Reds thumb down Lorenzana’s proposal, won’t join military

From the Daily Tribune (May 22): Reds thumb down Lorenzana’s proposal, won’t join military

No matter what the results of the peace talks are, communist rebels insist that they will never join the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

National Democratic Front (NDF) peace panel chairman Fidel Agcaoili, in a statement yesterday, said that they are not fighting to be part of what they call the “status quo.”

Agcaoili was responding to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana’s invitation for New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas to reintegrate with the government and join state security forces instead.

The rebel leader also stressed that the government should stop blaming NPA forces for the continuing conflicts with state forces.

“To say that there will be no peace simply because the NPA continues to fight the forces of the AFP despite the ongoing peace negotiations is very narrow thinking,” Agcaoili said.

“Lorenzana and the war hawks within the government, being burdened by a narrow military mindset, are incapable of comprehending the need for a political solution to the armed conflict,” he added.

“Being ‘Left’ means fighting for change of the status quo in the same way that being ‘Right’ means maintaining the status quo,” Agcaoili explained.

Lorenzana, on Thursday, said during a visit to members of the Philippine Army’s 5th Infantry Division in Isabela that NPAs should be the first to stop attacking state troopers in order for peace to succeed.

“The best way to win the peace is when it is done without firing a single shot,” Lorenzana said.

“The peace we win will only be sustainable if we reach into the hearts of our fellow countrymen and bring them back into the folds of the law,” he added.

But Agcaoili said that if not for the AFP’s counterinsurgency program, NPA forces won’t retaliate.

“For one thing, it is the AFP that is on the offensive with its continuing counter-insurgency program ‘Oplan Kapayapaan’ which is no different from the brutal counter-insurgency programs of previous regimes,” Agcaoili said.

The NDF leader also called on President Duterte to avoid listening to his so-called military advisers on how to deal with the communist movement.

“Duterte must therefore assert civilian authority over his own military so that a political solution between his government and the revolutionary forces can be reached and a just and lasting peace established in the country,” he said.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/nation/reds-thumb-down-lorenzana-s-proposal-won-t-join-military