UNDAUNTED,THOUSANDS RETURN TO HACIENDA LUISITA PICKET LINES : QC IMC

NEWS RELEASE
November 29, 2004, Monday

Undaunted, thousands return to massacre site
Hacienda Luisita strike recoups strength

HACIENDA LUISITA, TARLAC CITY- Bloodshed clearly failed to break the barricades, as thousands yesterday returned to the Central Azucarrera de Tarlac’s (CAT) Gate 1, the site of the November 16 Hacienda Luisita strike and massacre.

An estimated minimum of two thousand union members, strike supporters and family members filled the lot in front of the CAT by seven o’ clock in the evening, to reiterate their support for the strike and outrage over the carnage.

“They can tear our bodies apart with bullets, but they will never be able to massacre the resolve of a people united,” declared United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) Rene Galang.

This massing-up signals the renewal of the picket line’s militancy, following the burial ceremonies of the seven Hacienda Luisita martyrs. The bodies of the massacre victims were previously laid in state at the picket line proper.

“The people know that the strike negotiations’ success will be determined by how long and strong the picket lines will hold out. The people consciously return to the barricades in spite of fear and fatigue, in our willingness to bring this strike on to victory,” Galang said. Negotiations are currently ongoing between the Cojuangcos and the ULWU and CATLU. “The strike’s victory is the only way of giving justice to the seven Hacienda Luisita martyrs,” he emphasized.

A glance at the strike area now shows that the three-week long protest by the Hacienda Luisita Incorporated’s (HLI) workers and farm-workers is thriving. The picket line, after the November 16 massacre, has quickly regained control of its day-to-day operations. The makeshift kitchen, clinic and legal teams continue to render daily services to dispersal victims and community members. The giant tent, erected in the middle of the picket during the onset of the strike, has been set up once again. Nearby, the CAT façade continues to rumble and slowly spew out smoke, the manner of which, workers on strike say, indicates that the plant’s operations are on the verge of paralysis.

Reinforcing the ranks of workers on strike were residents from Hacienda Luisita’s ten barrios –including elderly residents, women, and children --who trooped back to the barricades yesterday to set up a vigil and watch at the raw video footage of the November 16 massacre, documented and distributed by various alternative media institutions.

The video clips of the violent dispersal that massacred at least seven people, and left hundreds of others wounded and/or arrested, were the same ones presented by the ULWU and CATLU during the Senate and Congressional inquiries on the massacre last November 25 and 36, respectively.

The footage documents the hours-long dispersal by police and military forces, where strikers, assaulted by excessive tear gas attacks, water cannons laced with chemicals and metal dust, and an Armed Personnel Carrier (APC) ramming through the gate, actively defended their control of Gate 1 by pelting stones back at gun-wielding, shield-protected dispersal teams. Video documentation of the incident captured the minutes when the military opened fire on the crowd, as well as the dying moments of several protestors.

The improvised film showings drew a strong reaction from the crowd, many of whom were families or town mates of the victims watching the footage for the first time.

Galang said that this strengthened the resolve of the strikers and their families to push on with the protest. “The bloodthirsty brutality of the dispersal is clear from this raw footage,” he said, “and clearly indicates that the massacre deserves the highest degrees of condemnation from all those who uphold human rights.”

Galang also said the footage was proof of the immense collective strength demonstrated by the strikers. “The video captures one of the moments that make the Hacienda Luisita strike a historical victory in the Philippine trade union struggle: the events where the strikers successfully defeated the dispersal team’s offensives legalized by the assumption of jurisdiction order (AJ), before the bloodshed happened,” he added. Prior to the massacre, strikers successfully fended off at least two separate dispersal attempts and the dispersal team’s initial foray of tear gas, and water cannons.

“Through these images, we have all seen how the Hacienda Luisita’s workers and communities have defied danger and even death in order to assert their demand for just wages and genuine land reform,” he added.

Galang said they were expecting more support from the hacienda’s communities, workers and peasants’ organizations from various regions, and progressive groups as November 30, Bonifacio Day, and December 10, International Human Rights Day, nears.

“November 30 marks a historical period where the Filipino toiling masses defied silence to rebel against their oppressors, in the same spirit of militancy that Hacienda Luisita’s workers and farm-workers are producing. December 10 marks our solidarity with all peoples of the nation and the world who have similarly suffered, involuntarily disappeared, or died under oppressive regimes,” he said.

“The massacre has failed to kill our militancy,” Galang said, “We will continue to condemn the Cojuangcos, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, for allowing to be used as instruments to kill their oppressed countrymen, DOLE Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas, for her complicity in the suppression of the strike, and Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, for her implicit tolerance of such injustice by her suspicious inaction on the issue,” he said.

Galang also encouraged legislators, sympathizers and other citizens to visit the picket line in order to “witness firsthand how resolve remains strong in the hacienda’s workers and farm-workers.”###