Joma depicts scenarios that will render GRP-NDFP talks impossible

From the often pro-Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) online publication the Davao Today (Jun 24): Joma depicts scenarios that will render GRP-NDFP talks impossible

Dark clouds are hovering over the peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

NDFP Chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison recently made some observations on President Rodrigo Duterte’s proposed “3-month review” that will cover further inquiries and scrutiny of the process and agreements entered into by both panels.

Sison said Duterte, after the review and based on his recent announcements and indications, is expected to issue certain conclusions and demands that will be refused by the NDFP.

Such impositions and demands made by Duterte will further make the current peace negotiations difficult, he emphasized.

Sison has presented four major expectations on Duterte’s handling of the peace process, the first one is the President’s denial on the existence of a state of civil war that has been waged nationwide for the last 50 years.

Not only Duterte but also his reactionary government is assumed to deny the state of civil war, especially the Armed Forces of the Philippines, he added.

“Duterte´s reactionary government is one of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists servile to foreign monopoly capitalism. The revolutionary government is that of the workers, peasants and other oppressed people, with organs of political power led by the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines), defended by the NPA (New People’s Army) and represented by the NDFP in peace negotiations,” Sison said.

Secondly, Sison said Duterte will insult the revolutionary forces and people represented by the NDFP by categorizing them as mere nonstate actors unworthy of being respected as a co-belligerent in a civil war and slandering as mere ¨terrorists” and ¨criminals¨.

Such verbal attack, he added, is already presaged as the President refused to revoke Proclamation 374 designating the CPP and NPA as ¨terrorist¨ organizations.

And consequent to first and second observations, Sison said Duterte will invalidate all previous agreements as having no basis in law, domestic and international.

He added that Duterte will “insult as unlawful and stupid previous administrations of GRP and his own administration for having negotiated at all and having made agreements with the NDFP, instead of simply suppressing the forces and people represented by the NDFP with military and police action.”

Fourthly, Sison said the President will avoid expressing the full counterrevolutionary arrogance of the first three observations by trying anyway to obtain the capitulation and political suicide of the NDFP and the people’s democratic government by demanding that they accept being categorized as nonstate actor and that the agreements with the GRP are only between the GRP agency called the OPAPP and the NDFP as a mere private entity subject to GRP criminal law at the whim of the tyrant Duterte.

The NDFP chief political consultant warned that if Duterte will try to impose any of the above observations on the NDFP, he will be quickly rendering impossible negotiations with GRP under his regime.

“He will be shutting out completely the possibility of achieving a just and lasting peace through negotiations and agreements on social, economic and political reforms. My observation here should help quicken his understanding of The Hague Joint Declaration and subsequent agreements between the GRP and NDFP,” Sison pointed out.

http://davaotoday.com/main/politics/joma-depicts-scenarios-that-will-render-grp-ndfp-talks-impossible/