NDF pushes Oslo meet to save peace talks

After exchanging accusations with government over insincerity in the peace process, the National Democratic Front (NDF) pushed over the weekend for a meeting in Norway to resume formal peace talks. NDF negotiating panel chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said the panel had made the proposal through the Norwegian government. "It is still possible to resume the formal talks in the Government of the Republic of the Philippines-NDF peace negotiations if the GRP respects and complies with the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG). As soon as possible, the GRP and NDF negotiating panels, with their respective lawyers, should meet in Oslo in order to put in writing the most expeditious methods of removing the impediments on NDFP consultants," Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, said in a statement posted on the CPP Web site. He said the NDF panel called for the meeting after government failed to fulfill at least five commitments it made last June 15. These are: * To respect and comply with the JASIG and remove within the month of July the impediments imposed by the GRP on the NDFP consultants so that these consultants can participate in preparations for the Oslo meetings that were slated to start on August 28; * To let the lawyers of the GRP discuss and agree with the lawyers of the NDFP on the most expeditious methods of removing the impediments on the basis of precedents in the time of GRP President Ramos; * To use the expeditious release of Dan Borjal in 1997 to serve as the model for releasing detained NDFP consultants; * To withdraw all trumped up charges used by GRP to detain NDFP consultants and issue warrants of arrest against NDFP panelists, consultants and other JASIG-protected persons; and * To release immediately those detainees whose release was ordered as goodwill measures by Gloria M. Arroyo in 2001 and 2004. Earlier, presidential peace process adviser Avelino Razon Jr. said the government will not release 14 peace consultants facing criminal charges. Razon had said the government merely agreed to work for the temporary liberty of the consultants just so they can participate in the peace negotiations. Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera, for her part, had said in an earlier interview the National Security Council agreed only to the temporary freedom of four consultants. But Sison said the government has not respected and complied with the JASIG. "Instead, the militarist clique of Executive (Secretary) Eduardo Ermita and OPAPP Secretary Avelino Razon have exerted their best efforts to undermine and negate the JASIG, to reinterpret it onesidedly and convert it into a tool of Oplan Bantay Laya, to generate further impediments and in brief to sabotage the peace process as a way of addressing the roots of the armed conflict and laying the basis for a just and lasting peace," he said. He said the militarists defied the courts that ordered the release of Elizabeth Principe and for two weeks they tried to prevent her release. She was eventually released because of the clamor for her release by human rights organizations and many people, Sison claimed.- GMANews.TV