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Monday, February 03, 2003
Joma submits agenda 'to pave way for talks'
BAGUIO -- Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria Sison suggested Sunday an eight-point agenda to be followed before peace talks could resume.
"To pave the way for the resumption of formal negotiations, teams of the government and National Democratic Front peace negotiations will have to go into some amount of exploratory or preparatory talks. They will have to use the existing agreements in order to solve problems that can impede the resumption of the formal negotiations," Sison said in a statement.
Following the suspension of the peace negotiations in 2001, several clashes have occurred between government troops and communist guerillas; the most recent one on Saturday in Mindanao claimed the lives of five rebels and two soldiers.
To pave the way for the resumption of the talks, Sison said negotiations on the part of the NDF should start "in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration and other agreements even as the government makes proposals, which run counter to the existing terms of said agreements." The NDF is the political arm of the CPP.
Second is that "the government should not try to impose it on the NDF with an ultimatum, which some military officials have publicly indicated."
Sison added that the joint and separate implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) "must be accelerated to stop the military, police, paramilitary and vigilante forces of the government from further committing gross human rights violations."
Some 70 communist rebels attacked troops on routine patrol near the town of Mati in Davao Oriental on Saturday, starting a two-hour battle, police provincial chief, Superintendent Catalino Cuy, said Sunday.
Four soldiers were also wounded, he said.
Simple rebellion
President Arroyo has ordered that the campaign against the NPA be stepped up following the assassination last month of a former NPA leader who had been helping the government in peace talks.
The US government and a number of European countries last year put the CPP-NPA on their list of foreign terrorist organizations and vowed to stem the flow of funds to the rebels.
But for the peace talks to resume, Sison said the government "must (also) undo its servile act" of designating as "terrorists" the CPP, the New People's Army and the NDF and its "chief political consultant."
The Arroyo administration should stop asking the US and European governments by cajoling them "to undertake punitive measures and of yielding to such foreign governments jurisdiction over actions deemed as rebellion in the Philippine penal code and not as terrorism."
"The government must stop the practice of charging revolutionaries with common crimes, instead of simple rebellion, and in this connection must respect the Amado V. Hernandez doctrine and the pertinent provision of CARHRIHL," he said.
"(The government) must (also) cease and desist from using the terrorist tag and fabrication of common crimes to persecute the NDFP chief political consultant and pressure the NDF negotiators, consultants, staffers and supporters," he said.
Other important agreements that Sison wanted to be seriously tackled by both peace panels are: government's compliance to the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig), government's compliance to the international humanitarian law (Geneva Conventions and protocols) governing the armed conflict between the armies of the government and the NDF in consonance with CARHRIHL, and for the government not to use the "United State-instigated terror listing" to undermine or do away with the support of the European Parliament for the peace negotiations and the facilitation of the same by European governments.
Foreign Secretary Blas Ople said in Manila Sunday foreign ministers from the European Union assured him in Brussels recently that they would continue to support the Philippines' anti-insurgency campaign.
He said Sison, who is in exile in the Netherlands, and the NPA "would remain in the list of the terrorist organizations as far as they (EU ministers) are concerned." Sun.Star Baguio/With AFP |
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