Peace talks face many more challenges-CPP (NDF)

Peace talks face many more challenges*

Editorial, Ang Bayan
7 December 2010

The Communist Party of the Philippines Central Committee and the NDFP National Council have declared a 19-day unilateral ceasefire from December 16, 2010 to January 3, 2011 upon the recommendation of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Negotiating Panel. The unilateral declaration of a suspension of offensive military actions by the New People's Army (NPA) is being issued by the Party and the NDFP on humanitarian grounds and as a goodwill measure in the celebration of the traditional Christmas and New Year holidays. The Aquino government has a reciprocal and concurrent declaration.

The NDFP's goodwill measures and the reciprocal ceasefires of the NDFP and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) aim to create positive conditions for the peace talks. They are meant to encourage the release of imprisoned NDFP consultants and staff as well as other political prisoners, the full implementation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), the cessation of human rights violations in accordance with the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), and the attainment of a good atmosphere for the talks' continuation.

The GRP and NDFP's reciprocal ceasefires are the result of efforts by both panels in informal talks held in Hongkong in the first week of December. The preliminary talks are expected to be held in January in Oslo, Norway and the formal talks in February, also in Oslo.

The revolutionary forces and the Filipino people hope that these positive preliminary steps will not go to waste. The revolutionary forces and the Filipino people have long wanted the GRP to address the cry for national and social liberation and justice, and accede to the demand to resolve through peace negotiations the problems that lie at the roots of the raging civil war in the country.

With the resumption of the formal peace talks, the NDFP is ready to move forward to the next agenda. Nonetheless, the Aquino regime needs to accomplish many more things to prove that it is serious and sincere in finding a political solution to the civil war. The Aquino regime also has many things to rectify in the measures it has already undertaken in the first five months of its rule. The revolutionary movement is determined to hold the GRP accountable for its obligations under previous agreements.

In the past five months, Aquino has failed to release NDFP consultants and staff captured and imprisoned by the military on trumped-up charges. Their incarceration is a violation of both the JASIG (which gives protection to NDFP personnel involved in the talks) and the CARHRIHL. NDFP consultants imprisoned under the previous Arroyo regime are still in jail.

The Aquino regime has also failed to undertake steps to rectify the abduction and suppression of information on the conditions of other NDFP consultants like Comrades Leo Velasco, Prudencio Calubid and Rogelio Calubad as well as Calubid's wife and niece and two of his staff. They were all abducted by military operatives in 2006, but have not been surfaced and brought to court, and are feared dead. Their relatives, comrades and friends continue to cry out for justice.

Aquino still has to take decisive steps for the immediate release of the Morong 43, even if he himself has acknowledged that the arrest was illegal and even in the face of widespread calls locally and internationally for their release.

Most of all, Aquino has refused to put a stop to Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL), a massive suppression campaign that wrought havoc for close to a decade under the Arroyo regime. Instead, Aquino has ordered OBL's extension until the end of the year while preparing the next operational plan.

Aquino has not lifted a finger to rectify OBL. Its extension has spurred the continuation of widespread violations of human rights nationwide. In these past five months, there has been at least one victim of extrajudicial killing per week, targeting progressive worker and peasant leaders. Military operations continue to wreak havoc in the countryside, suppressing the people and causing them untold hardship. The most recent case involved the killing of noted botanist Leonardo Co by operating troops of the 19th IB in Kananga, Leyte on November 15.

There have been hundreds of thousands of victims of human rights violations, including entire communities that have been forcibly displaced or devastated by military operations. Abductions and torture continue without letup. More than 400 political prisoners still languish in jail. The Aquino regime has demonstrated extreme brutality in its demolition of the dwelling places of the urban poor.

Aquino must advance CARHRIHL as a sign of his readiness to comply with the agreements entered into by the GRP in the past years. The thousands of victims of military abuse, the victims of the Hacienda Luisita massacre and victims of enforced disappearance must be given justice. An agreement to grant compensation to victims of human rights violations under the US-Marcos fascist dicatorship must be complied with.

The Aquino regime must take serious steps to put a stop to rampant violations of human rights. There must be fundamental changes in the way the regime addresses the people's grievances and struggles. There must be a decisive end to the US-designed fascist “counterinsurgency” doctrines that are behind OBL. It is not enough for the AFP to implement token “human rights programs” without rectifying any of its past abuses. Otherwise, such programs will only serve to cover up such abuses. For as long as it remains a disciple of US COIN, the regime will continue to prioritize its brutal war against the people and merely sugar-coat it with deceptive psywar, rhetoric, doleouts and other gimmickry. The peace talks will only serve as an instrument to effect the surrender of the revolutionary forces and deceive the people.

In tackling the next substantive agenda on socio-economic reforms, the NDFP will be advancing the issue of building a self-reliant national economy and national industrialization, genuine agrarian reform and other development programs for the country. In the next agenda on political and constitutional reforms, the NDFP will be demanding national independence from US imperialist control and genuine democracy against the monopoly control of big landlords and comprador bourgeoisie over political power.

The revolutionary forces are very much aware that all of this stand in sharp contrast to the policies now being implemented by the Aquino regime. They are contrary to the regime's partiality towards big hacienderos versus the implementation of land reform. They run counter to the Public-Private Partnership proram being implemented and the reliance on foreign investments and debt. They are the polar opposites of the budget cuts on education, health and other social services badly needed by the impoverished masses. They stand in conflict to the Conditional Cash Transfer program imposed by the World Bank to keep the people and the country dependent on doleouts and perpetually in debt. They are repugnant to the existence of unequal treaties with the US, such as the Visiting Forces Agreement and the related Mutual Defense Treaty. They are antithetical to the overall master-puppet relationship between the US and the local ruling state and regime.

Thus, the process of negotiating and forging agreements is going to be extremely difficult. The revolutionary forces are pursuing the peace talks without any illusions, simultaneous to and within the framework of armed struggle and people's struggles. The people know that without the people's army and without people's war, they have nothing. Wielding these weapons, the NDFP will resolutely embark on the peace negotiations to bring to the fore the national and democratic aspirations that the people have been fighting for and win broader support for their struggles.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2010/12/peace-talks-face-many-more-challenges.html