[OPE-L] Walden Bello on Assassination List

[glevy@xxxxxxxxx]

Posted on a yahoogroup./In solidarity, Jerry

Sociologist Walden Bello, one of the most prominent radical voices in  the
global justice movement, has been been placed on an assassination  list by
the Communist Party of the Philippines.

http://www.focusweb.org/main/html/index.php
A Statement of Concern about a Hit-list including Walden Bello and  other
Activists

Out of deference to the more than 160,000 victims of the tsunami
tragedy that engulfed South Asia o­n December 26, 2004, we in Focus
o­n the  Global South (Focus) have refrained until now from pointing
to an alarming development bearing o­n the security and well being
of our Executive Director, Walden Bello.

Focus is not in the habit of calling attention to the status of its
staff. This time, however, things are different. In the December 2004
issue  of AngBayan, the principal organ of the Communist Party of the
Philippines  (CPP), Walden was singled out as a "counterrevolutionary."
His name was listed alongside fourteen other names of individuals who
are either living  or dead. Two of the people in
the "counterrevolutionaries" list, Arturo Tabara  and Filemon Lagman,
have already been assassinated, the former just three  months
ago. Another o­ne, Ricardo Reyes, is being hunted down by operatives
of the Communist Party and New People's Army (NPA) and has been
forced to go  into hiding.

For people familiar with the history and practices of the Communist
Party of the Philippines and its paramilitary wing, the New People's
Army, the message of the counterrevolutionaries' list to Walden and the
others  is unmistakable: You're beyond the pale. You're a "class enemy"
to be eliminated, the o­nly questions remaining being when and where the
party will carry out the execution.