanese Empire's occupation of the Philippines during World War II. Under the leadership of Luis Taruc and communist party General Secretary Jose Lava, the Hukbalahap continued waging guerrilla warfare against the United States and the first independent governments before largely surrendering to President Ramon Magsaysay in 1954. By the early 1960s, the communist Huk campaign was waning.
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After the Sino-Soviet split, communist parties around the world fractured into pro-USSR and Maoist groups. The upstart Communist Party of the Philippines broke from the older Soviet-line Philippine Communist Party on December 26, 1968. Three months later, on March 29, 1969, the CPP reformed the vanguard party's old militia the Huks and renamed them the New People's Army, on the anniversary of the date that the guerilla resistance against Imperial Japan was formed in 1942. The formation was created when José María Sison and Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. met with a former Huk, Bernabe Buscayno, aka:"Commander Dante".
The NPA follows Maoism, claiming to fight for that ideology's concept of "New Democracy." Starting out with 60 fighters and 34 rifles, the NPA quickly spread throughout the Philippine Islands during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. After the declaration of Martial Law in 1972, thousands of students came into the ranks.
At its peak, there were believed to be over 25,000 fighters in the early 1980s.
However, leadership from the CPP were jailed in the middle of the 1970s, including Jose Maria Sison. The remaining leadership of the NPA continued guerilla warfare but began committing human rights violations, extortion, kidnappings and urban insurrection. This deviated from the NPA's political line of guerilla warfare and mass work in the countryside.
In the 1990s, internal criticism about mistakes in the 1980s led to the Second Great Rectification Movement, launched in 1992 and largely completed in 1998, leading to a resurgence in the Philippine revolution. The Second Rectification ended a massive internal purge of the movement that killed thousands of partisans and members on accusations of being deep penetration agent by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine intelligence community. Former NPA fighter Robert Francis Garcia chronicled the wild murders in his book To Suffer Thy Comrades and organized the Peace Advocates for Truth, Healing and Justice (PATH), a group composed of survivors of the "purges" and the families of victims and their friends and supporters.
The NPA claims responsibility for the assassination of U.S. Army Colonel Nick Rowe, founder of the U.S. Army Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape course, in 1989. Colonel Rowe was part of a military assistance program to the Philippine army.
This group was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in August 2002 and by the European Union in November 2005.[1][2] The NPA's founder, Jose Maria Sison, lives in the Netherlands in self-imposed exile. The NPA operates mostly in the rural areas. The NPA's targets often include politicians, military, police, criminals, landlords, business owners and occasionally U.S. agents in the Philippines. It is not uncommon for elements of the NPA to collect "revolutionary taxes" from small businesses and aspiring politicians in their area.[3] In 1995 the CPP issued a communique approving of same-sex relationships and in 2005 the first gay marriage of two NPA cadre was performed.[4]
The Arroyo administration has been negotiating intermittently with delegates of NPA in European countries.
In March 2007 Rep. Satur Ocampo was arrested on charges of murder relating to purges within the CPP/NPA alleged to have occurred during the 1980s.[5]
- ^ a b Powell, Colin (2002-08-09). Designation of a Foreign Terrorist Organization. U. S. State Department. Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
- ^ a b Council Decision of 21 December 2005. EU Council (2005-12-13). Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
- ^ Pelovello, Roy. "Reds sell 'permit to win'", Manila Standard Today, 2007-02-21. Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
- ^ von Metze, Ross (2005-01-01). Gay communist rebels marry in Philippines. Gmax.co.za. Retrieved on 2007-03-18.
- ^ "Filipino MP held over 1980s murders", Aljazeera.net, 2007-03-17. Retrieved on 2007-03-18.
- Project Ploughshares - Armed Conflict Report 2002, Philippines-CPP/NPA
- U.S. Embassy in Manila - Philippine Communist Party Designated Foreign Terrorist Group
- Statement of the NDFP Negotiating Panel in defense to the U.S. declaring CPP/NPA as a terrorist organization
- New People's Army Extract of article about NPA's tactics and strategy, May 2006 (full article needs subscription)
- Video Demonstration of NPA "sparrow unit" assassination techniques Short documentary; no actual violence.