Status Report on the Collapse of the U.S. Economy
by Richard C. Cook*
The author *is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose
career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the
Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the
U.S. Treasury Department.*
Global Research, July 16, 2008
With the economic news of the week of July 14—the continuing crisis
among mortgage lenders, the onset of bank failures, the announced
downsizing of General Motors, the slide of the Dow-Jones below
11,000—we are seeing the ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy.
Even the super-rich are becoming nervous as cries for an emergency
suspension of short selling ring out.
What is really taking place, however, is that the producing economy of
working men and women is being crushed by the overall debt burden on
households, businesses, and governments that could reach $70 trillion
by 2010. The financial system, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac, is bankrupt, as the debts it is based on cannot be
repaid.
This is because the producing economy of people who work for a living
simply can no longer generate enough purchasing power for people
either to pay their debts or allow them to purchase what is being sold
in the marketplace. In turn it is the debt burden and the loss of
societal purchasing power that are crashing the stock market. Thus the
collapse of the
financial economy has started to destroy the producing economy as well.
It's a "perfect storm," the result of a 200-year-old financial system
where money is largely created by bank lending and where since 1980
our industry and jobs have been increasingly outsourced abroad to
cheap labor markets. Thus domestic incomes have stagnated while the
nation's GDP has not been able to keep up with the exponential growth
of debt.
While the mainstream media are blind, deaf, and dumb as to the causes,
the victims within the middle and working classes are seeing their
livelihoods ruined, jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed
on, and are being saddled with ever-increasing debt and forced to work
under more and more stress due to rising burdens of taxation, gas and
food price
inflation, and bureaucratic rules and regulations. The only places a
more-or-less normal life may still be possible will be the wealthiest
imperial centers like Washington, New York, Houston, Chicago, or San
Francisco.
All that the current bailouts being engineered by the Federal Reserve
are doing is to create more debt to shore up failing financial
institutions. No new wealth is being created. It's band-aids on
band-aids. The problem politically is that control of the U.S. long
ago was turned over to the bankers and the financiers of the Western
world. It was called financial "deregulation," accelerated under
President Ronald Reagan, and has run amok since then.
From a longer historical view, it's the same phenomenon that first
created and then ruined the British Empire , and it's what created and
is now ruining the American Empire today. A side-effect of control by
the bankers and financiers is that they are also Zionists, so we have
the added multi-trillion dollar burden of trying to conquer the Middle
East on behalf of the international oil interests and the state of
Israel.
The situation has deteriorated sharply since the 1970s as U.S. affairs
have been managed on behalf of the financial interests by what you
might call the "Three Amigos"—Henry Kissinger, Paul Volcker, and Alan
Greenspan. Kissinger, while Nixon's secretary of state, made the U.S.
dependent on the Middle East for oil, lavished billions on Israel 's
war machine, and created the petrodollar to support our trade and
fiscal deficits. Volcker, while chairman of the Federal Reserve,
crashed the U.S. producing economy in the recession of 1979-1983,
leading to the rise of the "service economy." Greenspan, during his
own Federal Reserve chairmanship, presided over the bubble economy
which was created through massive official fraud in home mortgage
lending and is now sinking like the Titanic.
The politicians have enabled these financial crimes. Above all it's
been the Bush family which has served as a political Trojan Horse for
the financiers for three generations, with affairs having become much
worse since George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq for the first time in 1991.
The enablers have included a majority of the members of the U.S.
Congress. (See the
conclusion of Patrick Buchanan's new book, Churchill, Hitler, and the
Unnecessary War for an account of how the U.S. since the Bush I
presidency has replicated the catastrophic errors of failed British
imperialism.)
The American people are not entirely innocent. We have been so lulled
to sleep by the financier-owned media that we have allowed these
disasters to take place and are now reaping the consequences. We have
been the fodder for their wars and the signers of their loans. We have
tried to carve out our own piece of the pie which is now crumbling.
What is taking place is not just the collapse of the U.S. , but more
than likely the final crash of Western civilization, since we are the
last of the world empires to go down the drain. World War I saw the
end of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires.
World War II saw the disappearance of the French, British, Japanese,
and Italian empires, along with Nazi Germany. The Soviet empire
collapsed in 1991. The American is next. The danger is that we may
lash out and start a nuclear World War III out of frustration and to
appease the elitists of the world who see war and famine as their
pathway to world control. Such a war would also mean a military
takeover domestically to manage the pathetically weak nation that we
are becoming.
The bankers and financiers do not care if nations and empires destroy
themselves and each other, because they are internationalists. In
fact, the more war and mass starvation there is the better off they
feel. All they need is a base from which to operate. London has been
their main base of operations since the Bank of England was founded in
1694, though they have a strong presence in other nations. They have
been especially influential in northwest Europe , where elitism in the
form of Freemasonry endeavored since the time of the French Revolution
to destroy the authority of the Catholic Church.
In fact, World War I was a project of the Freemasons in dismembering
Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both largely Catholic. This
destruction allowed the masters of usury to flourish within the
atheistic and materialistic culture that Freemasonry fostered across
Europe . World War I also resulted in the virus of Communism, largely
egged on by the internationalists and Freemasons, though it had such a
tragic impact on Russia and Central Europe before spreading to China
and East Asia .
It is theoretically possible that the US as a nation could still save
itself through an internal revolution, while playing a much reduced
role in the world. After all, England , France , and Italy still exist
as shadows of their past greatness. But, realistically, all ordinary
people can do today is try to survive, perhaps by working with friends
and neighbors in planting food and living within the underground
economy. At least people might not then have to starve to death,
because hard as it is to believe that "it could happen here,"
widespread famine in the U.S. seems a real possibility over the next
several years.
Nations take such risks when they allow capitalist agribusiness to
destroy local agriculture.
On a national level, it is likely that as a response to the economic
crisis some attempt will be made by desperate politicians to try to
replicate the New Deal, but to do this effectively would require
political control by a nationalistic reform party. Even then,
additional reform measures such as control of credit as a public
utility, a basic income guarantee, and a national
dividend would be needed for real economic security to replace the
current madness that could soon make the U.S. a relic of history.
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose
career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the
Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the
U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and
space policy have appeared on numerous websites and in Eurasia Critic
magazine. His book on monetary reform, entitled We Hold These Truths:
The Hope of Monetary Reform, will be published soon by Tendril Press.
He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider's Account of
How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space
Age, called by one reviewer, "the most important spaceflight book of
the last twenty years." His website is at www.richardccook.com.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
On the very bloody anticommunist purge in Korea
US wavered over S. Korean executions
SEOUL, South Korea - The American colonel, troubled by what he was hearing, tried to stall at first. But the declassified record shows he finally told his South Korean counterpart it "would be permitted" to machine-gun 3,500 political prisoners, to keep them from joining approaching enemy forces.
In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950.
Extensive archival research by The Associated Press has found no indication Far East commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur took action to stem the summary mass killing, knowledge of which reached top levels of the Pentagon and State Department in Washington, where it was classified "secret" and filed away.
Now, a half-century later, the South Korean government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is investigating what happened in that summer of terror, a political bloodbath largely hidden from history, unlike the communist invaders' executions of southern rightists, which were widely publicized and denounced at the time.
In the now-declassified record at the U.S. National Archives and other repositories, the Korean investigators will find an ambivalent U.S. attitude in 1950 — at times hands-off, at times disapproving.
