THE communist rebels are scrambling to revive the peace negotiations with the government in an attempt to reach the scheduled fourth round of talks this April amid President Rodrigo Duterte’s threat to wage war with them for another 50 years.
Amid the attempts to conduct back-channel talks, the National Democratic Front’s chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili said that “we have kept our end of the bargain not to reveal the plans or issue any statement that would upset these.
“The objective of the back-channel is to bring about the continuation of the talks in order to hold the scheduled fourth round in April to discuss important matters, including JASIG, CASER and CAPCR,” Agcaoili said in a statement sent to the Manila Standard.
The continuation of the drafting of three substantial agenda”•social and economic reforms, constitutional and political reforms and an end of hostilities”•were among the issues left hanging after President Duterte decided to terminate the peace talks in February after the unilateral interim ceasefires were terminated by the New People’s Army and the government.
“Both sides agreed to hold secret back-channel talks as early as the first week of February,” Agcaoili said.
“For some reason, these have been delayed till now.”
Duterte said early this week that there had been back-channel efforts between the communist rebels and the government.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana confirmed that NDF consultants Benito and William Tiamzon and Victor Ladlad were leading the back-channeling efforts with Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza, who left the country for Europe Wednesday.
Agcaoili also said that the leadership of the revolutionary movement had approved on Feb. 27 the release of government personnel captured and held as “prisoners of war” by the rebels, and that “discussions have been going on since between third-party peace facilitators and the [government] panel.”
“The POWs should have been released as early as 2 March but arrangements on their safe and orderly release, as well as those of the third-party peace facilitators, local government officials, ICRC representatives and the custodial forces have still to be worked out,” Agcaoili said.
Duterte earlier opened up the possibility of reviving the stalled peace talks, but has laid down three “requests” before any negotiation could proceed: A genuine ceasefire done in sincerity, the release of all soldiers and civilians being held captive by the NPA, and a stop to NPA extortion activities.
However, the revolutionary leadership has yet to confirm from their ground forces if they were behind the deaths of four policemen allegedly ambushed by the NPA.
“On the Bansalan incident, we still have to confirm if this was done by the NPA command in the area. There are peace spoilers around,” Agcaoili said.
He said “there is no ceasefire in place at the moment, and that AFP and PNP troops have been going into villages and violating people’s rights in their combat and intelligence operations, including murderous Tokhang operations,” referring to the controversial government war on drugs.
He likewise said that their ranks had also suffered casualties since the hostilities resumed last month, pointing to the four guerrillas slain in San Andres, Quezon province, during a military raid on Tuesday “as well as in other places.”