#new people's army

[blackros78]

New People's Army (NPA) - The Phillippines

[philippinerevolution]

A transwoman in the people’s army

For more than a year now, Ka Daisy, a transwoman, has served as full-time Red fighter. She joined the New People’s Army (NPA) during the pandemic, three years after doing revolutionary work as a member of the Kabataang Makabayan. She recounted how her unit got engaged in an armed encounter on her second day in the unit.

Ka Daisy, also called “Inday” by some comrades, now serves as a squad political guide. As an official, she ensures the strengthening of the organization. She helps outline plans and programs, and ensures its implementation. She also performs daily technical tasks such as fetching water, cooking, and transporting supply.

“I have total respect for Ka Daisy,” said Ka Alas, her squad leader. “Apart from being helpful, she teaches well. Since her deployment here, she took to teaching me LitNum (literacy/numeracy). Because I’m quite past my prime, I sometimes forget our lessons, but Inday keeps encouraging me to learn.”

Ka Daisy was warmly received by comrades as a new recruit. On her part, she was able to quickly adapt to the NPA’s military regulations.

“Even before I joined the unit, comrades were oriented about my gender. They had study meetings about the LGBT struggle,” said Ka Daisy. In her unit, instructors include the LGBT orientation when giving basic military orientation. This aims to correct wrong views and treatment of LGBTs. Some misconceptions still manifest, but these are collectively struggled in a structured and comradely manner.

Like other comrades, Ka Daisy carries a heavy pack. Her bag contains printed reading materials such as Ang Bayan and other documents and books, kitchen materials, supplies and gadgets. Thrown in the mix is her make-up kit.

“Whenever we undertake mass work, we distribute documents like AB to update the masses on important social issues,” she said.

If asked how many women are in the unit, comrades would include Ka Daisy. It was a far cry from her experiences when she was still studying in a Catholic school. She experienced restrictions and gender-based discrimination. She was prohibited to wear the clothes she prefer and had to cut her long hair short.

Within the NPA, Ka Daisy is happy to be part of forging a society that has compassion and concern for transwomen like her. For her, gender is a non-issue for one to wage revolution. It is not a hindrance nor is it a basic question. It is not a matter of competing. It is enough for one to dedicate one’s heart and time to serve the revolution.

“As an LGBT youth, our role is important in advancing the revolution. To change society’s perception, we need to transform society itself,” she added.

In waging revolution, Ka Daisy can freely express her true feelings. During the 50th anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, she led celebrations in the guerilla front. She served as a facilitator of the program and decorated the venue. She was also one of the instructors for the dance and song cultural performances. Because of the special nature of the occasion, Ka Daisy put on some lipstick, face powder and eyeliner.

Hundreds of peasants from nearby barrios graced the occasion.

In the area of responsibility of Ka Daisy’s unit, there are a few LGBT members who belong to basic Party organs in the barrio. They actively took part in cultural performances and were open to socialize with the Red fighters.

Ka Daisy was so surprised to find someone like her, an LGBT, who is also a Red fighter.

“I have long known that the NPA accepts LGBT people like me. I am delighted finally to have met someone who came from the community. I thought I was alone here,” she jokingly said.

Indeed everyone has equal rights and responsibilities in the movement. In a society that oppresses and judges LGBT people, it is only in the revolution that they can experience genuine freedom to be themselves.

[redsolon]

Inside the New People's Army

Redfish made possibly the most in depth documentary ever made on the modern Philippine Maoist movement (at least in English). Once the war between Russia and Ukraine started, US companies blocked media companies affiliated with the Russian government--including Russia Today and Redfish. I've seen reposts of the documentary, but they're always lacking subtitles, so I'm glad someone finally posted the full original.

[recreationaldivorce]

[whatisonthemoon]

LA Times: Philippine Vigilantes Reflect U.S. Strategy for ‘Low-Intensity Conflict’ (1987)

by Peter Tarr October 11, 1987

NEW YORK —  Some weeks after retired Army Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub told the Senate-House Iran- contra committees about his fund-raising activities on behalf of the Nicaraguan “freedom fighters,” I went to the Philippines to research that country’s communist insurgency.

My travels in the southern islands of Negros, Cebu and Mindanao turned up evidence that the counterinsurgency strategy advocated by Singlaub and other private American citizens on the far right for use in Central America now had taken firm root in the Philippines.