"The most important thing is that they did not stop the executions," historian Jung Byung-joon, a member of the 2-year-old commission, said of the Americans. "They were at the crime scene, and took pictures and wrote reports."
They took pictures in July 1950 at the slaughter of dozens of men at one huge killing field outside the central city of Daejeon. Between 3,000 and 7,000 South Koreans are believed to have been shot there by their own military and police, and dumped into mass graves, said Kim Dong-choon, the commission member overseeing the investigation
of these government killings.
The bones of Koh Chung-ryol's father are there somewhere, and the 57-year-old woman believes South Koreans alone are not to blame.
"Although we can't present concrete evidence, we bereaved families believe the United States has some responsibility for this," she told the AP, as she visited one of the burial sites in the quiet Sannae valley.
Frank Winslow, a military adviser at Daejeon in those desperate days long ago, is one American who feels otherwise.
The Koreans were responsible for their own actions, said the retired Army lieutenant colonel, 81. "The Koreans were sovereign. To me, there was never any question that the Koreans were in charge," he said in a telephone interview from his home in Bellingham, Wash.
The brutal, hurried elimination of tens of thousands of their countrymen, subject of a May 19 AP report, was the climax to a years-long campaign by South Korea's right-wing leaders.
In 1947, two years after Washington and Moscow divided Korea into southern and northern halves, a U.S. military government declared the Korean Labor Party, the southern communists, to be illegal. President Syngman Rhee's southern regime, gaining sovereignty in 1948, suppressed all leftist political activity, put down a guerrilla uprising and held up to 30,000 political prisoners by the time communist North Korea invaded on June 25, 1950.
As war broke out, southern authorities also rounded up members of the 300,000-strong National Guidance Alliance, a "re-education" body to which they had assigned leftist sympathizers, and whose membership quotas also were filled by illiterate peasants lured by promises of jobs and other benefits.
Commission investigators, extrapolating from initial evidence and surveys of family survivors, believe most alliance members were killed in the wave of executions.
On June 29, 1950, as the southern army and its U.S. advisers retreated southward, reports from Seoul said the conquering northerners had emptied the southern capital's prisons, and ex-inmates were reinforcing the new occupation regime.
In a confidential narrative he later wrote for Army historians, Lt. Col. Rollins S. Emmerich, a senior U.S. adviser, described what then happened in the southern port city of Busan, formerly known as Pusan.
Emmerich was told by a subordinate that a South Korean regimental commander, determined to keep Busan's political prisoners from joining the enemy, planned "to execute some 3500 suspected peace time Communists, locked up in the local prison," according to the declassified 78-page narrative, first uncovered by the newspaper Busan Ilbo at the U.S. National Archives.
Emmerich wrote that he summoned the Korean, Col. Kim Chong-won, and told him the enemy would not reach Busan in a few days as Kim feared, and that "atrocities could not be condoned."'
But the American then indicated conditional acceptance of the plan.
"Colonel Kim promised not to execute the prisoners until the situation became more critical," wrote Emmerich, who died in 1986. "Colonel Kim was told that if the enemy did arrive to the outskirts of (Busan) he would be permitted to open the gates of the prison and shoot the prisoners with machine guns."
This passage, omitted from the published Army history, is the first documentation unearthed showing advance sanction by the U.S. military for such killings.
"I think his (Emmerich's) word is so significant, " said Park Myung-lim, a South Korean historian of the war and adviser to the investigative commission.
As that summer wore on, and the invaders pressed their attack on the southern zone, Busan-area prisoners were shot by the hundreds, Korean and foreign witnesses later said.
Emmerich wrote that soon after his session with Kim, he met with South Korean= officials in Daegu, 55 miles north of Busan, and persuaded them "at that time" not to execute 4,500 prisoners immediately, as planned. Within weeks, hundreds were being executed in the Daegu area.
The bloody anticommunist purge, begun immediately after the invasion, is believed by the fall of 1950 to have filled some 150 mass graves in secluded spots stretching to the peninsula's southernmost counties. Commissioner Kim said the commission's estimate of 100,000 dead is "very conservative. " The commission later this month will resume excavating massacre sites, after having recovered remains of more than 400 people at four sites last year.
The AP has extensively researched U.S. military and diplomatic archives from the Korean War in recent years, at times relying on once-secret documents it obtained
through Freedom of Information Act requests and declassification reviews. The declassified U.S. record and other sources offer further glimpses of the mass killings.
A North Korean newspaper said 1,000 prisoners were slain in Incheon, just west of Seoul, in late June 1950 — a report partly corroborated by a declassified U.S. Eighth Army document of July 1950 saying "400 Communists" had been killed in Incheon. The North Korean report claimed a U.S. military adviser had given the order.
As the front moved south, in July's first days, Air Force intelligence officer Donald Nichols witnessed and photographed the shooting of an estimated 1,800 prisoners in Suwon, 20 miles south of Seoul, Nichols reported in a little-noted memoir in 1981, a decade before his death.
Around the same time, farther south, the Daejeon killings began.
Winslow recalled he declined an invitation to what a senior
officer called the "turkey shoot" outside the city, but other U.S.
officers did attend, taking grisly photos of the human slaughter that
would be kept classified for a half-century.
Journalist Alan Winnington, of the British communist Daily
Worker newspaper, entered Daejeon with North Korean troops after July
20 and reported that the killings were carried out for three days in
early July and two or three days in mid-July.
He wrote that his witnesses claimed jeeploads of American
officers "supervised the butchery." Secret CIA and Army intelligence
communications reported on the Daejeon and Suwon killings as early as
July 3, but said nothing about the U.S. presence or about any U.S.
oversight.
In mid-August, MacArthur, in Tokyo, learned of the mass
shooting of 200 to 300 people near Daegu, including women and a 12- or
13-year-old girl. A top-secret Army report from Korea,
uncovered by AP research, told of the "extreme cruelty" of the South
Korean military policemen. The bodies fell into a ravine, where hours
later some "were still alive and moaning," wrote a U.S. military
policeman who happened on the scene.
Although MacArthur had command of South Korean forces from early in the war, he took no action on this report, other than to refer it to John J. Muccio, U.S. ambassador in South Korea. Muccio later wrote that he urged South Korean officials to stage executions humanely and only after due process of law.
The AP found that during this same period, on Aug. 15, Brig.
Gen. Francis W. Farrell, chief U.S. military adviser to the South
Koreans, recommended the U.S. command investigate the executions. There
was no sign such an inquiry was conducted. A month later, the Daejeon
execution photos were sent to the Pentagon in Washington, with a U.S.
colonel's report that the South Koreans had killed "thousands" of
political prisoners.
The declassified record shows an equivocal U.S. attitude continuing into the fall, when Seoul was retaken and South Korean forces began shooting residents who collaborated with the northern occupiers.
When Washington's British allies protested, Dean Rusk, assistant secretary of state, told them U.S. commanders were doing "everything they can to curb such atrocities," according to a Rusk memo of Oct. 28, 1950.
But on Dec. 19, W.J. Sebald, State Department liaison to MacArthur, cabled Secretary of State Dean Acheson to say MacArthur's command viewed the killings as a South Korean "internal matter" and had "refrained from taking any action."
It was the British who took action, according to news reports at the time. On Dec. 7, in occupied North Korea,
British officers saved 21 civilians lined up to be shot, by threatening
to shoot the South Korean officer responsible. Later that month,
British troops seized "Execution Hill," outside Seoul, to block further
mass killings there.
