From A World to Win News Service
Revolutionary Worker #1207, July 20, 2003, posted at rwor.org
We received the following from the A World to Win News Service:
7 July 2003. A World to Win News Service.Under cover of darkness and heavy rain, New People's Army rebels carried out a spectacular two-hour predawn attack 26 June on a government army camp in Samar, an island in the central Philippines. Sixteen soldiers were killed and two others wounded. Earlier in the week in a nearby town, the NPA laid siege to police headquarters during Sunday mass, wounding the chief of police, while others seized arms from policemen's homes.
According to the Manila Times , over a span of two weeks, 25 government militiamen have been killed and scores wounded in NPA raids on Compostela Valley, eastern Samar, and Agusan del Norte.
On 2 July, President Arroyo called for a new war plan to redeploy military troops in NPA-controlled areas and counter the reported tactical alliance between the NPA and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). An Armed Forces official stated that the NPA and the MILF see the military as their common enemy and have adopted a common strategy.
NPA spokesperson Gregorio "Ka (comrade) Roger" Rosal warned that more attacks would be launched against military units nationwide. He said, "The revolutionary movement is not at all fazed by the military's counterattacks."
The New People's Army is led by the Communist Party of the Philippines, founded under the influence of Mao Tsetung's China in 1968. It has waged a revolutionary war for more than three decades. The New People's Army and other national minorities like MILF have control in parts of the southern Philippines. The U.S. currently has combat troops as well as "advisors" in the Philippines as part of Bush's "war on terrorism." Plans to send in a total of 3,000 American soldiers have been bitterly opposed by a broad spectrum of Philippine society.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on
Revolutionary Worker Online
rwor.org
Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497