CPP declares ceasefire in typhoon-stricken areas

From InterAksyon (Nov 14): CPP declares ceasefire in typhoon-stricken areas

Communist rebels on Thursday said the New People’s Army has been observing a ceasefire that began November 9 and will run until just before midnight of November 24 in areas stricken by super typhoon “Yolanda.”

“Concerned NPA units have, as a matter of course, ceased offensive operations since November 9. This ceasefire declaration will remain in effect up to 2359 hours of 24 November 2013,” the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines said in a statement released Friday, two days after the military accused the rebels in Sorsogon province of staging an ambush on a military convoy delivering aid to typhoon-stricken Eastern Visayas. Two rebels were killed.

The NPA denied the accusations and said the clash in which the guerrillas died happened in a village of Matnog town that is at some three kilometers from the highway where the convoy would have been passing.

News reports on Friday have quoted the Army’s Bicol-based 9th Infantry Division as admitting that there was no ambush.

Earlier, Armed Forces chief of staff General Emmanuel Bautista said they were not declaring a truce because of security risks for soldiers who might undertake relief efforts in areas where the rebels operate.

Bautista cited ambushes the NPA allegedly staged against military relief missions after storm “Pablo” struck Northern Mindanao late last year.

“Until the aforementioned expiration of this declaration, all NPA units and people’s militias shall cease and desist from carrying out offensive military operations against the armed units and personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP) and other paramilitary and armed groups attached to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines,” the CPP declaration said.

The CPP truce covers areas under the NPA’s Eastern Visayas Regional Command, Panay Regional Command, Central Visayas Regional Command, and Negros Island Command.

“Respective regional commands are also to transmit this ceasefire declaration to the concerned provincial commands of the NPA,” the CPP statement ordered.

These are the Masbate Island Command, Palawan Island Command, and Mindoro Island Committee.

At the same time, the CPP authorized its local forces to “extend the effectivity of this ceasefire declaration in their areas of concern, while other regional commands of the NPA can issue similar or limited ceasefire declarations in areas within the scope of their operations.”

The CPP said that the NPA had, “in line with standing policy and with the CPP’s call for calamity-related mobilization,” already “shifted their mode of operations even before super typhoon Yolanda hit land on November 8. This ceasefire declaration, thus, is a positive declaration of the practical mode shift already in effect.”

However, it ordered rebel forces to “remain ever militant and vigilant to the encroachment and hostile movements of the AFP within the territory of the people’s democratic government.”

The rebels also assured local and international relief organizations of safe passage within guerrilla zones.

“The masses and their revolutionary organizations and governmental committees within the guerrilla zones are ever ready to help facilitate the distribution of emergency supplies to the people, giving priority to the injured, children, nursing mothers, single parents, pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped and other vulnerable individuals,” it said.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/74818/cpp-declares-ceasefire-in-typhoon-stricken-areas