To quiet the protests, the South Koreans
barred journalists from execution sites and the State Department told
diplomats to avoid commenting on atrocity reports. Earlier, the U.S.
Embassy in London had denounced as "fabrication" Winnington's Daily
Worker reporting on the Daejeon slaughter. The Army eventually blamed
all the thousands of Daejeon deaths on the North Koreans, who in fact had carried out executions of rightists there and elsewhere.
An American historian of the Korean War, the University of Chicago's Bruce Cumings, sees a share of U.S. guilt in what happened in 1950.
"After the fact — with thousands murdered — the U.S. not only did nothing, but covered up the Daejeon massacres," he said.
Another Korean War scholar, Allan R. Millett, an emeritus Ohio State
professor, is doubtful. "I'm not sure there's enough evidence to pin
culpability on these guys," he said, referring to the advisers and
other Americans.
The swiftness and nationwide nature of the 1950 roundups and
mass killings point to orders from the top, President Rhee and his
security chiefs, Korean historians say. Those officials are long dead,
and Korean documentary evidence is scarce.
To piece together a fuller story, investigators of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will sift through tens of thousands of pages of declassified U.S. documents.
The commission's mandate extends to at least 2010, and its
president, historian Ahn Byung-ook, expects to turn then to Washington
for help in finding the truth.
"Our plan is that when we complete our investigation of cases
involving the U.S. Army, we'll make an overall recommendation, a
request to the U.S. government to conduct an overall investigation, " he
said.
Associated Press investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
On the Net:
South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
http://www.jinsil.go.kr/English/index.asp
SEOUL, South Korea - The American colonel, troubled by what he was hearing, tried to stall at first. But the declassified record shows he finally told his South Korean counterpart it "would be permitted" to machine-gun 3,500 political prisoners, to keep them from joining approaching enemy forces.
In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950.
Extensive archival research by The Associated Press has found no indication Far East commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur took action to stem the summary mass killing, knowledge of which reached top levels of the Pentagon and State Department in Washington, where it was classified "secret" and filed away.
Now, a half-century later, the South Korean government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is investigating what happened in that summer of terror, a political bloodbath largely hidden from history, unlike the communist invaders' executions of southern rightists, which were widely publicized and denounced at the time.
In the now-declassified record at the U.S. National Archives and other repositories, the Korean investigators will find an ambivalent U.S. attitude in 1950 — at times hands-off, at times disapproving.
"The most important thing is that they did not stop the executions," historian Jung Byung-joon, a member of the 2-year-old commission, said of the Americans. "They were at the crime scene, and took pictures and wrote reports."
They took pictures in July 1950 at the slaughter of dozens of men at one huge killing field outside the central city of Daejeon. Between 3,000 and 7,000 South Koreans are believed to have been shot there by their own military and police, and dumped into mass graves, said Kim Dong-choon, the commission member overseeing the investigation
of these government killings.
The bones of Koh Chung-ryol's father are there somewhere, and the 57-year-old woman believes South Koreans alone are not to blame.
"Although we can't present concrete evidence, we bereaved families believe the United States has some responsibility for this," she told the AP, as she visited one of the burial sites in the quiet Sannae valley.
Frank Winslow, a military adviser at Daejeon in those desperate days long ago, is one American who feels otherwise.
The Koreans were responsible for their own actions, said the retired Army lieutenant colonel, 81. "The Koreans were sovereign. To me, there was never any question that the Koreans were in charge," he said in a telephone interview from his home in Bellingham, Wash.
The brutal, hurried elimination of tens of thousands of their countrymen, subject of a May 19 AP report, was the climax to a years-long campaign by South Korea's right-wing leaders.
In 1947, two years after Washington and Moscow divided Korea into southern and northern halves, a U.S. military government declared the Korean Labor Party, the southern communists, to be illegal. President Syngman Rhee's southern regime, gaining sovereignty in 1948, suppressed all leftist political activity, put down a guerrilla uprising and held up to 30,000 political prisoners by the time communist North Korea invaded on June 25, 1950.
As war broke out, southern authorities also rounded up members of the 300,000-strong National Guidance Alliance, a "re-education" body to which they had assigned leftist sympathizers, and whose membership quotas also were filled by illiterate peasants lured by promises of jobs and other benefits.
Commission investigators, extrapolating from initial evidence and surveys of family survivors, believe most alliance members were killed in the wave of executions.
On June 29, 1950, as the southern army and its U.S. advisers retreated southward, reports from Seoul said the conquering northerners had emptied the southern capital's prisons, and ex-inmates were reinforcing the new occupation regime.
In a confidential narrative he later wrote for Army historians, Lt. Col. Rollins S. Emmerich, a senior U.S. adviser, described what then happened in the southern port city of Busan, formerly known as Pusan.
Emmerich was told by a subordinate that a South Korean regimental commander, determined to keep Busan's political prisoners from joining the enemy, planned "to execute some 3500 suspected peace time Communists, locked up in the local prison," according to the declassified 78-page narrative, first uncovered by the newspaper Busan Ilbo at the U.S. National Archives.
Emmerich wrote that he summoned the Korean, Col. Kim Chong-won, and told him the enemy would not reach Busan in a few days as Kim feared, and that "atrocities could not be condoned."'
But the American then indicated conditional acceptance of the plan.
"Colonel Kim promised not to execute the prisoners until the situation became more critical," wrote Emmerich, who died in 1986. "Colonel Kim was told that if the enemy did arrive to the outskirts of (Busan) he would be permitted to open the gates of the prison and shoot the prisoners with machine guns."
This passage, omitted from the published Army history, is the first documentation unearthed showing advance sanction by the U.S. military for such killings.
"I think his (Emmerich's) word is so significant, " said Park Myung-lim, a South Korean historian of the war and adviser to the investigative commission.
As that summer wore on, and the invaders pressed their attack on the southern zone, Busan-area prisoners were shot by the hundreds, Korean and foreign witnesses later said.
Emmerich wrote that soon after his session with Kim, he met with South Korean= officials in Daegu, 55 miles north of Busan, and persuaded them "at that time" not to execute 4,500 prisoners immediately, as planned. Within weeks, hundreds were being executed in the Daegu area.
The bloody anticommunist purge, begun immediately after the invasion, is believed by the fall of 1950 to have filled some 150 mass graves in secluded spots stretching to the peninsula's southernmost counties. Commissioner Kim said the commission's estimate of 100,000 dead is "very conservative. " The commission later this month will resume excavating massacre sites, after having recovered remains of more than 400 people at four sites last year.
The AP has extensively researched U.S. military and diplomatic archives from the Korean War in recent years, at times relying on once-secret documents it obtained
through Freedom of Information Act requests and declassification reviews. The declassified U.S. record and other sources offer further glimpses of the mass killings.
A North Korean newspaper said 1,000 prisoners were slain in Incheon, just west of Seoul, in late June 1950 — a report partly corroborated by a declassified U.S. Eighth Army document of July 1950 saying "400 Communists" had been killed in Incheon. The North Korean report claimed a U.S. military adviser had given the order.
As the front moved south, in July's first days, Air Force intelligence officer Donald Nichols witnessed and photographed the shooting of an estimated 1,800 prisoners in Suwon, 20 miles south of Seoul, Nichols reported in a little-noted memoir in 1981, a decade before his death.
