Friday, October 08, 2004
Communist rebels claim murder of breakaway faction chief (10:15 a.m.)
MANILA -- Communist guerrillas in the Philippines on Friday claimed responsibility for the murder last month of the leader of a breakaway leftist faction.
Former Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) central committee member Arturo Tabara, founder of the breakaway Revolutionary Proletarian Army, was assassinated outside a Manila shopping mall last week, leading the government to warn of a potential factional bloodbath.
Tabara, who left the CPP after 1992 and later signed a peace pact with the government, "was slain by an arresting unit of the New People's Army (NPA) last September 26, 2004 after he resisted arrest," the CPP-NPA said in a written statement.
The rebels said they wanted to put their former comrade on trial in a guerrilla court for alleged murders and other criminal activities, but Tabara drew a gun, forcing them to kill him and his daughter's boyfriend.
President Arroyo has condemned the killing, and said measures were being taken to protect former guerrillas who have switched sides.
Tabara the third senior breakaway CPP leader to be assassinated in the past four years, meeting the same fate of former comrades Filemon Lagman and Romulo Kintanar.
The US government considers the CPP-NPA, which has been waging a 35-year Maoist armed campaign, as "foreign terrorist organizations".
The rebels suspended peace talks with the Arroyo government earlier this year, accusing Manila of failing to get them delisted from the US terror blacklist. (AFP)
|
