Communist rebels chide Aquino for Bantay-Laya extension

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - Communist rebels on Wednesday accused President Benigno Aquino III of preferring military operations than pursuing peace talks to end decades of bloody fighting in the country. Jorge Madlos, spokesman for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), said Aquino has ordered more deployment of troops and intensified military operations against the New People’s Army (NPA) across the country. He said Aquino also allowed the military to extend its controversial anti-insurgency campaign, Oplan Bantay-Laya, which expired June this year. “The extension of the Arroyo regime’s brutal nine-year anti-insurgency campaign Oplan Bantay-Laya exposes Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III’s real ‘peace’ plan: to step up military offensives against the New People’s Army," Madlos said. Oplan Bantay-Laya has been blamed for the spate of alleged government-sponsored killings of activists and suspected supporters of communist rebels, an accusation that the military has repeatedly denied. “Oplan Bantay-Laya spawned the extrajudicial killings of more than a thousand ordinary civilians, peasants and worker leaders, activists, religious and journalists, and committed countless other human rights abuses, including the dislocation of the socio-economic well-being of the people in the countryside," Madlos said. He said because of Oplan Bantay-Laya, rebel forces also intensified their attacks in the country, particularly in Mindanao. Madlos said it is the first time in recent history for a new government to have deliberately opted to wage war nearly as soon as it was installed. He said the NDFP in Mindanao fears that peace talks are once again in danger of being derailed because of the extension of the Oplan Bantay-Laya. He also appealed to the public to demand the government to pursue the peace process and remove all obstructions that hinder its realization. Government peace talks with the NPA collapsed in 2004 after rebels accused then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of reneging on several agreements, among them the release of all political prisoners in the country and the removal of the terrorist tag on the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its political wing, the NDFP. - KBK, GMANews.TV