Around the same time, farther south, the Daejeon killings began.
Winslow recalled he declined an invitation to what a senior
officer called the "turkey shoot" outside the city, but other U.S.
officers did attend, taking grisly photos of the human slaughter that
would be kept classified for a half-century.
Journalist Alan Winnington, of the British communist Daily
Worker newspaper, entered Daejeon with North Korean troops after July
20 and reported that the killings were carried out for three days in
early July and two or three days in mid-July.
He wrote that his witnesses claimed jeeploads of American
officers "supervised the butchery." Secret CIA and Army intelligence
communications reported on the Daejeon and Suwon killings as early as
July 3, but said nothing about the U.S. presence or about any U.S.
oversight.
In mid-August, MacArthur, in Tokyo, learned of the mass
shooting of 200 to 300 people near Daegu, including women and a 12- or
13-year-old girl. A top-secret Army report from Korea,
uncovered by AP research, told of the "extreme cruelty" of the South
Korean military policemen. The bodies fell into a ravine, where hours
later some "were still alive and moaning," wrote a U.S. military
policeman who happened on the scene.
Although MacArthur had command of South Korean forces from early in the war, he took no action on this report, other than to refer it to John J. Muccio, U.S. ambassador in South Korea. Muccio later wrote that he urged South Korean officials to stage executions humanely and only after due process of law.
The AP found that during this same period, on Aug. 15, Brig.
Gen. Francis W. Farrell, chief U.S. military adviser to the South
Koreans, recommended the U.S. command investigate the executions. There
was no sign such an inquiry was conducted. A month later, the Daejeon
execution photos were sent to the Pentagon in Washington, with a U.S.
colonel's report that the South Koreans had killed "thousands" of
political prisoners.
The declassified record shows an equivocal U.S. attitude continuing into the fall, when Seoul was retaken and South Korean forces began shooting residents who collaborated with the northern occupiers.
When Washington's British allies protested, Dean Rusk, assistant secretary of state, told them U.S. commanders were doing "everything they can to curb such atrocities," according to a Rusk memo of Oct. 28, 1950.
But on Dec. 19, W.J. Sebald, State Department liaison to MacArthur, cabled Secretary of State Dean Acheson to say MacArthur's command viewed the killings as a South Korean "internal matter" and had "refrained from taking any action."
It was the British who took action, according to news reports at the time. On Dec. 7, in occupied North Korea,
British officers saved 21 civilians lined up to be shot, by threatening
to shoot the South Korean officer responsible. Later that month,
British troops seized "Execution Hill," outside Seoul, to block further
mass killings there.
To quiet the protests, the South Koreans
barred journalists from execution sites and the State Department told
diplomats to avoid commenting on atrocity reports. Earlier, the U.S.
Embassy in London had denounced as "fabrication" Winnington's Daily
Worker reporting on the Daejeon slaughter. The Army eventually blamed
all the thousands of Daejeon deaths on the North Koreans, who in fact had carried out executions of rightists there and elsewhere.
An American historian of the Korean War, the University of Chicago's Bruce Cumings, sees a share of U.S. guilt in what happened in 1950.
"After the fact — with thousands murdered — the U.S. not only did nothing, but covered up the Daejeon massacres," he said.
Another Korean War scholar, Allan R. Millett, an emeritus Ohio State
professor, is doubtful. "I'm not sure there's enough evidence to pin
culpability on these guys," he said, referring to the advisers and
other Americans.
The swiftness and nationwide nature of the 1950 roundups and
mass killings point to orders from the top, President Rhee and his
security chiefs, Korean historians say. Those officials are long dead,
and Korean documentary evidence is scarce.
To piece together a fuller story, investigators of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will sift through tens of thousands of pages of declassified U.S. documents.
The commission's mandate extends to at least 2010, and its
president, historian Ahn Byung-ook, expects to turn then to Washington
for help in finding the truth.
"Our plan is that when we complete our investigation of cases
involving the U.S. Army, we'll make an overall recommendation, a
request to the U.S. government to conduct an overall investigation, " he
said.
Associated Press investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
On the Net:
South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
http://www.jinsil.go.kr/English/index.asp
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The original rebel soldier, mas nauna pa kay Honasan at Trillanes
Ka Dan, original rebel soldier, dies at 79
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080625-144633/Ka-Dan-original-rebel-soldier-dies-at-79
By DJ Yap
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 07:32:00 06/25/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- “He was the original rebel soldier.”
The words were said in tribute to Danilo “Ka Dan” Vizmanos, retired military officer turned political activist, one month before he died Monday night at the age of 79.
Vizmanos had fought martial law and crusaded against the United States military bases in the Philippines, among other patriotic causes.
A Navy captain, he had joined the dissident movement, blazing a trail for others like him in the military to follow.
Upon the declaration of martial law in 1972, Vizmanos retired from the service, citing “incompatibility with an armed forces that was converted into a huge private army and oppressive instrument of the Marcos dictatorship.”
He was incarcerated for more than two years at Camp Crame, Fort Bonifacio and Bicutan with no formal charges filed.
While in detention, he was subjected to physical and psychological torture, including being injected with “truth serum,” in an effort to get him to betray his friends in the resistance movement.
“My mind was slowly giving up but I still had control,” he had recalled.
In May, a month before he died, his family, friends and comrades paid tribute to him in a special ceremony at the University of Makati.
“Ka Dan is the original rebel soldier,” Bagong Alyansang Makabayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said then.
Openness, enthusiasm
“The admirable qualities of Ka Dan were his openness to new and radical ideas, enthusiasm in making everyone understand and unpretentious leadership,” said Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo at the ceremony.
Exiled communist leader Jose Ma. Sison sent a recorded tribute: “We and all his countrymen take pride in Ka Dan Vizmanos, great hero and true soldier of the people.”
At the end of the two-hour tribute, highlighted by an emotional rendition of “Ikaw Lamang” by his grandchildren, an overwhelmed Vizmanos fought back tears.
“I can never forget this night,” he said. “This is the first time I have felt so honored.”
Vizmanos died of complications arising from a host of ailments, including cancer of the prostate, his daughter Diane said.
“He had gone increasingly frail the past month,” she said. “It’s very sad but at least he is no longer suffering.”
Vizmanos is survived by four children, Diane, Erwin, Alice and Danny, and 12 grandchildren, A.G., Joseph, Demi, Veron, Angelique, Japeth, Shem, Carolyn, Kevin, Vince, Danmark and Josheil.
His body lies at the National Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on Dao Street in Makati City.
Celebrate life
Diane said her father, otherwise strong and robust, had suddenly become weak in 2006 after the death of his wife, Alicia.
“After she died, my father lost his will to live. He would always be in a melancholy mood,” she said in Filipino.
Diane said the family would rather celebrate their father’s life than mourn his death. “He lived a full life and devoted it to the Filipino people… he’s my idol,” she said in an interview.
After he was tortured, Vizmanos said he left the “reactionary organization” that was the military to become a “militant activist.”
On his release from detention, he assumed leadership positions in leftist organizations like Bayan, Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya, Ibon Foundation and Philippine-Cuba Friendship Association.
Testified vs Marcos
In 1992, he testified at the US Federal District Court of Hawaii about the atrocities committed during the Marcos dictatorship. The same court would later hold Marcos liable for human rights violations.
