Communist rebels vow more attacks in Philippines following capture of leaders

From the Mindanao Examiner blog site (Mar 25): Communist rebels vow more attacks in Philippines following capture of leaders

New People’s Army rebels have vowed to intensify its offensives in the Philippines following the capture of two top leaders of the communist group in Cebu province.

Security forces captured Benito Tiamzon, the chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and his wife Wilma Austria, who is the current CPP secretary-general, after long surveillance operations involving elite teams of policemen and soldiers.

“The capture of Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria only emboldens the New People’s Army in Southern Mindanao to further intensify the people’s war in the region. The US-Aquino regime is daydreaming when it says the arrest spells the demise of the revolutionary movement.  The NPA-SMR is ever resolute to advance the guerrilla war to a higher stage because the roots of armed conflict are firmly embedded in a region heavily militarized by the fascist AFP troops,” a rebel spokesman in Mindanao, Rigoberto Sanchez, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.

Sanchez said instead of dismantling pork barrel and corruption and providing genuine relief for disaster victims, and ending the poverty of the Filipino masses, the Aquino regime, backed by Washington, has embarked its relentless aggressive war in the countryside.

“Under its counterrevolutionary policy Oplan Bayanihan, it deployed its vast resources and manpower to militarize the peasant villages and open it for further imperialist plunders,” he said.

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) has protested the arrest of the two rebel leader, saying they are consultants to the peace talks with the Aquino government and that both are covered with immunity from arrest. Five other people who were with the couple were also arrested and detained on various criminal charges.

NDFP spokesman Jorge Madlos said in spite of the capture of the two leaders, the rebel group’s “democratic revolution” will advance in the country.

“The arrest of Benito Tiamzon, Wilma Austria Tiamzon and five others, will not deter the People’s Democratic Revolution from continuing to advance nor will it dampen the resolve of the entire revolutionary forces to carry forward the interests of the people and the Revolution.  Beyond having to frustrate the objectives of the brutal Oplan Bayanihan in its first three years, the Revolutionary movement is more than ever intent on frustrating the last three years of its implementation, because of the people’s continuing struggle against exploitation and oppression in the midst of an ever worsening crisis gripping the entire country and the world,” he said in a separate statement.

“While revolutionary forces in Mindanao are once again faced with the challenge of thwarting renewed attacks of the Oplan Bayanihan, which deployed three new additional AFP brigades against the NPA in Mindanao, only presents itself as an opportune time for other regions in the Visayas and Luzon to advance further,” he added.

He said the capture of the Tiamzons will further result in more intensified operations against government and military and police targets across the country. He said even the capture in the past of top rebel leaders did not deter the NPA from expanding its forces and aggressively launching offensives against the government, what more now that rebels are scattered all over the country.

“With these as precedence, there is absolutely no basis for the people’s revolutionary struggle to cease from advancing on account solely of the Tiamzon couple’s capture.  The primary basis for the Revolutionary movement’s continuing and unstoppable advance does not rely solely on its leaders, but derives impetus with the ever worsening state of exploitation and oppression by imperialists and its local ruling classes towards the vast masses,” Madlos said.

“The principal reason for either the regression or advance of the revolutionary movement in the face of the continuing grave social crisis in the country is whether or not the movement follows the correct political line, and not because of certain personalities in its leadership.  This means that if the revolutionary movement resolutely stands for the general interests of the vast majority of the people, particularly for their aspiration to attain genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization, genuine right to self-determination, democracy and social benefits, the people’s revolution will continue, and continue to struggle until socialism shall have been established,” he said.

Peace talks between the NDFP and the Aquino government stalled following demands by rebels to free all political prisoners in the country, among others.

Peace negotiations up to rebels

But President Benigno Aquino said the resumption of peace talks with communist rebels will only depend on their “willingness” to return to the negotiating table.

Aquino also dismissed that the arrest of the Tiamzon couple will have an effect on the stalled peace talks with the communist groups.

“Well, they have walked out to the CPP-NPA and they have walked out of the peace talks, if you remember correctly. Does it have an impact? I don’t think so. It really depends on their willingness to go back to the bargaining table,” Aquino said.

He said the arrest of the Tiamzon couple is a “serious blow” to the CPP-NPA and “it shows you also the competency of our security forces.”

Aquino said the government should deal with “root causes” of insurgency problem to be able to stamp it out.“That’s why we are focused on empowering our people, especially in trying to move them out of poverty in the various interventions that we have been doing from education, to health, to livelihood, to housing, to disaster preparedness and so on and so forth,” he said.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima also defended the arrest of the Tiamzons, saying that they were not covered by any immunity because of the stalled  peace talks.

The NPA, armed wing of the CPP and the NDFP, has been fighting the democratic government for many decades now in an effort to put up a communist state in the country.

http://www.mindanaoexaminer.net/2014/03/communist-rebels-vow-more-attacks-in.html