With flagrant impudence, Rodrigo Duterte shred the agreement to resume formal peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) this June 28. He scrapped as well the stand down agreement to halt offensive actions from both sides a week before the formal talks.
Duterte’s claim saying he is “not ready” and that he needs more time to “consult the public” are mere excuses. Such brazen lies! Further sabotaging the talks, Duterte is again insisting on holding the peace negotiations in the Philippines, directly contradicting the guidelines set by The Hague Joint Declaration. If Duterte insists on this demand, it will spell nothing but the termination of the peace talks.
Duterte has once again revealed complete lack of interest in seriously negotiating wth the NDFP to discuss and solve the root causes of the civil war in the Philippines. Duterte is running over the fervent demand of the Filipino people for genuine land reform and national industrialization, genuine democracy and ending US imperialist control of and intervention in the nation and government.
Instead of talking to the NDFP, Duterte seeks to intensify the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) war against the NDFP, the Party, and the New People’s Army (NPA), and use this to justify the imposition of martial law in the whole country and establish his dream of a fascist dictatorship.
By cancelling the talks, Duterte intends to remove all impediments against the campaign for large-scale offensives of the AFP under Oplan Kapayapaan and martial law in Mindanao. Ultimately, Duterte seeks to cripple or halve the forces of the NPA using the full military force of the AFP before the end of 2018, vainly thinking that by doing so, the NDFP will be induced to negotiate surrender to the GRP.
Duterte is pouring funds to the AFP and the police to fully accomplish this year the plan to add 15,000 troops which began rolling in 2017. Duterte is using almost 100 battalions to cover large areas in the countryside, including areas of the Bangsamoro in Mindanao; lay siege, overwhelm, and occupy barrios suspected of supporting the revolutionary movement; force citizens to surrender as members of the NPA; cut the NPA off from its mass base; and launch fierce combat operations in the mountains. The enemy is focusing its operations mainly on vast expanses of land that Duterte targets to turn into plantations and mines that will be controlled by big capitalists.
In many places, the AFP is employing Marawi-style tactics of dropping bombs and bombarding civilian communities to sow terror and use fear to force the people to submit to them. The people’s resistance is met with brutal violence. Tokhang-style killings targeting peasant leaders and tribal leaders have become more rampant.
In the cities, the people’s mounting resistance amid crisis and fascism of the Duterte regime has been met with intensified repression. The toiling masses, especially workers and the poor, are the main targets of surveillance and incarceration. A widespread crackdown looms as Duterte exercises the full force of his autocratic powers as prelude to the enforcement of nationwide martial law.
There is a need to valiantly fight fascism, tyranny, and Duterte’s attacks against the people, both in the cities and the countryside.
In the countryside, there is an urgent need to face, fight, and defeat the plan to intensify the AFP’s military offensives against the NPA and the broad struggling masses.
The NPA must launch widespread and intensive guerilla warfare on the basis of an ever-widening and deepening mass base. There is a need to intently study, pinpoint, and exploit the many vulnerabilities of the enemy’s operating troops. Militarily, the AFP is vulnerable for overstretching its forces as it aims to cover large areas all at the same time. Politically, the AFP’s greatest weakness springs from their total isolation from the masses and the people’s seething anger against the troops because of their fascist abuses, scare tactics, the forcible recruitment of spies, forcing people to “surrender”, and ordering civilians around.
The AFP’s military offensive should be met with tactical offensives of the NPA throughout the country. Make the NPA’s solid victories in many parts of the country reverberate. Combine this with the widespread attritive military actions of the NPA to counter the enemy’s massive swarm tactics. NPA commands at various levels should maximize the scope and strength of the NPA in their respective ranges to ensure coordination and cooperation.
The NPA is speedily recovering from the wounds it sustained in the past six months and has overcome some of its weaknesses by adapting to the perils wrought by the AFP’s massive troop concentration, widespread civil-military operations, and other tactics employed by the enemy. The NPA is utilizing guerrilla tactics and techniques and quick movements while the the enemy is left blind and deaf, encircled and made to punch the air.
Adeptness at guerrilla warfare is based on how deep and wide the people’s support is and participation in the people’s war. Continue rousing and mobilizing the peasants and national minorities in their numbers in advancing their anti-feudal struggles and the defense of their ancestral lands.
In the urban areas, the democratic struggle of the toiling masses, the youth and students, and other democratic sectors and classes, is steadily advancing. Strengthen the Filipino people’s unity by widening and strengthening the united front against fascism, tyranny, and dictatorship scheme of the Duterte regime. We must intensively arouse and mobilize all democratic forces throughout the country to overthrow the fascist, puppet, rotten, and criminal Duterte regime.
[Ang Bayan is the official news organ of the Communist Party of the
https://www.philippinerevolution.info/ang_bayan/20180621-defeat-duterte8217s-fascist-motives-for-cancelling-talks/
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