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{UAH} Philippines Arrest orders for 20 NPA negotiators

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Robert Atuahirew,,


What game is Mr Duterte playing? Increasingly, it resembles a game of Russian roulette?  Here he is issuing orders for arrest of the top leaders of the communist movement. But a  condition of the Oslo Agreement was that there would be Immunity Gurantees in place before any talks could start and through-out the process- ie the delegation of the National Democratic Front who would participate the  Peace Talks, including consultants and advisors like myself, would be given guantees of  immunity from arrest, harassment or prosecution. Mr Duterte fulfilled this part of the agreement by releasing some of the NDF delegation who were in detention, including the Tiamzon couple, Wilma and Benito. Before their capture two years ago, Wilma was the top leader of the Philippines Communist Party, as its chairman, the only woman in the world to lead a nation-wide insurgency, while her husband Benito was the head of the 17,000 strong New Peoples Army. The other members of the NDF delegation are actually based abroad, in the NDF office in Utrecht in  Holland. These talks are hosted by the Norwegian government as interlocutor and at the beginning of the year moved to the Vatican,. There was hope that progress would be made, with the direct involvement of the Pope in the talks.

Everything now is in peril. The reality on the ground is that Duterte can not threaten the National Democratic Front. Its army, the NPA,  currently has 17,000 armed combatants with high powered weapons and 1 million peoples militia armed with inferior weapons. These are supported by AN ORGANISED MASS BASE of some 10 million people, organized in an intersecting array of sectoral, community and armed organisations through-out the country. The NPA now fights on at least 12 different fronts, covering the whole country. In areas where it is most advanced, the NPA has set up a Provisional Peoples Revolutionary Government. These are areas which are pacified and are under the complete control and administration of the Communist party and its organs. Many areas of Mindanao, where I have a home, are controlled and governed by the Communist Party.

The NDF wants genuine peace talks. In fact it has moderated its programme. It is no longer calling for the establishment of a socialist government through armed force- instead it is calling for the democratisation of the Philippines, the disarming of armed right-wing para-military groups supported by feudal landlords, and most importantly we want  AGRARIAN REFORM. WE HAVE THE AGRARIAN REFORM PROGRAMME READY. This programme is going to be my most important personal  contribution to social change anywhere in the world. All these past twenty years of my life, I have devoted to developing this Agrarian Reform Programme. We don't mind waiting for a few more years if Duterete rejects this historic opportunity and refuses to be partner for peace and social transformation. But whether he likes it or not, Duterte or his successor, will have to come back to the table, because he has no guarantee that he will win the argument on the battle field. Others, including Ferdinand Marcos, have tried and failed abysmally.

Bobby

OSG: Arrest orders for 20 NPA negotiators based on SC ruling

/ 10:32 PM February 15, 2017
Jose Calida

Solicitor General Jose Calida. KING RODRIGUEZ/Presidential Photos

MANILA — Solicitor General Jose Calida said the arrest order on the 20 National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultants led by Benito and Wilma Tiamzon was based on the Supreme Court order and not the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).

Calida cited a Supreme Court ruling as the basis for ordering the immediate arrest of the NDFP consultants who were granted temporary bail from detention to participate in the peace negotiations in Oslo, Norway, and Rome, Italy.

He said the high court ruling on the case of Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo and rebel leaders Randall Echanis and Vicente Ladlad stated that "once their participation ceases or the peace negotiations are terminated, their respective bonds shall be deemed automatically cancelled."

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With President Rodrigo Duterte's termination of the peace talks, Calida said that the bail bonds of the NDFP consultants were "automatically" cancelled.

"There is no more provisional liberty, therefore they should be recommitted to detention facilities.  If they are not placed in detention cells, they are considered fugitives from justice. They can be subject to citizen's arrest," said Calida.

Calida said that the JASIG, an agreement signed between the Philippine government and the NDFP in 1995, which guaranteed safe conduct pass to all rebel negotiators, "has already served its purpose" and could not be used as the basis for the NDFP to consider its leaders exempt from immediate arrest.  SFM

TAGS: Armed conflict, Armed Forces of the Philippines, cancellation of bail bond, Ceasefire, Communist Party of the Philippines, communist rebellion, courts, Crime, Insurgency, Jose Calida, Justice, law, lifting of ceasefire, litigation, National Democratic Front of the Philippines, New People's Army, Office of the Solicitor General, peace, peace negotiations, peace process, Peace Talks, Philippine Government, Philippine president, rebellion, Rodrigo Duterte, Supreme Court, suspension of peace negotiations, trials
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