Prospects of peace negotiations between government and NDF unsure following Sison’s arrest

By Ronron
August 29, 2007

For the Philippine government, peace efforts with the National Democratic Front (NDF) should not be affected with the apprehension in the Netherlands of Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and chief political consultant of the NDF.

But the NDF and its allies think otherwise.

“With regard to the peace talks, this development has a very big negative effect because there is an agreement on safety and immunity between the Arroyo regime and the NDF. All participants of the peace talks like the negotiators and consultants, especially Ka Joma being the chief political consultant, should have certain immunity guarantees, that they will not be charged and arrested,” NDF chief peace negotiator Luis Jalandoni said yesterday in a radio interview.

Sison was apprehended by Dutch Police last Tuesday morning over a case of inciting to killings in the Philippines filed by the families of the victims. He has been on self-exile in the Netherlands since 1987.

Jalandoni said even the “false charges” against Sison based on the alleged purging of communist rebels in the Visayas are efforts of the Arroyo government to end the peace negotiations.

“These are all in violation of the Agreement on Safety and Immunity… So all who want the peace negotiations to proceed to address the roots of the armed conflict – the Church, human rights organizations, the business sector, for them, this will have a very negative effect,” Jalandoni said.

“Add to this the extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances being carried out by the government, and Arroyo’s desire for a military solution to the problem of insurgency, the possibility of peace negotiations is just getting away further,” he added.

But Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza said the government is not turning its back against the NDF and the communist movement, even if the peace talks got stalled in August 2004 due to the listing of Sison and his organization as terrorists by the US and European Union governments.

“The pursuit for peace is continuing. It doesn’t stop. All efforts are being exerted because what the President wants is really to look for possible political settlement. We all know that the problems we have now in the country cannot be solved just by military solution,” Dureza said in Filipino in a separate radio interview.

In a separate interview, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales appealed to allies and supporters of Sison not to abandon the peace efforts because the latter is just facing a separate murder case.

But Sison’s allies and supporters actually regard the apprehension of Sison as part of the government’s plan to annihilate the communist movement by 2010.

Anakpawis Party-list Representative Crispin Beltran yesterday shares with the media: “Arroyo and the Bush administration wants to annihilate the revolutionary movement in three years time, even if it is impossible because it has been here even before you were born. So, rather than annihilating, this will just add fire to the revolution in the Philippines.”

“It is certain that the struggle of the masses will continue in the provinces, in the urban areas, and even in the international scene. There will surely be many solidarity actions for Ka Joma,” Jalandoni said./DMS