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Saturday, August 05, 2006
Carvajal: Clutching at straws
By Orlando P. Carvajal
Communism is a secret organization for the avowed purpose of overthrowing the government. Its strategy remains two-pronged: armed struggle (New Peoples Army) in the countryside and legal struggle in the cities through a broad coalition (National Democratic Front) of front organizations. These include non-communist progressive groups “guided” by communist party cell members imbedded in these organizations.
Be that as it may, waging an all out war does not guarantee success against communism. It all depends on what are the major components of this war.
I ask this because those who have advocated it have talked only about better and adequate military training and equipment for the soldiers fighting the NPA. A purely or even just a heavily military strategy only conjures visions of bloody battles in the countryside with no quarters given and with horrible collateral damage on innocent civilians.
A purely military approach to the NPA problem will surely fail. The most powerful army in the world, the US Army, bowed in defeat to the lowly and barefoot Vietcong. South Vietnam and its US ally lost the war in Vietnam because the people abandoned their government and threw their support to the communist Vietcong. It did not help either that the American people did not support the war their country was waging in Vietnam.
The people abandoned their government because the government was first to neglect and abandon them in their plight. It was plain to the rural folks in Vietnam that the government served only the interests of the landlords and the middle businessmen.
All out war, therefore, to be effective must include a direct attack on poverty and depression in the rural areas. In fact, the main thrust of government’s strategy should be to provide better and adequate government services in the countryside so as to lift the most neglected Filipinos, our rural folks, from the morass of poverty, obscurity and hopelessness.
If our people continue to feel neglected by this government and subsequent governments, not even the might of the US army can make us win the war that we must wage against communism. We must win the people’s hearts or democracy is doomed. We must save them from poverty or the government cannot save itself from the NPA.
The war is not waged in physical battlefields with guns and will not be decided by firepower. The war is waged in the hearts of the people. History teaches us that in all revolutions the deciding factor is the people’s support and the people always win.
Our rural folks are drowning in poverty and clutching at straws when they support the NPA. If the government wants the NPA out they must save first our people from drowning. It can be as simple as that.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 5, 2006 issue)
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