Vizmanos authored three books, “Through the Eye of the Storm,” “Martial Law Diary” and “A Matter of Conviction.” His writings were described as “a critique of a social order that has chained the country to its colonial moorings and perpetrated social injustice.”
Diane said she was glad her father experienced being held in such high esteem before he died.
“It’s as though his life had become complete. He had done everything he set out to do,” she said.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080625-144633/Ka-Dan-original-rebel-soldier-dies-at-79
By DJ Yap
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 07:32:00 06/25/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- “He was the original rebel soldier.”
The words were said in tribute to Danilo “Ka Dan” Vizmanos, retired military officer turned political activist, one month before he died Monday night at the age of 79.
Vizmanos had fought martial law and crusaded against the United States military bases in the Philippines, among other patriotic causes.
A Navy captain, he had joined the dissident movement, blazing a trail for others like him in the military to follow.
Upon the declaration of martial law in 1972, Vizmanos retired from the service, citing “incompatibility with an armed forces that was converted into a huge private army and oppressive instrument of the Marcos dictatorship.”
He was incarcerated for more than two years at Camp Crame, Fort Bonifacio and Bicutan with no formal charges filed.
While in detention, he was subjected to physical and psychological torture, including being injected with “truth serum,” in an effort to get him to betray his friends in the resistance movement.
“My mind was slowly giving up but I still had control,” he had recalled.
In May, a month before he died, his family, friends and comrades paid tribute to him in a special ceremony at the University of Makati.
“Ka Dan is the original rebel soldier,” Bagong Alyansang Makabayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said then.
Openness, enthusiasm
“The admirable qualities of Ka Dan were his openness to new and radical ideas, enthusiasm in making everyone understand and unpretentious leadership,” said Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo at the ceremony.
Exiled communist leader Jose Ma. Sison sent a recorded tribute: “We and all his countrymen take pride in Ka Dan Vizmanos, great hero and true soldier of the people.”
At the end of the two-hour tribute, highlighted by an emotional rendition of “Ikaw Lamang” by his grandchildren, an overwhelmed Vizmanos fought back tears.
“I can never forget this night,” he said. “This is the first time I have felt so honored.”
Vizmanos died of complications arising from a host of ailments, including cancer of the prostate, his daughter Diane said.
“He had gone increasingly frail the past month,” she said. “It’s very sad but at least he is no longer suffering.”
Vizmanos is survived by four children, Diane, Erwin, Alice and Danny, and 12 grandchildren, A.G., Joseph, Demi, Veron, Angelique, Japeth, Shem, Carolyn, Kevin, Vince, Danmark and Josheil.
His body lies at the National Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on Dao Street in Makati City.
Celebrate life
Diane said her father, otherwise strong and robust, had suddenly become weak in 2006 after the death of his wife, Alicia.
“After she died, my father lost his will to live. He would always be in a melancholy mood,” she said in Filipino.
Diane said the family would rather celebrate their father’s life than mourn his death. “He lived a full life and devoted it to the Filipino people… he’s my idol,” she said in an interview.
After he was tortured, Vizmanos said he left the “reactionary organization” that was the military to become a “militant activist.”
On his release from detention, he assumed leadership positions in leftist organizations like Bayan, Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya, Ibon Foundation and Philippine-Cuba Friendship Association.
Testified vs Marcos
In 1992, he testified at the US Federal District Court of Hawaii about the atrocities committed during the Marcos dictatorship. The same court would later hold Marcos liable for human rights violations.
Vizmanos authored three books, “Through the Eye of the Storm,” “Martial Law Diary” and “A Matter of Conviction.” His writings were described as “a critique of a social order that has chained the country to its colonial moorings and perpetrated social injustice.”
Diane said she was glad her father experienced being held in such high esteem before he died.
“It’s as though his life had become complete. He had done everything he set out to do,” she said.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Pagpanaw ni Ka Bel, pagpanaw ng isang tunay na bayani ng inaaping uri
'Maraming salamat, Ka Bel'
By ALETA NIEVA
abs-cbnNEWS. com
http://www.abs- cbnnews.com/ storypage. aspx?StoryId= 119730
"Maraming, maraming salamat Daddy!"
This was part of what Rosario "Ka Osang" Soto-Beltran had told her husband, Anakpawis Rep. Crispin "Ka Bel" Beltran, the day he died in the hospital.
"Sigaw ako ng sigaw noon nakaratay siya sa ospital. Sinisigaw ko sa kanya na maraming salamat daddy. Una sa pagmamahal, pangalawa sa pagmumulat. Hindi lang ako ang namulat, pati ang mga anak natin namulat," said Ka Osang.
Ka Osang said she couldnÂ’t ask for a better person than her husband who had given color and a new meaning to her life. As a husband, Ka Bel gave his wife love, utmost respect and strived to provide for his family.
"Isang mabuting asawa, isang mabuting tatay ng 10 ko na anak, isa siyang mabuting lolo ng mga apo namin at napakagaling niya bilang isang lider manggagawa," Ka Osang said.
Wedding anniversary in detention
In 2006, the couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows at the Philippine Heart Center, where Ka Bel was detained for his alleged participation in the botched February coup.
The five decades were not always blissful, but the love they shared was tested and proven and made even stronger over the years as they weathered storms of challenges together.
Instead of feeling bitter, Ka Osang appeared to be a vision of courage and strength even as his death not only meant losing a husband but also a best friend.
She smiled as she described their relationship as a "developed love".
Who was Ka Bel?
Most people identified Ka Bel as a veteran of the parliament of the streets and a lawmaker, but only a few are aware of his background.
In a statement by Anakpawis, it said that Ka Bel, at an early age, volunteered as a courier for the guerillas during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. He also served as a farm hand and janitor after the war to support his studies. He then worked as gasoline boy, messenger, bus driver and then a taxi driver.
A strike against unfair labor practices firmed up his determination to fight alongside the working class after many were injured and three protesting workers died when police attacked their picket line. >more
"Saan ka nakakita ng dalawang hindi magkakilala na nagsama?" she said. Their lives crossed when then 15-year-old Ka Osang ran away from home and took a cab driven by Ka Bel who was 26. He offered her a place to stay when she told him that she had nowhere else to go.
Her father was angry when he found out that she stayed with a man for three days.
"Kaya kinasal kami. Walang pag-ibig noon. Ayaw ko talaga, iniirapan ko siya, sinusungitan. Pero siya, bukas ang isip. Sabi niya, napag-aaralan naman ang pag-ibig," said Ka Osang from the Kilusang Mayo UnoÂ’s Web site.
As years went by, Ka Osang began to love and understand everything about the man she married, and even his sense of humor.
In an interview during a tribute at his wake at the Iglesia Filipino Independiente (IFI) church in Manila, she said that Ka Bel would want her to tell reporters in the event of his death, his call for President Arroyo to step down.
"Sabi niya, pag ako namatay, ang bilin ko pag na-interview ka ng reporter, sabihin mo pababain na si Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, pag hindi siya bumaba, hilahin ko paa niya," Ka Osang said.
One of his children, Ofel Beltran-Balleta said the family deeply mourns this personal loss but they draw their strength from the multitude of people whose lives have been touched by Ka Bel.
Shared with the people
"Naniniwala kami na hindi naman namin kailanman naging solo si Ka Bel. Kahati namin ay sambayanan," she said.
