THE human-rights watchdog Karapatan has welcomed the call of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) for the government to resume the peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front (NDF).
“The recent statement of the IADL is a much-needed boost to the Filipino people’s call to resume the peace talks and to end the culture of impunity in the country,” Karapatan Chairman Marie Hilao-Enriquez said.
Established in 1946, the IADL is an organization of lawyers worldwide that has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
On May 27 the IADL came out with a resolution calling on the Aquino administration to hold human-rights violators accountable and to continue peace negotiations.
Karapatan and other people’s organizations and human-rights advocates have urged the Aquino administration to push through with the peace talks with the NDF.
“Yet, the Aquino administration ignored these calls and continues to insist on its own framework in the peace negotiation, ignoring previously signed agreements with the NDF,” Enriquez said.
She said the peace negotiations have been scuttled for the failure of the government to abide by its commitment to release imprisoned NDF consultants covered by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees.
Recently, the Aquino administration, through its peace panel head lawyer Alex Padilla, unilaterally terminated the peace talks through media releases. “It shows the government only means war,” Enriquez said. “For us, it means more human-rights violations,” she added.
“We call on the parties to resume the negotiations based on their previous agreements to earnestly, patiently and sincerely address and comprehensively resolve the underlying social, economic and political reasons for the armed conflict and resistance,” the IADL resolution said.
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