Editorial:
Peace talks to go through many more twists and turns

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The accord, considered the 11th important agreement signed by both panels since the start of the NDFP-GRP peace negotiations in 1986, was signed after four days of negotiations, the first of a series of formal talks after their suspension by the Arroyo regime in 2001.

The agreement stated the determination of both sides to advance the peace process and to address the roots of the armed conflict. In particular, both sides agreed to resolve the issue on the "terrorist" tag on the CPP, NPA and NDFP peace panel chief consultant Jose Maria Sison. The talks would also be conducted in accordance with the provisions of The Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and other previous bilateral agreements.

Before the talks proceeded, there was a major controversy and fierce contention over the listing that lasted almost two days. The NDFP panel asserted before the GRP panel that the Arroyo regime's active campaign with regard to the terrorist listing violated the country's national sovereignty and was contrary to the spirit and letter of all previously signed agreements between the NDFP and the GRP.

In the joint statement it signed only in mid-January, the GRP agreed to undertake legal, political and diplomatic initiatives to have the CPP, NPA and Jose Maria Sison removed from the terrorist listings.

However, when this point came up for discussion, the GRP panel dissociated itself, saying it had no jurisdiction over the US and other countries maintaining such listings. The GRP feigned innocence regarding the campaign it launched in the US and Europe to have the CPP, NPA and Jose Maria Sison included in the list of "foreign terrorists" to pressure the revolutionary movement in the Philippines, pave the way for direct US intervention against the revolutionary movement in the country, and force the CPP and NPA to give up their firearms and surrender to the GRP.

Even worse, Malaca�ang directed the GRP peace panel to derail the discussion on this point and divert it towards calling for a halt to the revolutionary movement's policy on the Permit to Campaign (PTC) and the tactical offensives of the NPA and the surrender of the people's army's forces and weapons.

In its attempt to gain the upper hand, evade its responsibility to withdraw the labeling and shift responsibility to the CPP, the GRP insisted on the ludicrous condition that the Party, NPA and Jose Maria Sison must provide "legal and moral basis" why they no longer should be regarded as terrorists. The Party and the people's army need not prove that the listing is contrary to revolutionary principles and the CPP and NPA's pro-people character and practice.

Despite all these attempts by the GRP to turn the tables on, and force the NDFP to its knees, it was the NDFP's principled stand that prevailed. The GRP agreed to take diplomatic steps, including requesting the government of Norway to convince its allies to remove the CPP, NPA and Jose Maria Sison from the "terrorist listings."

Nevertheless, no sooner had the GRP panel arrived in Manila when Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles immediately declared that the GRP would not carry out its obligation.

Jalandoni strongly denounced the GRP for continuing to justify the US' violation of Philippine national sovereignty by usurping jurisdiction over revolutionary entities and developments in the Philippines and intervening in and violating the negotiations and agreements between the GRP and the revolutionary forces.

Within the GRP, the US militarist puppets in Malaca�ang and the AFP like Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita and the counterrevolutionary type of social-democrats like Deles are the main actors meddling in and obstructing the peace process. While Deles insists that the US has the right to maintain a list of "terrorists," Ermita and AFP spokesperson Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero say that removing the CPP-NPA from the listing would hamper the AFP campaign to obliterate the operations and influence of the CPP-NPA in the countryside.

If the GRP simply renders meaningless and defiles the Oslo agreement as well as other agreements, especially provisions regarding the removal of the CPP-NPA and Jose Maria Sison from the list of "terrorists," there would be no basis for continuing the peace negotiations.

Just as what happened at the end of this series, we must expect many more twist and turns and complications in the process of peace negotiations as well as intense contention with the reactionary government in this field of struggle, alongside the continuous advance of protracted people's war until we achieve total victory.

We continue to firmly hold on to armed struggle as the principal and most reliable means of revolutionary struggle and the open mass struggles and parliamentary struggle as also very important but secondary means of struggle. At the same time, we persevere in and remain open to peace negotiations as an added arena of struggle as long as the other side also has the openness and determination to negotiate and come to agreement. In the absence of such determination on the part of the Arroyo regime, the NDFP is prepared to wait for a successor regime that would have greater interest to advance the peace process.

21 February 2004
English Edition

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