Unlike other public officials, Ka Bel stayed simple and lived humbly. In fact, he only declared P50,000 as assets in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SAL), making him the poorest among congressmen.
Ofel said her father even applied for a loan in order to continue paying for a house in San Jose del Monte in Bulacan.
"Yung bahay sa San Jose del Monte nakapangalan sa bayaw ko na-acquire niya yun nung nagta-trabaho pa siya. Dahil hindi naman niya nahuhulugan at napapabayaan niya, ini-offer niya yun sa father ko. So father ko nag-loan sa opisina para may pambayad doon. Hinuhulugan niya iyun ng parang P5,000 a month pero nasa pangalan iyun ng bayaw ko," Ofel explained.
Humbling experience
Ka Bel never asked for anything in return, and the life he led even became an inspiration not only to his family but to others as well.
"Siguro sapat na napalaki niya kami ng maayos habang siya ay puspusang nakikibaka para sa uring manggagawa. Enough proof na balansiyado niyang dinadala ang mga bagay-bagay. In fact, sa kabila ng napakarami niyang schedule mayroon pa siyang panahon para magkumpuni ng bahay namin o magpaligo ng mga aso, magtanim," said Ofel.
At the time of his death, Ka Bel was 75 years old. But his age did not deter him from carrying out the responsibilities he chose to shoulder.
"Habang may naghahanap ng katarungan kung bakit siya illegally tinanggal sa trabaho, habang maraming manggagawa ang sumasahod pero nagugutom pa rin ang pamilya hindi nakakasapat iyung kinikita—iyun ang motivation niya para hanapin, bakit ba ganito? Ano ba ang dapat para sa kanila? Hindi man sobrang, at least, makasapat para mabuhay ng maayos," said Ofel.
Unselfish act
Ka Bel lived his life the way he wanted it to—simple but to its fullest.
"Siya ay talagang tunay at taal. Puro talagang manggagawa na naging lider-manggagawa. Sa istilo ng kanyang pamumuhay, hindi na siya umalis doon, pinili niyang manatili sa antas na iyun," said Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo.
Ocampo remembered Ka Bel as a very principled man and a highly effective leader who never lacked the passion and the drive to represent not only the toiling masses in Congress but also the other marginalized sectors of society.
Ka Bel served as vice-president and one of the three representatives of Bayan Muna partylist in Congress from February 2001 to November 2003. In 2004, he was elected as representative for Anakpawis and was on his third term when he died.
"Isang tunay, walang pagkukunwari, di niya itinatagong mahirap siya, di niya itinatago ang antas ng pinagaralan niya, prangka siyang makipag-usap. Kaya niyang makipagusap ng patas," Ocampo said. "Bihira ang ganung lider ng manggagawa na hindi makukuwestiyon yung katotohanan at genuineness ng paninindigan ng kanyang sariling katauhan."
"Unshakeable" was how Ocampo defined Ka BelÂ’s commitment to the working class, adding that the labor leader would have offered to lay down his life, if necessary.
Ocampo said Ka Bel took pride in the lapel pin of the House of Representatives which he always wore because it reminded him that his position was entrusted to him by the people.
His death showed a character of Ka Bel who valued simple-living. "Hanggang sa huling buhay niya, ginagawa niya yung gawain kamay--pagkukumpuni ng bahay, hinahanap-hanap ng kanyang katawan," he said.
Although Ka BelÂ’s death is considered as a great loss, Ocampo is confident that his legacy will continue.
"Mabubuhay siya doon sa diwa at damdamin ng mga naniniwala sa kanya," he said.
His life as an Inspiration
Another Bayan Muna party list representative considered Ka Bel an idol and inspired him to follow his cause.
Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño said he had a high regard for Ka Bel even when he was still with the Kilusang Mayo Uno.
"Para sa akin, isa siyang huwarang lider at talagang gustong-gusto ko sa kanya ay iyung pagiging mapagkumbaba niya sa kabila ng napakalayong inabot niya bilang lider ng kilusang unyon, bilang isang mambabatas," Casiño said.
Casiño added "Hindi umaabot sa kanya iyung anumang kapangyarihan na iginagawad sa kanya sa mga maraming posisyon na nahawakan na niya," he explained.
Ka Bel was a product of his time, he said. In terms of wisdom and experience, he was one of the last labor leaders of his generation.
"Malaking hamon para sa KMU, para sa kilusang paggawa ang pagkawala ni Ka Bel. Pero sigurado akong maraming lider na hahalili sa kanya, but we will probably never find another Ka Bel," said Casiño.
Ka BelÂ’s chief-of-staff Lualhati Roque joined ranks with thousands of people who mourned his death. For her, Ka Bel symbolized what public servants should be--fearless, incorruptible and ready for any consequences in fighting for what is right.
"Sa panahong ito, ang isang tunay na public servant incorruptible, hindi mo siya pwedeng matakot, basta sa paniniwala niya dapat ilantad ang mga bagay-bagay, ilalantad niya kahit anong mangyari sa kanya—makulong siya, i-harass siya o manganib man ang buhay ng pamilya niya. Kaya siya ay isang simbolo talaga ng matapat na lingkod ng bayan," Roque said.
The outpouring of support, she said, would show how the people realize the grave loss.
KMU chairperson Elmer "Ka Bong" Labog said Ka Bel was an outstanding labor leader and freedom fighter.
"We will miss his presence in the peopleÂ’s movement and in the militant labor movement led by KMU. But we will carry on his fight and struggles," Labog said.
Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr., in his tribute to Ka Bel, said that as Anakpawis representative he was "a source of embarrassment to those who trudged the easy path to power, pelf and fame."
"His life puts to shame many of our brethren in politics and in religion who claim to love and serve the poor," said Pimentel.
Pimentel praised Ka BelÂ’s transition from being a firebrand "who in the minds of the conservators of the status quo meant being an arsonist who would burn anything which stood on the way to liberating his fellow workers" to a torch bearer "who in the minds of all well meaning citizens meant illuminating the path of those who search for the better life in a democratic and peaceful manner."
His journey may have been cut short but those he left behind are determined to continue his legacy of being true to the calling of serving the people and the country. #
By ALETA NIEVA
abs-cbnNEWS. com
http://www.abs- cbnnews.com/ storypage. aspx?StoryId= 119730
"Maraming, maraming salamat Daddy!"
This was part of what Rosario "Ka Osang" Soto-Beltran had told her husband, Anakpawis Rep. Crispin "Ka Bel" Beltran, the day he died in the hospital.
"Sigaw ako ng sigaw noon nakaratay siya sa ospital. Sinisigaw ko sa kanya na maraming salamat daddy. Una sa pagmamahal, pangalawa sa pagmumulat. Hindi lang ako ang namulat, pati ang mga anak natin namulat," said Ka Osang.
Ka Osang said she couldnÂ’t ask for a better person than her husband who had given color and a new meaning to her life. As a husband, Ka Bel gave his wife love, utmost respect and strived to provide for his family.
"Isang mabuting asawa, isang mabuting tatay ng 10 ko na anak, isa siyang mabuting lolo ng mga apo namin at napakagaling niya bilang isang lider manggagawa," Ka Osang said.
Wedding anniversary in detention
In 2006, the couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows at the Philippine Heart Center, where Ka Bel was detained for his alleged participation in the botched February coup.
The five decades were not always blissful, but the love they shared was tested and proven and made even stronger over the years as they weathered storms of challenges together.
