CPP closes doors to peace talks
COMMUNIST rebels would no longer negotiate a peace deal with the government and would focus instead on ousting President Rodrigo Duterte, Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), said on Thursday.
Sison said there was no point in talking peace as long as Duterte was in power.
The statement came two weeks after Duterte postponed the resumption of talks earlier set on June 28, after meeting security officials who had warned that the rebels could use the period of negotiations to consolidate forces.
Duterte also said there was a need for public consultations on the talks as well as a review of previous peace agreements.
“Based on the implications drawn from the current impasse, the NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines) can no longer negotiate with a [Philippine government] that is headed by Duterte,” Sison said in a statement.
“So long as he heads the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines), the Filipino people, especially the oppressed and exploited, cannot expect any benefit from negotiating with the Duterte regime,” the exiled communist leader added.
Duterte on Thursday said the war against communist rebels, who have been pursuing a decades-old Maoist insurgency, would continue.
“I am here as an employee of the government and my main task is to seek, find the peace of the country. If they are not willing to talk to me, that’s fine, I do not have any problems with that. So, we continue with the war,” he told reporters after his remarks before the annual national convention of the vice mayors’ league in Bohol.
“Anyway, [the war]has been there for 50 years, what if we add 30 more years? As long as the Filipinos know that happened,” Duterte added.
Oust Duterte ‘more productive’
Sison said it would be “relatively easier and more productive for the NDFP to participate in the Oust-Duterte movement and prepare for peace negotiations with the prospective administration that replaces the Duterte regime.”
Duterte, the communist leader claimed, broke an election promise to release all political prisoners even before formal peace talks, and had no interest in resolving the causes of the rebellion.
“His strategic obsession has always been to seek the capitulation and pacification of the revolutionary forces and people and has no interest in addressing the roots of the armed conflict through social, economic and political reforms,” Sison said.
He also cited the administration’s campaign to shift into a federal system and Duterte’s emulation of former president Ferdinand Marcos’ infrastructure buildup through the “Build, Build, Build” program.
The proposed Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (Caser) would have supplied Duterte with an economic program of national industrialization and genuine land reform, among others, he said.
‘Traitorous sell-out’
The communist leader claimed the Duterte administration was not pursuing an independent foreign policy, citing the President’s warm relationship with China and his allegedly “traitorous sell-out” of the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) to Beijing.
Duterte’s actions were “enough basis” for the communists to conclude that the President “is not at all interested in peace negotiations,” he said.
“By his pronouncements, Duterte pretends to review in three months the entire process and all agreements in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations since 1992,” Sison said.
“By all indications, he will try to change the entire peace process and waste previous agreements. At any rate, he will try to impose on the NDFP changes that the NDFP will certainly reject,” he added.
Sison statement was echoed by the NDFP in a separate statement.
“The NDFP expects that Duterte will outrightly withdraw from the peace negotiations or impose condition, like using a venue under his control, which NDFP will certainly reject. There is a slight chance that peace negotiations will be resumed if Duterte agrees to resume them in a foreign neutral venue in accordance with the Jasig,” it said.
Jasig refers to the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees, which provides safe passage to rebel negotiators and consultants during peace talks.
‘Strong enough’
Sison also claimed that the New People’s Army, the CPP’s armed wing, was “strong enough” to call for and “cause the ouster” of Duterte.
“While the urban-based Oust Duterte movement is growing, the CPP, NPA and the people have to fight and defeat the offensives of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and PNP (Philippine National Police) being unleashed by the Duterte regime,” he said.
“Nothing goes to waste in the work and drafts of agreements already done by the NDFP. They can be carried over to the negotiation with GRP under a new administration,” Sison said.
The military rebuffed Sison, saying the communist leader was “detached” from reality.
“[Sison] is living in a dream. That is the product of 31 years of exile. He is very detached from realities on the ground,” said Col. Noel Detoyato, military public affairs chief, in an interview.
WITH RALPH U. VILLANUEVA
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