PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

US And Its Militarist Puppets in Malacaņang and the AFP Hinder Peace Talks - CPP
February 20, 2004

The interventionist US government and its militarist puppets in Malacaņang and the top leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines are the biggest stumbling blocks to peace talks.

This was the reaction of the Communist Party of the Philippines to the statement by Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita, the AFP leadership and Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Deles opposing the removal of the CPP-NPA from the list of "foreign terrorist organizations."

CPP spokesperson Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal said their rigid positions contradict the spirit and letter of the February 14 Oslo Agreement between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. The accord called on the US, European and other countries to support the peace talks and resolve the outstanding issue of the "terrorist listing" of the CPP, the New People's Army and NDFP Senior Political Consultant Jose Ma. Sison.

Rosal lambasted Ermita and AFP spokesman Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero for saying that removing the terrorist label on the CPP-NPA would "greatly hamper the AFP's drive to cleanse the countryside of the CPP-NPA's influence and atrocities." Rosal said that the AFP does not want the peace talks to succeed and is interested only in pursuing its fascist agenda and serving as a puppet army.

"The AFP leadership echoes everything the US government says," Rosal added. "Just like the war-hungry US government and its armed forces, the AFP thrives on terrorism. It is the real and biggest terrorist organization in the Philippines."

Rosal reiterated the CPP's full support to the February 14 Oslo Agreement. He calls the long-delayed formal accord an important breakthrough in recognizing the terrorist listing of the CPP, NPA and Sison by the US and Europe as inconsistent with national sovereignty, with the principled and with the peace negotiations between the NDFP and the Philippine government.

Rosal said, however, that certain government and military officials in the Arroyo government are overly obsequious to the US' claim of its supposed right to pin the terrorist label on the CPP, NPA and Sison and object to the government's undoing of the aggressive lobby and campaign it waged abroad for such labelling.

"They are hiding the fact that the US government's overextension of their 'national security interest' oversteps our own sovereignty and hinders the peace negotiations in the Philippines."

Rosal welcomes the proposal to ask the help of the Norwegian government as the third-party mediator in the GRP-NDFP peace talks for the correct interpretation of the controversial provision in Oslo Accord. "That might help," said Rosal, "but still that depends a lot on whether more sensible people can reduce the stubbornness of militarists and clerico-fascist social democrats in Malacaņang."

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



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