The tactics are used in what Pentagon strategists call “low-intensity conflict” or LIC. They emphasize an “integrated” approach in the fight against communism combining rural civic action and humanitarian aid programs with methods of “unconventional warfare” that Singlaub and others--including the U.S. government--have covertly employed in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Singlaub’s credentials in “unconventional operations” are well known. A former chief of the Joint Unconventional Task Force in Vietnam, he participated in “Operation Phoenix,” the CIA’s notorious assassination program that resulted in the murder of an estimated 40,000 supposed Viet Cong sympathizers. More recently he served on President Reagan’s Special Warfare Advisory Group, to offer recommendations regarding LIC strategies.

There remains much speculation throughout the Philippines about the purpose of his several recent visits, spanning a period from July, 1986, to this past February. The former commander of U.S. forces in South Korea insists that he went to the Philippines to search for buried treasure. A number of his critics say the general’s real mission was to help organize civilian militias to be employed in the fight against guerrillas of the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

Many questions have yet to be answered, but one thing is certain: Vigilante justice has captured the imagination of the mass of Filipinos. It is a development that has disturbing implications.

In the theory of low-intensity warfare, the establishment of paramilitary groups is a key element in the battle for the sympathies of people living in rebel-contested areas. Their proliferation is thought to deprive communists of “mass-base” support, and thus contributes to a broader effort to isolate and demoralize insurgent forces.

Several commanders of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) assured me that most vigilante groups were unarmed. But at every turn I saw deadly weapons: M-16 automatic rifles, fragmentation grenades, homemade pistols and shotguns and a bewildering variety of machetes and bolo knives. And at every turn, the men, women and children who wielded these weapons were eager to tell me that they were “prepared to die” to defend themselves against communism, which many of them called “the godless ideology.”

On a street in downtown Davao, a sprawling city of 1.2 million on Mindanao’s southeast coast, the bolo-toting “Midnight Attack Commandos” of the “Far Eastern Democratic Restoration Bureau” boasted about dismembering captured communist guerrillas while one of their leaders supplied me with leaflets published by an evangelical ministry in Arkansas that posed these burning questions: “Are the IRS, FBI, U.S. Dept. of Labor, the Mafia and labor unions part of the Vatican? Is the Pope the superboss of all government agencies as well as the Vatican?”

How did this literature get to Davao, 10,000 miles from its point of origin in Alma, Arkansas? Did the vigilantes have American contacts? Were they acting in concert with the Philippine military, or on their own? Where did their weapons come from? What were their sources of financial support?

Lt. Col. Franco Calida, police chief of Davao and the acknowledged “godfather” of the first and most successful vigilante group, the Alsa Masa, insisted that his and other paramilitary groups had arisen spontaneously. Their popularity, he said, reflected widespread dissatisfaction with the communists’ urban terror campaign conducted in the city between 1981 and 1985. Indeed, Davao had been the “murder capital” of the Philippines in those years, a city where more than 5,000 people had met violent deaths. Many of the murders were “insurgency-related,” although the activities of criminal gangs also accounted for a good deal of the carnage.

Alsa Masa, which in the local dialect means “Masses Arise,” was organized by the leader of one of those gangs early in 1986. But the movement went nowhere until Calida assumed his Davao command in July, 1986. It was at that time that Calida received a visit from Singlaub. They “chitchatted,” Calida said, but did not discuss Alsa Masa. Nevertheless, in the months following Singlaub’s visit, Alsa Masa grew exponentially. It now claims 10,000 members. “The Alsa Masa was never a CIA project,” Calida told Filipino journalists several months ago. “It is the product of abuses of the communist New People’s Army. The people were left with no choice but to band together to protect themselves.”

In Davao, virulently anti-communist radio announcer Jun Porras Pala admitted that the vigilante groups lumped together all manner of riffraff, from members of criminal gangs to adherents of fanatical religious cult groups.

In Negros, Cebu and Mindanao there were ominous signs that anti-communist fanaticism was putting innocent people in danger. In Davao, the houses of people who did not join or make financial contributions to Alsa Masa (a practice one member called “extortion for democracy”) were marked with the letter X. Anti-communist broadcasters threatened supposed sympathizers over the airwaves.

