Govt to try new approach to end Maoist rebellion

From the Manila Standard Today (Apr 27):  Govt to try new approach to end Maoist rebellion

The Aquino Administration has dropped formal negotiations with communist rebels, but it is considering a new approach to end more than four decades of guerrilla war in the country, government chief negotiator Alexander Padilla said on Friday.

“The government doesn’t want to return to the regular track [formal talks] because it has been going nowhere for the past 27 years,” Padilla said.

He declined to give details about the “new approach,” but said the “mounting violence inflicted by the New People’s Army on civilians has eroded what little trust has been built over the years of trying to hammer out a peace agreement with the rebels.”

The talks between the government and the communist-led National Democratic Front were held in Norway for more than 20 years. The Norwegian government served as third-party facilitator.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda called the communist rebels bandits following Saturday’s ambush of Gingoog City Mayor Ruthie Guingona, who was seriously wounded and whose driver and bodyguard were killed. No more peace talks, he said.

Padilla said the government scuttled the peace talks because the NDF “always comes up with new and unreasonable demands … and we cannot wait forever for the other side if they continually refuse to go back to the negotiating table without preconditions.”

“We have always been open to resuming formal negotiations with them, but they keep on insisting on preconditions such as the release of their detained consultants,” Padilla said.

He said other than asking for the release of their consultants from military detention, the NDF was also demanding that the government abolish its programs like the Conditional Cash Transfer, which provides cash to indigents.

“These demands are just preposterous. We don’t want to engage in a negotiation where the other party is clearly fooling us,” Padilla said.

“The ball is now in their hands. They were the ones who initiated the special track and they were the ones who ended it,” he said.

A palace official who asked not to be named said even the Norwegian government had expressed doubts about the sincerity of the NDF in holding the talks to attain peace in the country.

“Since they do not want to talk peace and since they keep attacking civilians and extorting money in the form of their illegal revolutionary taxes and permit to campaign, I don’t think the public will begrudge us if we decide to let go of the peace negotiations and pursue peace through other means,” the official said.

“We have done everything we can. We have even bent over backwards for some of their demands. But they keep on doing things to stall the talks,” he said.

Some of the options under consideration were holding localized peace talks and strengthening efforts to convince the rebels to come down from the hills and return to their homes, the official said.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2013/04/27/govt-to-try-new-approach-to-end-maoist-rebellion/