Communist rebels lamented the “disconnect” between what they and government negotiators earlier hailed as major advances in peace negotiations and the continued murder of activist farmers, which they accuse the military of committing.
“The ink has hardly dried on the documents signifying the advances in talks on agrarian reform, but the military keeps on spilling the blood of farmers,” Randall Echanis, spokesman of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines’ Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms, said in a statement after learning of the murder of Elias Pureza, 60, a member of the Farmers Association of San Isidro in Davao del Norte.
Before this, the NDFP also blasted the Armed Forces of the Philippines for its “outright rejection” of rebel calls for a suspension of military operations to allow the safe release of state security personnel captured by the New People’s Army.
According to the Southern Mindanao office of human rights group Karapatan, Pureza died Thursday evening when six gunmen forced their way into his home in Purok Palmera, Barangay Mamangan, San Isidro, and gunned him down in front of his family.
Karapatan said the gunmen are suspected to be intelligence agents of the Army’s 60th Infantry Battalion.
Echanis noted that Pureza’s murder happened just “about an hour before the closing ceremonies for the fourth round” of formal peace negotiations between the NDFP and government in the Netherlands, adding the incident “demonstrates the urgency of reaching an agreement on much-needed reforms, especially in areas in the countryside embroiled in land disputes.”
Incidentally, the negotiating panels, in their joint statement at the end of the fourth round of talks, announced that they had “firmed up their agreement on distribution of land for free as the basic principle of genuine agrarian reform.”
“Negotiations on social and economic reforms are being conducted against a backdrop of mounting killings of peasant leaders and activists,” Echanis pointed out.
“To date, almost 50 farmer-activists have been killed under the Duterte government, about half of them slain since the AFP declared its all-out war policy last February 2,” when hostilities resumed following the termination of unilateral ceasefires declared last year by both sides.
Duterte also ordered government negotiators to cease talking but later changed his mind. However, the talks have resumed without any ceasefire declaration, although both sides have agreed to negotiate a bilateral ceasefire.
http://interaksyon.com/article/138355/peasants-murder-shows-disconnect-between-talks-progress-realities-on-the-ground---ndfp
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