Solidarity message on the commemoration
of the Merthyr Rising
By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chief International Representative
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
30 May 2013
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines extends its revolutionary greetings of solidarity to the Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party in their celebration of the Merthyr Rising workers commune of 1831.
We commend the plan of the Great Unrest Group to lead the raising of the Red flag on Hirwaun Common on the 1st of June, in commemoration of the workers' protests leading to the armed uprising at the end of May 1831, and the first ever raising of the Red flag of revolution.
It is only fitting to recall the revolutionary character of the Merthyr Rising of 1831, when the demands for improved working conditions and higher wages culminated to calls of "Bread or Blood!", the raising of the Red flag, and the armed seizure of power by the working people. The demands of almost two centuries ago echo in the present age of economic crisis caused by imperialist globalization.
The workers of today are constantly denied regular employment and laid off en masse by the capitalists. They suffer from depressed wages and ever decreasing purchasing power. Hard-won victories of social and workers' benefits are constantly being eroded in the guise of austerity measures.
Meanwhile, the monopoly corporations responsible for the current financial and economic crisis are rescued through the working people's tax money. Capitalists and their top managers continue to receive sky-high salaries and bonuses.
Almost two centuries after the Merthyr Rising, it is more than ever relevant for the working people of Wales to fight for their rights to employment, decent wages and social benefits, and to once again raise the Red flag of revolution for the establishment of a workers state.
In the Philippines, we recall the Cry of Balintawak of 1896, when Filipino revolutionaries tore up their cedulas personales (residence certificates) signalling open revolt against Spanish colonialism. After more than three centuries under Spanish rule,the armed revolutionary movement could successfully drive the colonizers into their last bastion in Manila, culminating in the establishment of the first Republic in Asia in 1899.
But victory was snatched away by the armed invasion of US imperialism. The Philippine-American War resulted in the killing of 1.5 million Filipinos from 1899 up to 1913. In 1946, the US granted bogus independence to the Philippines, keeping it under neo-colonial rule through successive puppet governments.
Philippine revolutionaries now being led by the Communist Party of the Philippines are still waging a national democratic revolution, aiming to complete the revolution for national independence and democracy started in 1896. Wielding the New People's Army as its main weapon, they now operate in guerilla fronts covering 70 out of the total 81 provinces in the country.
The mass base of the revolution runs into millions of people. These have been realized by building the mass organizations, the organs of political power from the village level to higher levels, and the local Party branches.
These mass organizations and organs of political power implement programs of land rerform, economic production, health care, disaster relief and rehabilitation, self defense, settlement of local disputes, mass education, and cultural activities.
The revolutionary forces have attained such strength that they are aiming in the next few years to advance from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate of the people's war. While we are fighting in the Philippines against US imperialism and its local puppets, we extend our revolutionary solidarity to the working people of Wales in their fight against capitalist exploitation within the belly of the imperialist beast.
We join you in raising the Red flag of revolution in Hirwaun Common on the 1st of June.
We wish you success in arousing, organizing and mobilizing the working people of Wales in our common revolutionary struggle against imperialism and for socialism.
Long live the legacy of the Merthyr Rising 1831!
Raise the Red flag of socialist revolution!
Long live the working people of Wales!
Long live international proletarian solidarity!
LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chief International Representative
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
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