PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

CPP mulling temporary suspension of talks, reiterates call for implementation of human rights agreement
January 28, 2003

The leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines are considering the possibility of formalizing the temporary suspension of peace negotiations even as it critized the worsening human rights situation and called on Malacanang to uphold the agreement on human rights forged in 1998.

CPP Spokesman Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal said "the option of waiting for a new government that is more open-minded unlike the militarist-minded Macapagal-Arroyo government has become more realistic."

"The CPP and NDF leadership will discuss and consider the points raised by the NDFP Negotiating Panel as to the question of formalizing the indefinite suspension peace negotiations with the Macapagal-Arroyo government," Rosal added.

"Mrs. Arroyo, her defense officials and the GRP negotiating panel, however, still have to answer to the people why it has trashed all the past agreements entered into by the Philippine government and the NDFP," Rosal said.

"These agreements, including the one on human rights, were arrived at by the two sides after a series of negotiations characterized by mutual respect and give-and-take diplomacy", Rosal added.

"GRP peace panel chairman Bebot Bello and Speaker de Venecia know very well how much hard work both panels have put into the negotiations to come up with the agreement on human rights and the nine other major and minor agreements", Rosal said. "We call on them to not allow all those efforts wasted because of the military's insistence that the CPP enter into an agreement of sheer surrender."

"Why throw away these agreements, especially those that strived to tackle the root causes of the armed conflict? Why insist on an agreement that simply asks one side to lay-down its arms", Rosal said.

He also challenged Malacanang to implement the human rights agreement.

"Instead of wasting time insisting on a draft agreement that is conspicuously violative of the principles of mutuality, the GRP peace panel should instead work for the implementation of agreements that have already been signed. If not, Malacanang should explain to the people why it refuses to implement the past agreements, first of all the one on human rights," Rosal explained.

He was referring to the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) which was negotiated under the Ramos government and signed in 1998 by then President Estrada.

Rosal asserted that this so-called "final peace agreement" being proposed by Malacanang is a patently militarist product. Its only agenda is for us to surrender our weapons, and essentially our fight."

Rosal compared the draft "final peace agreement" prepared by Malacanang to the surrender agreements entered into with Malacanang, first by the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan through Luis Taruc in the 1950s and then by the Lava-led Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas in 1974. "Since then, those revisionist organizations just dissipated and were reduced to nothing," Rosal added.

He also rejected the GRP panel's proposals for a long-term ceasefire between the AFP and NPA. "That can be only after agreement regarding the first four basic reform agenda in the talks have been accomplished upon -- namely: guarantee of human rights, economic reforms, political reforms, and military reorganization and reforms."

"A ceasefire at this point is meaningless," Rosal said. "We propose instead, the implementation of human rights agreement of 1998 (the CARHRIHL). Right now, the Joint Monitoring Team for the implementation of CARHRIHL should have already been in place but the government has continued to ignore it and instead even committed worse human rights violations."

"We can continue to fight within a strict set of rules earlier laid out by the CARHRIHL in order to protect the rights of non-combatants which are being violated wholesale by the regime's all-out war of terror against the people", Rosal added. ###

Reference:
Anne Buenaventura
Media Officer
Cellphone Number: +63910-240-3553



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