NDF-Southern Mindanao Region propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Jul 15): NDFP-SMR rejects localized peace talks
Rubi del Mundo, Spokesperson
NDFP Southern Mindanao
15 July 2018
The revolutionary forces in Southern Mindanao reject the localized peace talks of the US-Duterte regime as it is nothing but a hollow attempt to draw a veil over the ravages of Martial Law in Mindanao and the escalating bloodbath of Oplan Kapayapaan affecting millions of civilians in the country.
With civilian death toll on the steady rise, Duterte has made it plainly clear that there is no room for democratic discourse or opposition under his tyrannical rule. The idea of peace negotiations that are “nationally orchestrated, centrally directed and locally supervised and implemented” is but a smokescreen to obscure the fact that Duterte has never been serious in addressing the root causes of the Filipino people’s armed resistance and is only predisposed in the complete capitulation of the revolutionary movement.
In Southern Mindanao, particularly in Duterte’s hometown Davao City, NPA forces have consistently declined all “invitations” for localized peace talks, albeit noting that the “gestures” are better directed at supporting the GRP-NDFP negotiations instead. All Red commanders and fighters of all units of the New People’s Army in the country are behind their national leadership in supporting the negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP panels in a foreign venue.
Moreover, a substantive agenda patterned in neoliberal reactionary development plans essentially pre-empt and reject whatever economic or political gains the masses hope to have in the negotiations. So if not for the benefit of the masses or the “local fighters’ leadership,” for whom then will the local peace talks serve?
In advocating for localized peace talks, Duterte, in truth, appeals to the corrupt nature of his fellow bureaucrat capitalists by encouraging them to subvert previously agreed-upon guidelines and machineries and the advances borne out of the past 25 years.
Meanwhile, he intends to isolate the many local and national politicians who are supportive of the NDFP-GRP negotiations and paint them as anti-peace or communist sympathizers. Additionally, the proposed local peace talks will certainly be used by the US-Duterte regime to line the pockets of its favored reactionary politicians and officials of the AFP and PNP.
Duterte is hoping he will be able to entice enough corrupt reactionary officials and court public support to back this mindless scheme. While he prattles senselessly about wanting to make peace a reality, he continues his crackdown against the homeless and the unemployed in the towns and cities and dispatches fascist AFP battalions to sow terror in the countryside and drive away Lumad and peasants from their land and livelihood.
Ultimately, the proposed localized peace talk is nothing but a “surrender package” that will never fly in the face of the US-Duterte’s tyranny and dictatorship.
Despite the overwhelming support for resuming the peace negotiations between the two panels, it is evident that Duterte is adamant in making a circus, a pointless and an expensive one, at the cost of taxpayers’ money and at the behest of his blood-hungry advisers in the US-controlled AFP and the Department of National Defense.
But in these times of economic and political strife and broad-ranging unrest of the Filipino people—all of which are to the sole credit of the US-Duterte regime’s reign of terror—the revolutionary movement in Southern Mindanao reiterates the NDFP panel’s wisdom: all else considered, it is Duterte who desperately needs the peace negotiations, not us.
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