In all three islands, liberal members of the Catholic Church had been threatened both by vigilantes and military officials. During my stay in Negros, 35 clerics and newsmen were accused of being NPA sympathizers by a local military commander, and had received death threats in the mail. A similar scenario was simultaneously unfolding in Cebu. And in Davao, the Redemptorist Church was strafed from a passing truck late one August night. Earlier, Catholic members of the congregation had been called “redemterrorists” by broadcaster Pala. Redemptorists in Cebu had been similarly branded.

Why did President Corazon Aquino, an uncommonly religious woman, agree to endorse the vigilante movement? The answer lies partly in a meaningless distinction she makes between armed and unarmed vigilante groups. Aquino favors the mobilization of unarmed citizen patrols, called Nakasaka, that warn the military of NPA activity. She favors these groups, but does not proscribe the activities of armed groups.

American officials may have influenced Aquino’s policy. On March 16, 1987, she ordered a government-trained militia, the Civilian Home Defense Force, “and all private armies and other armed groups” to disband. The CHDF, with 70,000 members nationwide, had been active since the 1970s in the fight against the NPA, but its ill-disciplined members had been blamed for many of the military abuses committed against civilians in counterinsurgency operations.

A phase-out of the CHDF was mandated in the new Philippine constitution, adopted in February. But soon after Aquino issued the order to disband paramilitary groups, she rescinded it. The Philippine military, led by Gen. Fidel Ramos, was lobbying hard for retention of the CHDF. So was Local Goverment Secretary Jamie Ferrer, slain in August. Aquino and her military had been repeatedly lectured, directly and indirectly, by high-ranking U.S. officials on how to fight the communists. One such lecture was delivered on March 19, 1987, by Richard L. Armitage, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He offered a blunt critique of AFP tactics in testimony before the House subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Armitage’s remarks clearly indicated American impatience with Aquino’s policy of reconciliation, in effect during her first 12 months in office. Even after the failure of peace talks with the radical left and the collapse of a cease-fire in the AFP-NPA war that had held for only 60 days, Aquino continued to offer an olive branch to the left. On Feb. 28, she proposed amnesty and rehabilitation for rebels who would lay down their arms, in the interests of “healing the wounds of our nation.”

On March 18, a time bomb exploded at the Philippine Military Academy. It was apparently intended to kill Aquino, who was to address the academy’s graduating class four days later. When commencement day arrived, the Philippine president unveiled a new strategy--one that might have gratified Singlaub himself. “The answer to terrorism of the left and the right is not social and economic reform, but police and military action,” she said, turning her back on a philosophy she had espoused since coming to power.

It was in this climate that Aquino rescinded her order to disband the paramilitary groups. In keeping with her new policy of “total war” against the communists, and in light of her growing reliance on Ramos, who repeatedly put down attempts by disgruntled AFP officers to take over her government, Aquino found herself, by the end of March, implementing the very counterinsurgency policies she had resisted for more than a year. She was now prepared to wage low-intensity warfare.

Her shift to a hard-line policy is likely to encourage a similarly militant response from the radical left. But even more important, the legitimation of vigilante “justice” will most likely serve to accentuate a culture of violence that has prevailed for decades in the Philippine countryside. At the core of the vigilante movement are incompetent CHDF commandos, religious cultists and members of private armies that flourished during the Marcos years.

The Philippines needs more than civic action and “humanitarian” aid programs carried out by civilian and military authorities waging low-intensity warfare. The country needs structural reforms, the most important of which is land reform. As Aquino often noted during her first year in office, the insurgency has economic and social roots. It will continue to flourish--no matter how many vigilantes are mobilized--unless the root causes are addressed.

Source: LA Times

Links and notes below

Moonies Support Vigilante Violence in the Philippines Around 1986/1987 - excerpts from Belina A. Aquino’s “The Philippines in 1987: Politics of Survival”

Marti found that the Reagan administration sought the help of CAUSA International to support US policy in Nicaragua. It might be mentioned that the Moonies and CAUSA have conducted expense-paid seminars and conferences in Washington, D.C.; Manila and other places, inviting well-known names in academic, religious and political circles. Among the CAUSA’s top brass are Cleon Skousen, a Mormon Church leader, Douglas MacArthur II, and Bo Hi Pak, the chairman who has acknowledged CIA funding. This is just another form of counter-insurgency, but it tries to minimize direct military intervention in favor of small “grassroots” efforts combining socio-economic, civic action, psychological & political objective.