Instead of feeling bitter, Ka Osang appeared to be a vision of courage and strength even as his death not only meant losing a husband but also a best friend.
She smiled as she described their relationship as a "developed love".
Who was Ka Bel?
Most people identified Ka Bel as a veteran of the parliament of the streets and a lawmaker, but only a few are aware of his background.
In a statement by Anakpawis, it said that Ka Bel, at an early age, volunteered as a courier for the guerillas during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. He also served as a farm hand and janitor after the war to support his studies. He then worked as gasoline boy, messenger, bus driver and then a taxi driver.
A strike against unfair labor practices firmed up his determination to fight alongside the working class after many were injured and three protesting workers died when police attacked their picket line. >more
"Saan ka nakakita ng dalawang hindi magkakilala na nagsama?" she said. Their lives crossed when then 15-year-old Ka Osang ran away from home and took a cab driven by Ka Bel who was 26. He offered her a place to stay when she told him that she had nowhere else to go.
Her father was angry when he found out that she stayed with a man for three days.
"Kaya kinasal kami. Walang pag-ibig noon. Ayaw ko talaga, iniirapan ko siya, sinusungitan. Pero siya, bukas ang isip. Sabi niya, napag-aaralan naman ang pag-ibig," said Ka Osang from the Kilusang Mayo UnoÂ’s Web site.
As years went by, Ka Osang began to love and understand everything about the man she married, and even his sense of humor.
In an interview during a tribute at his wake at the Iglesia Filipino Independiente (IFI) church in Manila, she said that Ka Bel would want her to tell reporters in the event of his death, his call for President Arroyo to step down.
"Sabi niya, pag ako namatay, ang bilin ko pag na-interview ka ng reporter, sabihin mo pababain na si Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, pag hindi siya bumaba, hilahin ko paa niya," Ka Osang said.
One of his children, Ofel Beltran-Balleta said the family deeply mourns this personal loss but they draw their strength from the multitude of people whose lives have been touched by Ka Bel.
Shared with the people
"Naniniwala kami na hindi naman namin kailanman naging solo si Ka Bel. Kahati namin ay sambayanan," she said.
Unlike other public officials, Ka Bel stayed simple and lived humbly. In fact, he only declared P50,000 as assets in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SAL), making him the poorest among congressmen.
Ofel said her father even applied for a loan in order to continue paying for a house in San Jose del Monte in Bulacan.
"Yung bahay sa San Jose del Monte nakapangalan sa bayaw ko na-acquire niya yun nung nagta-trabaho pa siya. Dahil hindi naman niya nahuhulugan at napapabayaan niya, ini-offer niya yun sa father ko. So father ko nag-loan sa opisina para may pambayad doon. Hinuhulugan niya iyun ng parang P5,000 a month pero nasa pangalan iyun ng bayaw ko," Ofel explained.
Humbling experience
Ka Bel never asked for anything in return, and the life he led even became an inspiration not only to his family but to others as well.
"Siguro sapat na napalaki niya kami ng maayos habang siya ay puspusang nakikibaka para sa uring manggagawa. Enough proof na balansiyado niyang dinadala ang mga bagay-bagay. In fact, sa kabila ng napakarami niyang schedule mayroon pa siyang panahon para magkumpuni ng bahay namin o magpaligo ng mga aso, magtanim," said Ofel.
At the time of his death, Ka Bel was 75 years old. But his age did not deter him from carrying out the responsibilities he chose to shoulder.
"Habang may naghahanap ng katarungan kung bakit siya illegally tinanggal sa trabaho, habang maraming manggagawa ang sumasahod pero nagugutom pa rin ang pamilya hindi nakakasapat iyung kinikita—iyun ang motivation niya para hanapin, bakit ba ganito? Ano ba ang dapat para sa kanila? Hindi man sobrang, at least, makasapat para mabuhay ng maayos," said Ofel.
Unselfish act
Ka Bel lived his life the way he wanted it to—simple but to its fullest.
"Siya ay talagang tunay at taal. Puro talagang manggagawa na naging lider-manggagawa. Sa istilo ng kanyang pamumuhay, hindi na siya umalis doon, pinili niyang manatili sa antas na iyun," said Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo.
Ocampo remembered Ka Bel as a very principled man and a highly effective leader who never lacked the passion and the drive to represent not only the toiling masses in Congress but also the other marginalized sectors of society.
Ka Bel served as vice-president and one of the three representatives of Bayan Muna partylist in Congress from February 2001 to November 2003. In 2004, he was elected as representative for Anakpawis and was on his third term when he died.
"Isang tunay, walang pagkukunwari, di niya itinatagong mahirap siya, di niya itinatago ang antas ng pinagaralan niya, prangka siyang makipag-usap. Kaya niyang makipagusap ng patas," Ocampo said. "Bihira ang ganung lider ng manggagawa na hindi makukuwestiyon yung katotohanan at genuineness ng paninindigan ng kanyang sariling katauhan."
"Unshakeable" was how Ocampo defined Ka BelÂ’s commitment to the working class, adding that the labor leader would have offered to lay down his life, if necessary.
Ocampo said Ka Bel took pride in the lapel pin of the House of Representatives which he always wore because it reminded him that his position was entrusted to him by the people.
His death showed a character of Ka Bel who valued simple-living. "Hanggang sa huling buhay niya, ginagawa niya yung gawain kamay--pagkukumpuni ng bahay, hinahanap-hanap ng kanyang katawan," he said.
Although Ka BelÂ’s death is considered as a great loss, Ocampo is confident that his legacy will continue.
"Mabubuhay siya doon sa diwa at damdamin ng mga naniniwala sa kanya," he said.
His life as an Inspiration
Another Bayan Muna party list representative considered Ka Bel an idol and inspired him to follow his cause.
Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño said he had a high regard for Ka Bel even when he was still with the Kilusang Mayo Uno.
"Para sa akin, isa siyang huwarang lider at talagang gustong-gusto ko sa kanya ay iyung pagiging mapagkumbaba niya sa kabila ng napakalayong inabot niya bilang lider ng kilusang unyon, bilang isang mambabatas," Casiño said.
Casiño added "Hindi umaabot sa kanya iyung anumang kapangyarihan na iginagawad sa kanya sa mga maraming posisyon na nahawakan na niya," he explained.
Ka Bel was a product of his time, he said. In terms of wisdom and experience, he was one of the last labor leaders of his generation.
"Malaking hamon para sa KMU, para sa kilusang paggawa ang pagkawala ni Ka Bel. Pero sigurado akong maraming lider na hahalili sa kanya, but we will probably never find another Ka Bel," said Casiño.
Ka BelÂ’s chief-of-staff Lualhati Roque joined ranks with thousands of people who mourned his death. For her, Ka Bel symbolized what public servants should be--fearless, incorruptible and ready for any consequences in fighting for what is right.
"Sa panahong ito, ang isang tunay na public servant incorruptible, hindi mo siya pwedeng matakot, basta sa paniniwala niya dapat ilantad ang mga bagay-bagay, ilalantad niya kahit anong mangyari sa kanya—makulong siya, i-harass siya o manganib man ang buhay ng pamilya niya. Kaya siya ay isang simbolo talaga ng matapat na lingkod ng bayan," Roque said.
The outpouring of support, she said, would show how the people realize the grave loss.
