The Communist Party of the Philippines said on Saturday that Jose Maria Sison, the leader of one of the longest-running Maoist insurgencies in history, has passed away at the age of 83.
The former university professor passed away in the Netherlands, where he had been living in self-imposed exile ever since the peace negotiations broke down in 1987, at the height of the uprising that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The party released a statement in which it stated, “Sison… died away at roughly 8:40 p.m. (Philippine time) after two weeks of confinement in a hospital in Utrecht.
“The passing of their teacher and guiding light is mourned by the Filipino proletariat and laboring people.”
The Philippines’ defense ministry referred to Sison as the “biggest stumbling block” to peace and claimed that his death might ultimately bring an end to violence in the nation.
It stated that Sison’s passing “is merely a symbol of the disintegrating hierarchy” within the communist cause and urged any remaining dissidents to submit.
“For the Philippines, a new age without Sison has begun… Give peace a try right now.
Sison had wanted to overthrow the government and install a Maoist administration in the former American colony to put an end to “US imperialism.”
In 2002, the communist party and its armed branch were classified as foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department.
failed negotiations
Out of the global communist movement, the continuous military conflict began in 1969 and found fertile ground in the Philippines’ glaring rich-poor split.
Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship, which lasted from 1972 to 1986, encouraged recruitment for the uprising by closing down the legislature, stifling free speech, and torturing or killing thousands of opponents.
The military claims that the gang has now shrunk to a few thousand fighters from the 26,000 it once boasted at its height in the 1980s.
Through the NDF, the communists’ political wing located in the Netherlands, successive Philippine administrations have held peace negotiations with them since 1986.
The election of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, a self-described socialist and former Sison student, in 2016 sparked renewed hope for peace negotiations.
The conversations later turned into threats and accusations, and Duterte formally shut them off in 2017. He did this after designating the group as a terrorist organization and accusing it of murdering police and soldiers while talks were ongoing.
The government has alleged that hundreds of communist insurgents have given up in recent years in exchange for cash support and job possibilities.
Deadly conflicts continue to occur throughout the nation, which is also troubled by kidnapping-for-ransom organizations and Islamist secessionist movements in the south.
