NDF worried over move to end peace talks

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines — The National Democratic Front (NDF) yesterday expressed its “grave concern” over President Duterte’s decision to scuttle the peace talks with communist rebels.

The NDF said the cancellation of the peace talks came at a time when both peace panels had made “unprecedented advances in forging agreements on urgently needed socio-economic reforms to alleviate mass poverty and resolve the roots of the armed conflict.”

“Just four days before President Duterte cancelled the talks anew, the bilateral teams of the NDF and the government initialed draft documents reflecting substantial agreements on agrarian reform and rural development, and on national industrialization and economic development,” the statement said.

The NDF is the umbrella organization representing the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) in the peace talks with the government.

The NDF said Duterte will now bear full responsibility for the failure of the talks and heightened hostility to the revolutionary forces.

Duterte has cancelled all future peace talks with communist rebels, blaming the insurgents for deadly attacks against soldiers and police while threatening to categorize them as a “terrorist group.”

The CPP, through the NPA, has been waging an insurgency since 1968.

Peace talks to end the conflict, which the military said has claimed 30,000 lives, have been conducted on and off for three decades.

They were revived last year after Duterte was elected president, with Norway and the Netherlands hosting the negotiations.

Duterte had shelved a round of negotiations in May and informal talks in July this year, citing treacherous NPA attacks on government forces.

Last month, Duterte also accused the CPP-NPA of plotting with his other political foes to destabilize his rule.

He added Tuesday that he would issue a proclamation declaring the CPP-NPA as a terrorist organization and order the arrest of more than a dozen rebel leaders he had freed last year.

Duterte also threatened to tag all “legal fronts” of the CPP-NPA as criminals and have them arrested for conspiracy.

“I know your legal fronts. Let us not fool each other. I’ve been there. You are helping each other conspire to topple or whatever, to sow terror,” Duterte told Army troops in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija last Wednesday. 

“We will treat you as a criminal, period. And we will arrest everybody connected with their legal fronts. File charges, launch a revolution, whatever you do, I don’t care. I will reclassify you as a terrorist group,” he added.   

Duterte, clad in an Army uniform and wearing a bullet proof vest, told the troops in Fort Magsaysay that he is no longer interested to talk peace with the communists.

He even lumped the NPA with the Islamist extremist group Islamic State (IS). 

“We have the IS. We have the NPA. I do not want to talk anymore with the NPA. I told (presidential peace adviser Jesus) Dureza and (government chief negotiator Silvestre) Bello, ‘Tell the idiots, I am no longer talking to them,’” the President said.  

“They are ambushing everybody. I’m losing everyday, all throughout the country, I’m losing two to three to four soldiers or policemen, everyday,” he added. 

Malacañang said Duterte’s order to arrest the communists’ legal fronts has legal basis. 

“The President is a former prosecutor. He knows that there can be a conspiracy to commit a crime of both rebellion and the violation of the Human Security Act,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a press briefing yesterday.  

“Because you can now be prosecuted for acts, overt acts constituting rebellion, also for violation of the Human Security Act, where the taking up of arms is intended for the purpose of inflicting fear or terror in the minds of the general public,” he added. – Alexis Romero