Aquino 'sabotaging' chances for talks' resumption - Reds

From InterAksyon (May 16): Aquino 'sabotaging' chances for talks' resumption - Reds

Communist rebels accused President Benigno Aquino III of “sabotaging” chances of resuming peace talks just as, they said, they were preparing for the possibility of reopening the stalled negotiations.

The accusations made by Luis Jalandoni, chief negotiator of the National Democratic Front -- which represents the rebels to the peace talks -- and Jose Ma. Sison, Communist Party of the Philippines founder and the NDF’s chief political consultant, were in response to statements by Aquino during an interview with Bombo Radyo last week, in which he said government was “always open to peace talks” but that the rebels “also need to show their sincerity.”

In the interview, Aquino twitted the communists, referring to information from his peace adviser, Secretary Teresita Deles, that, at the height of the controversy following the January 25 Mamasapano incident, the communists imposed “impossible demands” even as they issued “propaganda that they want to talk peace.”

He also accused the NDF of exploiting the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees to claim consultant status for captured rebel leaders as a ploy to get them out of jail.

Jalandoni, in a statement, said with his statements, “Aquino destroys the chances for resumption of peace negotiations between his lame-duck administration and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.”

The NDF chief negotiator said their preparations for a possible resumption of the talks was not propaganda but “in response to calls of peasants and workers to work for genuine land reform and national industrialization in the face of massive poverty, landlessness and spiraling prices of basic commodities,” as well as “to the efforts of peace advocates and the Royal Norwegian Government,” the third-party facilitator of the negotiations.

In his own statement, Sison said Aquino had “wantonly violated” not just the JASIG but other existing agreements between the government and the NDF, including The Hague Joint Declaration, which laid down the framework for the negotiations, the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, and the Joint Agreement on the Formation, Sequence and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees.

In the Bombo interview, Aquino also alluded to a “special track” proposed by Sison to fast-track the negotiations.

While describing the proposal, which suggested that an indefinite ceasefire was possible, as “doable,” Aquino said the rebels “took it back.”

However, Sison said Aquino “is out of his mind if he thinks that he can get an agreement on indefinite ceasefire without complying with the aforesaid existing agreements and without a Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms at the same time.”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/110627/aquino-sabotaging-chances-for-talks-resumption---reds