1. Our profound grief at the suffering and loss of lives. The Philippine Greens express our profound grief at the senseless suffering and loss of lives of innocent civilians in the attacks against the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon last September 11, 2001, as well as in the U.S./British bombing of Afghanistan that started last October 8. We felt the same grief when Milosevic's forces went on a rampage of rape and murder against innocent citizens who just happened to be Muslims, and when NATO forces bombed Yugoslavia killing hundreds perhaps thousands of innocent civilians under the pretext of punishing Milosevic. We also felt the same grief when the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped and killed scores of civilians and the Philippine military responded by bombing suspected hiding places of the Abu Sayyaf and ended up hurting or killing scores of innocent civilians.

Whether it is perpetrated by so-called freedom fighters or by governments, attacks on innocent civilians, who are the least protected and the most vulnerable during armed conflicts, are acts of terrorism. Even the U.S. threat of bombing has already stricken terror in the hearts of thousands of Afghanis, forcing them to flee population centers and to lead desperate lives as refugees.

We reiterate our stand against all forms of terrorism.

2.Stop using the victims to justify a militarist agenda. We support the stand of thousands of New Yorkers, including the kin and friends of victims of the WTC attack, who oppose the U.S./British bombing of Afghanistan and feel that their grief is being misused by the U.S. government to justify its own militarist agenda. We join in their cry, Not in our name! Theirs is a cry for justice, not war. We join them in refusing to be used as excuse for the bombing of innocent people.

3.Stop the bombing of Afghanistan, and let the U.N. handle the enforcement of justice through due process. We call on the U.S. and Great Britain, to immediately stop the bombing of Afghanistan and to continue their efforts to positively identify the perpetrators and masterminds of the WTC attack and to present their evidence before appropriate U.N. bodies like the International Court of Justice (ICJ). We urge them to negotiate with those countries which might be harboring the suspects and to use commonly accepted principles of international law and diplomacy to pressure these countries to subject the suspects to investigation by the proper authorities like the ICJ.

We likewise urge the Taliban regime of Afghanistan to look objectively at the U.S. evidence against Osama Bin Laden, and to accept the jurisdiction of U.N. bodies like the ICJ in determining whether the U.S. government has sufficient evidence against Bin Laden as the mastermind in the WTC attack. If the evidence is sufficient, we urge the Taliban regime to surrender Bin Laden and the other suspects to the proper U.N. authorities.

Once the suspects are positively identified, due processes of justice must be observed. The U.N. can rely on the International Criminal Court to try crimes which fall under its jurisdiction. There are many other options still open to the U.N. short of bombing cities, buildings and other targets which can result in harm to innocent civilians. Even when the use of force becomes the only viable option, it should not result in risking the lives or safety of innocent civilians. The WTC victims cry for justice must result in law-enforcement efforts, not in a military pursuit of war.

Many times, U.S. law enforcement agencies have let crime suspects or fugitives elude arrest rather than use firearms and endanger the lives of innocent Americans. We expect the same concern for the safety and lives of innocent civilians of other nationalities in the pursuit of justice for the victims of the WTC attack.

4.The Philippines should stop supporting the bombing of Afghanistan. The Philippine Greens call on our own government to withdraw its support for the U.S./British bombing of Afghanistan. The Arroyo government must realize that the U.S.-Bin Laden conflict is the result of a long and complex history of events which includes the U.S. presence in the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and U.S. support for corrupt and brutal regimes in Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, and especially the highly pro-Israel position of the U.S. in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The U.S. has frequently risked isolation, even from its other Western allies and certainly from developing countries, to stand alone in support of Israel despite many U.N. resolutions castigating Israel's intransigent position in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the past, our government has wisely voted for U.N. resolutions in favor of the Palestinian people and against the U.S.-supported Israeli position. It is foolhardy now for the Arroyo government to go overboard in offering Philippine air and sea ports in support of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan and invite retaliatory attacks by the victims of U.S. bombings and other military misadventures. Our citizens are especially vulnerable because of the millions of overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East. The Philippine Greens urge the government to rely on the U.N. and to call upon it to step in and to play its mandated role as arbiter of international conflicts and justice.

5.The Philippine Greens oppose militarism and chronic violence. Finally, the Philippine Greens take this opportunity to explain the Greens principle of anti-militarism and non-violence. We are against military solutions to conflicts. We believe that internal as well as international conflicts should be resolved in ways which are peaceful and democratic. Armed conflicts almost always claim for victims innocent civilians, particularly the young, the old, the women and the unarmed.

But we are also realistic; we know it will take not only time but a different kind of courage. We know that chronic violence is a persistent disease of todays world. We know that the militaristic mindset pervades many institutions and organizations. We have ourselves seen many victims of chronic violence, particularly the violence perpetrated by the rich, the powerful, and the entrenched. We have also seen how victims of long-term violence, desperate to defend themselves and seeing no other recourse, have had to respond with violence themselves. But violence begets further violence, and the spiral will never end until we find the courage and the strength to break the vicious cycle. While this may be extremely difficult, it is not impossible; the more people join in, the greater the chances of bringing it about.

It is often argued that only armed struggles can bring down the rich, the powerful and the entrenched. This, in fact, might have been the mindset of some of the hijackers who sacrificed their own lives and thousands of other innocent civilians to deliver their message of hate. This argument might have been a strong one in earlier centuries, up to the first three quarters of the 20th century. But since then, we have also seen popular but generally peaceful uprisings bring down dictators and oppressors without resorting to armed struggles.

To settle conflicts and initiate fundamental changes not through militaristic methods but through the non-violent transformation of onesself, of others, and of societies -- these are the principles which guide the Philippine Greens.

Roberto Verzola, Secretary-General
18 October 2001

"The struggle of (humanity) against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." --Milan Kundera, Czech novelist