Noy ends peace talks with Reds

From the Daily Tribune (Apr 28): Noy ends peace talks with Reds

1 WEEK AFTER BRUTAL AMBUSH ON GUINGONA

The Aquino administration had abandoned negotiations for peace with rebel communist groups due to “preconditions” that the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) had demanded for the resumption of dialog with the government to end a 22-month impasse.

“We cannot wait forever for the other side if they continually refuse to go back to the negotiating table without preconditions. The government will be taking a new approach to pursue peace,” Alex Padilla, government of the Philippines (GRP) chief peace negotiator said.

The government decision to end the negotiations came a week after a ruthless attack on Gingoog City Mayor Ruthie Guingona in which two of her aides were killed while Guingona, wife of former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. and mother of Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, was hurt.

Padilla said he is reiterating the government’s call to the NPA to end the hostilities on the ground following a series of attacks on civilian targets, including the recent ambush of Gingoog City Mayor Guingona and her companions last Saturday. Her driver and bodyguard were killed and two others were wounded.

The NPA has apologized and taken responsibility for the attack.

“We have always been open to resume formal negotiations with them, but they keep on insisting on preconditions, such as the release of their detained consultants.

Discussions under the Special Track have also been closed since they have come up with new demands,” Padilla said.

Padilla explained the Special Track (ST) was proposed by Jose Maria Sison to hasten negotiations through an agreement on a Draft Declaration on National Unity and Just Peace which would lead to an immediate ceasefire and creation of a Committee for National Unity, Peace and Development.

Padilla said the ST imposed no preconditions and would skirt the protracted process of the regular track.

In pursuit of the ST, the GRP and the CPP-NPA-NDF met on Dec. 17 to 18 last year in The Netherlands where they agreed to discuss further a draft Declaration of National Unity and Just Peace prepared by Sison.

Padilla recounted that when the parties resumed the ST meeting on Feb. 25 to 26, “instead of discussing the Sison draft, the NDF proposed three new documents that backtracked from their original position on a Draft Declaration, particularly on ceasefire, which they now subjected to preconditions. They also reverted to the prolonged and untenable process of the regular track.”

Apart from the demand to free the communist group’s detained consultants, it also demanded that the GPH abolish its peace and development programs, such as the conditional cash transfer, Pamana and Oplan Bayanihan, Padilla said.

“These demands are just preposterous. We don’t want to engage in a negotiation where the other party is clearly fooling us,” Padilla said.

“The ball is now in their hands, They were the ones who initiated the ST and they were the ones who ended it.” Padilla said.

Padilla said the GRP doesn’t want to return to the regular track (formal talks) because it has been going nowhere for the last 27 years.

The CPP in reaction to the statements issued earlier by Malacañang claiming that the NPA is not interested in peace negotiations and has supposedly lost all ideology and “resorted to banditry”.

“If the leaders and members of the NPA were driven only by the selfish aim of enriching themselves, they would instead simply join the government and allow themselves to be used by the criminal scalawags posing as politicians, officers of the military and police, judges and big bureacrats,” said the CPP.

The CPP said that the biggest bandits in the Philippines are those in the Aquino regime and its big business cronies who fund the election kitties of their favored politicians, manipulate election results, dish out and receive state favors, tax exemptions and juicy contracts to the detriment of the Filipino people.

“Aquino and his cohorts are peeved by the fact that the people’s organs of political power exercises government functions and issues policies regulating the conduct of the reactionary elections in order to protect the rights and welfare of the people,” said the CPP.

The CPP said “they are doubly peeved by the fact that most of the reactionary politicians and political candidates actually abide by these policies.”

The CPP also laughed off claims by Aquino’s spokesperson that the revolutionary armed movement is simply engaging in “attention grabbing activities” in launching tactical offensives.

The Aquino regime and its armed forces desperately try to downgrade the current strength of the revolutionary forces by endlessly repeating the lie that the NPA had 25,000 fighters in 1986 and that there are now only 4,000 to 5,000. The fact is that the NPA had only around 6,000 high powered firearms in 1986-1987, the CPP claimed.

“As it continues to seize the initiative and intensify the people’s war, the NPA is set to surpass its previous peak strength in the 1980s within the current presidential term of Aquino, if it is not cut short by an upheaval of mass protests before 2016,” the CPP said.

“If the NPA understands the true meaning of taking responsibility, it should stop inflicting violence on our society,” Padilla said.

“If its apology (to the Guingonas) means anything at all, it should cease and desist from further disrupting the life of the nation with impunity. It should realize that it cannot reform society by destroying its essence. They must put down their guns and pursue their desired reforms in peaceful, sincere and constructive dialogue and culturally acceptable ways,” Padilla said.

Commenting on the statement of NDF-Mindanao spokesperson Jorge Madlos that they did not expect the incident to occur, Padilla asked, “What did he expect to happen when 50 armed rebels accost a convoy of a politician in a deserted rural road in the middle of the night? If they did not mean to kill Mayor Guingona, why was her car so mercilessly peppered with bullets and decimated with grenades?”

http://www.tribune.net.ph/index.php/headlines/item/13448-noy-ends-peace-talks-with-reds