KMU chairperson Elmer "Ka Bong" Labog said Ka Bel was an outstanding labor leader and freedom fighter.
"We will miss his presence in the peopleÂ’s movement and in the militant labor movement led by KMU. But we will carry on his fight and struggles," Labog said.
Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr., in his tribute to Ka Bel, said that as Anakpawis representative he was "a source of embarrassment to those who trudged the easy path to power, pelf and fame."
"His life puts to shame many of our brethren in politics and in religion who claim to love and serve the poor," said Pimentel.
Pimentel praised Ka BelÂ’s transition from being a firebrand "who in the minds of the conservators of the status quo meant being an arsonist who would burn anything which stood on the way to liberating his fellow workers" to a torch bearer "who in the minds of all well meaning citizens meant illuminating the path of those who search for the better life in a democratic and peaceful manner."
His journey may have been cut short but those he left behind are determined to continue his legacy of being true to the calling of serving the people and the country. #
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Party list groups push for wider representation in the party list system
PARTY LIST GROUPS PUSH FOR WIDER REPRESENATATION IN THE PARTY LIST SYSTEM
[April 23, 2008] Reference Person: Atty. Neri Colmenares [09178350459]
BAGUIO CITY – In a press briefing today, Bayan Muna reiterated its firm resolve to pursue wider representation for the party list system in Congress by asking the Supreme Court to strike down as unconstitutional the first party rule and the 3-seat cap.
The 3-seat cap and the first party rule, which were imposed by the Comelec in the 2007 elections, essentially disallow the filling up of the 54 party list seats in Congress and disenfranchising millions of voters.
Both these issues were raised by Bayan Muna during the Oral Arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday.
Comelec Imposition
The COMELEC, then headed by Chairman Benjamin Abalos, imposed the first party rule which allocates a maximum of only three seats to the ‘first party’ regardless of the votes of the other parties.
Buhay which garnered 7.2% of the party list votes was given 3 seats while Bayan Muna which garnered 6.5% of the votes [Comelec Report No. 27] was only given two seats.
The 3-seat cap provides that any party will only get a maximum of 3 seats even if its vote entitles it to more than 3 seats.
The First Party Rule and the Three Seat Cap rule violate the proportional representation mandated by the Constitution which requires that the party list groups are allocated seats in proportion to their share of the votes.
The First Party Rule and the Three Seat Cap resulted in disenfranchising a total of 5,053,132 voters in the 2007 elections since only 23 of the 54 party list seats are currently filled up.
Thirty-eight seats were not filled up after the 1998 party list pools, while 32 seats remained vacant after the 2001 elections. In 2004 only 24 of the 53 party list seats were occupied.
These Comelec impositions specifically violate Article VI, Section 5 (1) and (2) of the Constitution on the party list system which intends to empower and enfranchise the marginalized majority via party-list representation in the House of Representatives.
During the Oral Arguments, Atty. Colmenares also asserted that the major political parties should not be allowed to participate in the party list elections. The Supreme Court decided in favor of Bayan Muna in 2001 to disqualify those who are not marginalized or underrepresented from participating in the party list election.
The major political parties such as Kampi, Lakas-NUCD, and Liberal Party with their massive resources and machinery are not marginalized or underrepresented and their participation will take seats away from deserving party list representatives of the people. In its petition (G.R. No. 179295) filed by Bayan Muna, A-Teacher and Abono on September 7, 2007 with the Supreme Court, the groups said that the principle of proportional representation, which is an essential feature of genuine people empowerment, has been gravely distorted.
The Bayan Muna lawyer said that to give flesh to the clear intent of the constitution, all that is needed is to adopt the formula outlined in RA 7941, the party list law, so that the 20% allocation for the party-list representatives can be filled up.
The other members of the Bayan Muna legal panel in the oral arguments were Atty. Manja Bayang, Atty. Jonel Torregosa and Prof. Lex Muga of the Ateneo de Manila University Math Department.
We are earnestly hoping that the Supreme Court immediately decide on the petition and correct the current anomaly attending the partylist system. #
Vincent Michael L. Borneo
Political Affairs Officer
(Media and Public Relations)
Office of BAYAN MUNA Rep. Teddy A. Casiño
Rm. 508, North Wing Bldg.,
House of Representatives, Quezon City
Telefax no: 931-5911
[April 23, 2008] Reference Person: Atty. Neri Colmenares [09178350459]
BAGUIO CITY – In a press briefing today, Bayan Muna reiterated its firm resolve to pursue wider representation for the party list system in Congress by asking the Supreme Court to strike down as unconstitutional the first party rule and the 3-seat cap.
The 3-seat cap and the first party rule, which were imposed by the Comelec in the 2007 elections, essentially disallow the filling up of the 54 party list seats in Congress and disenfranchising millions of voters.
Both these issues were raised by Bayan Muna during the Oral Arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday.
Comelec Imposition
The COMELEC, then headed by Chairman Benjamin Abalos, imposed the first party rule which allocates a maximum of only three seats to the ‘first party’ regardless of the votes of the other parties.
Buhay which garnered 7.2% of the party list votes was given 3 seats while Bayan Muna which garnered 6.5% of the votes [Comelec Report No. 27] was only given two seats.
The 3-seat cap provides that any party will only get a maximum of 3 seats even if its vote entitles it to more than 3 seats.
The First Party Rule and the Three Seat Cap rule violate the proportional representation mandated by the Constitution which requires that the party list groups are allocated seats in proportion to their share of the votes.
The First Party Rule and the Three Seat Cap resulted in disenfranchising a total of 5,053,132 voters in the 2007 elections since only 23 of the 54 party list seats are currently filled up.
Thirty-eight seats were not filled up after the 1998 party list pools, while 32 seats remained vacant after the 2001 elections. In 2004 only 24 of the 53 party list seats were occupied.
These Comelec impositions specifically violate Article VI, Section 5 (1) and (2) of the Constitution on the party list system which intends to empower and enfranchise the marginalized majority via party-list representation in the House of Representatives.
During the Oral Arguments, Atty. Colmenares also asserted that the major political parties should not be allowed to participate in the party list elections. The Supreme Court decided in favor of Bayan Muna in 2001 to disqualify those who are not marginalized or underrepresented from participating in the party list election.
The major political parties such as Kampi, Lakas-NUCD, and Liberal Party with their massive resources and machinery are not marginalized or underrepresented and their participation will take seats away from deserving party list representatives of the people. In its petition (G.R. No. 179295) filed by Bayan Muna, A-Teacher and Abono on September 7, 2007 with the Supreme Court, the groups said that the principle of proportional representation, which is an essential feature of genuine people empowerment, has been gravely distorted.
The Bayan Muna lawyer said that to give flesh to the clear intent of the constitution, all that is needed is to adopt the formula outlined in RA 7941, the party list law, so that the 20% allocation for the party-list representatives can be filled up.
The other members of the Bayan Muna legal panel in the oral arguments were Atty. Manja Bayang, Atty. Jonel Torregosa and Prof. Lex Muga of the Ateneo de Manila University Math Department.
We are earnestly hoping that the Supreme Court immediately decide on the petition and correct the current anomaly attending the partylist system. #
Vincent Michael L. Borneo
Political Affairs Officer
(Media and Public Relations)
Office of BAYAN MUNA Rep. Teddy A. Casiño
Rm. 508, North Wing Bldg.,
House of Representatives, Quezon City
Telefax no: 931-5911
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