CPP urges truce in calamity areas to allow rebels to engage in relief operations

From InterAksyon (Aug 22): CPP urges truce in calamity areas to allow rebels to engage in relief operations

The Communist Party of the Philippines on Thursday ordered New People’s Army units in areas affected by severe flooding to consider declaring local ceasefires and engage in relief operations and called on the military to do the same.

“All members and branches of the CPP, as well as all units of the NPA in affected areas have been instructed to organize and carry out relief and rehabilitation efforts to assist the masses whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed or despoiled in days of rain and floods,” the rebel organization said in a statement.

“The CPP urges all its allies and friends to extend support to mass organizations carrying out operations directly in the affected areas,” it added.

It said it was “within the prerogative of the leading committees of the CPP in the regions and commands of the NPA to determine the necessity of declaring temporary ceasefires in their respective areas.”

At the same time, the CPP urged the Armed Forces of the Philippines to “cease Oplan Bayanihan suppression operations in order to allow local units of the NPA, local branches of the CPP and people’s organizations to carry out relief and rehabilitation efforts.”

The CPP said it “sympathizes with the millions of people in the National Capital Region and in the Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon and Northern Luzon regions who have fallen victim to the recent spate of typhoons and torrential rains.”

It also acknowledged that, “among the victims are tens of thousands of Party members, revolutionary masses and progressive activists in peasant and worker communities” who, nevertheless, “have also been among the first responders carrying out organized rescue, evacuation and relief operations.”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/69120/cpp-urges-truce-in-calamity-areas-to-allow-rebels-to-engage-in-relief-operations