In 1985 the Washington Times sponsored a fund for the Contras who committed atrocities, and trafficked drugs to the US The WACL and CAUSA’s Role in the Ruthless Violence of US-Philippines Counterinsurgency

CounterSpy: Moonies Move on Honduras (1983)

The UC should be held responsible for supplying weapons that killed young Filipino activists

How has the Moon network played a role in the post-9/11 U.S. Imperialist strategy?

The Unification Church and KCIA: Some Notes on Bud Han, Steve Kim, and Bo Hi Pak The Unification Church and the KCIA – ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC The Broad Counterinsurgency Strategies of the US in the 80s, and a Glimpse into the UC’s Role

[post-it-notes7]

Please tell me this will be a happy ending

dearest anon, only time will tell

[ricky-mortis]

Curtwen Week Day 6: Happy Ending

[moonlight-prose]

there’s a lot of you here…

[mysharona1987]

What is going on with the IDF?

I’m not a military expert.

But I’m pretty sure you don’t let literal pensioners into a combat zone.

This is very undisciplined.

[the--anarchists]

WHY do people not like mirror mirror??? It has Julia roberts, it's so hilarious, and it has actual little people who all have their own characters and personalities (and are honestly the best part of the film, seriously, they're all so funny). AND Nathan Lane! Seriously, people need to start appreciating this movie. Please. It's so good.

[reds-skull]

I'm researching Scottish mythology for the Cyberknights AU, and I was skimming through the wiki entry for the Glenmasan manuscript (I'd tell you what it is, but I haven't actually finished reading yet), when I read this sentence

Like what are the fucking chances

[dykedvonte]

I dislike takes that Danse would be just as conservative in modernized aus when it's clearly shown his staunch views of things come from his time in the Brotherhood and his deep-rooted desire to belong to something with a greater purpose.

Not to mention lines that show much more open-mindedness that get overlooked for his harsher sentiments when you first meet him. Like the oppurtunity to be a part of something is why Danse fell so far into Brotherhood dogma and it doesn't negate the offense things he does but I feel like it's just lazy to be like "hmmm he'd def be racist" just so it aligns to his BoS beliefs.

[akkivee]

he truly is the light of the world LOL

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

i would die for the shark in under paris but that's probably unnecessary to say considering she'd kill me without hesitation. icon. keep killing bestie i love the way you snack on humans you are a star

[whatisonthemoon]

What is the New People's Army (NPA)? Why was it founded? Why are they still fighting? Here's a crash course!

[gingermintpepper]

How’s Fields of Mistria? You mentioning it was the second time I heard of it, the first time being in passing, so I’m not too knowledgeable about the game.

AWWW THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING!!

Fields of Mistria is SUPER fun, since there's not much to do in it after you've completed the first year right now, I've dedicated myself to breeding and collecting all the seasonal variants of horses so I can name them after the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

I also named all my barns after metamorphised lovers in greek myth because I have exactly one thought running through my head at any given point in time (Currently there's Crocus Coop where I keep my (gorgeous wonderful lovely adorable ouugh I LOVE THEMMM!!) blue chickens

Cypress Barn where I keep my wonderful cows (who have been with me the longest and whom I cherish immensely! I'm not sure if Autumn cows are possible but I'm definitely aiming for a barn of all red and autumnal cows for obvious reasons)

Minthe Barn where I keep all of my other large animals like sheep, alpacas and my very first beloved Chiron (black and white) and Iris (brown with spots) (the foal is Rigel) 🥺

And Hyacinthus Barn where I have a collection of small animals like rabbits, capybaras and my PRIZED DUCKS LEDA (the pretty blue and green duckie) AND CYCNUS (the pure white duck meant to mimic a swan!!) Even though it's technically a coop, I mistakenly labelled it a barn when I was inputting the name and I never changed it LOL

My farm is also named after THE metamorphosized lover, Daphne herself, so it's called Laurel Farm

And I'm planning for my Seasonal Horse barn to be named after the poplar since I quite like Leuke's story and I think she's fitting of housing the horses that will be the steeds of War, Pestilence, Conquest and Famine :)

Bonus: My house is still small and eclectically decorated, but keeping in theme with my farm, I do hope to go for a flower/garden theme

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