Govt calls on reds to show commitment to ceasefire

The Philippine government on Thursday called on the communist rebels to honor the traditional Yuletide ceasefire both camps have declared. In a statement, presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Deles said the government was “disheartened" by the ambush staged by New People’s Army (NPA) rebels on Army soldiers in Northern Samar two days before the start of the truce on Dec. 16. Ten soldiers and a nine-year-old boy were killed in the attack. Deles said that while the government is committed to observing the ceasefire and pushing through with the peace talks, it wants the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its fronts, the NPA and the National Democratic Front (NDF), to “demonstrate [their] firm commitment and ability to uphold the conditions of the ceasefire." She said the ambush “mars an otherwise momentous agreement forged during the informal talks held in Hong Kong a few weeks ago between the Philippine Government and the leaders of the CPP-NPA-NDF." The 18-day ceasefire, which starts Dec. 16 and will last until January 3 next year, is the longest in 10 years. It is intended partly to be a confidence-building measure for the peace negotiations between the two parties set to begin in February. In the statement, the government negotiating panel described the ambush as a “treacherous attack on the eve of the observance of the ceasefires declared by both sides." “The cause for peace is truly a difficult path to tread on, sometimes even more difficult than the exchange of gunfire killing and wreaking havoc on each other. We call on the CPP/NPA/NDF to be steadfast and committed to the just cause of peace. Let us not be swayed by warmongers and harbingers of death and destruction who cannot see beyond their own limited and selfish visions without taking into consideration the welfare and benefit of the entire Filipino nation," the panel said. Another confidence-building measure for the resumption of peace negotiations is the continuing observance of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), one of the first formally-signed agreements that came out of the previous peace talks in the 1990s. The agreement allowed Luis Jalandoni, head of the NDF negotiating panel, to return to the Philippines early this month without fearing arrest. Peace talks between the government and the leftist insurgents hit a snag in 2002 after the United States included the NPA and the CPP on the list of foreign terrorist organizations. The NDF backed out of the negotiations in 2004 to protest the refusal of the Philippine government under then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to lobby the US and the European Union (EU) to remove the groups from the terrorist list. — KBK/LBG, GMANews.TV