NDFP assails suspension of peace talks by GRP
The GRP suspended its talks with the NDFP on June 14 supposedly in protest of the NPA's punishment of notorious fascist and counterrevolutionary, ex-Col. Rodolfo Aguinaldo (see separate article). Through separate statements by Luis Jalandoni (NDFP panel chair) and Jose Ma. Sison (NDFP chief political consultant), the NDFP strongly assailed the GRP's one-sided and irrational action.
Jalandoni said that the GRP's suspension of the peace talks in behalf of the torturer Aguinaldo was a monumental irony. Aguinaldo was listed by Amnesty International as a top torturer of the Philippines.
Jalandoni stressed that the NDFP's insistence on the implementation of the CARHRIHL is based precisely on the "shameful inability or refusal of the GRP to punish or stop its violators of human rights and international humanitarian law". The GRP, said Jalandoni, has failed or refused to give justice to almost 10,000 victims of the Marcos dictatorship who won their case filed before the US federal court in Hawaii. "In the case of Aguinaldo, the hundreds of victims of his sadistic brutality have waited nearly 30 years for redress of grievance."
Jalandoni said that despite Aguinaldo's civilian status these last years, he continued participating in military activities. "He strutted around aboard armored personnel carriers, recruited members into the notorious paramilitary CAFGU and used them as his own private army. He continued to perform intelligence work. In addition, he was into big-time drug dealings, protected illegal loggers and was a feared political warlord."
In this regard, Sison declared in his statement that what the GRP negotiating panel did lays the ground for destroying the entire peace negotiations with the NDFP.
Sison said that "if the GRP finds good cause for scuttling the talks in canonizing the butcher and torturer Aguinaldo as a martyr-saint, why should not the NDFP demand that justice be rendered first to his victims and to so many more victims of disappearances, tortures, murders, arson and forced evacuation under the various regimes of the GRP before going into peace negotiations?"
If the GRP were to call for a recess of just one day for each of the hundreds of thousands of persons whose rights were violated under the Marcos regime and on to the Macapagal-Arroyo regime, he said, there would be no more peace negotiations until Macapagal-Arroyo's rule is long over.
Because of this irresponsible action by the GRP, Sison said that "the NDFP is prepared to cease peace negotiations with the GRP until the rule of the Macapagal-Arroyo clique is over." He stressed that the socio-economic and political crisis of the ruling system is exceedingly favorable for pursuing the people's war for national liberation and democracy.
Even as militarists supported the talks' suspension, the progressive forces and everyone interested in achieving peace assailed the move. The return of the GRP negotiating panel on June 16 was met with protests at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
In the face of such criticisms, the GRP recalled its suspension of the talks the very next day. According to Silvestre Bello III, chief of the GRP negotiating panel, they merely "recessed" the talks for two months and will resume it in August.
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