(Eagle News) — Communist rebels have “no choice but to single-mindedly wage people’s war” following the “disappointing” and “frustrating” cancellation of the resumption of peace talks on June 28.
This is according to Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, who issued a statement after Peace Secretary Jesus Dureza made the announcement on Thursday, June 14.
Dureza had cited as a reason the supposed need to “engage the public.”
According to Sison, in the first place, the “written agreements pertaining to the aforesaid scheduled events have been signed by no less than the respective chairpersons of the GRP and the (National Democratic Front of the Philippines) negotiating panels, (Labor) Secretary Silvestre Bello and Fidel V. Agcaoili, and witnessed by the Royal Norwegian special envoy Ambasador Idun Tevdt on June 9.”
He said that with the Philippine government’s move, “it is starkly clear that the GRP under Duterte is not interested in serious peace negotiations with the NDFP.”
“It is interested vainly in obtaining the NDFP capitulation under the guise of an indefinite ceasefire agreements and breaking the provision in the GRP-NDFP Joint Agreement on the Security and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) which requires formal negotiations in a foreign neutral venue and therefore putting the negotiations under the control and under duress of an emerging fascist dictatorship and its armed minions,” he said.
He said as such, “the revolutionary forces and the people have no choice but to single-mindedly wage people’s war to achieve the national and social liberation of the Filipino people.”
Duterte scrapped peace talks with the Communist rebels last year, following their attacks despite a ceasefire then in place.
Later, he ordered his officials to work toward the resumption of peace talks, saying peace deserved another chance.
