Reds reject GMA’s peace pact offer

Communist rebels rejected post-haste a draft peace agreement that the government was preparing to offer them this week, a rebel spokesman said yesterday.

But Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal, spokesman for the Communist Party of the Philippines, said the CPP is ready to resume peace talks, provided the government abandoned its designation of the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) as "terrorist" groups.

They rejected the proposed agreement because it was tantamount to "surrender" on their part, Rosal said.

Malacañang is now considering a ceasefire to make the atmosphere "conducive" for both sides to resume peace negotiations, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.

Other conditions laid out by Rosal included the re-adoption of the "old framework" of agreements the guerrillas signed with the administration of former President Fidel Ramos in the 1990s and an end to "all-out" war against the rebels.

Bunye said the rejection of the draft agreement showed that the rebels were "not really after peace."

"We have gone through great lengths in formulating a comprehensive peace agreement and it’s really up to their side to respond," he said. "They have always said they wanted to reopen the negotiations so we will just wait for further developments."

He pointed out that the proposed accord has a provision that specifically stated that the rebels’ acceptance of the settlement "does not mean surrender, but their voluntary act of reconciliation, with their honor and dignity intact."

Bunye said President Arroyo is considering a ceasefire proposal made by chief government negotiator Silvestre Bello III.

"Having a ceasefire with the (communist rebels) would be convenient for both parties in conducting peace negotiations. Continuous military operations against the New People’s Army would distract the peace negotiations," Bello told reporters.

Peace talks between the government and the communists collapsed in mid-2001 after the rebels assassinated Congressmen Rodolfo Aguinaldo of Cagayan and Marcial Punzalan of Quezon. The NPA has been waging an armed campaign for 24 years.

Bunye said the government will mount a military and diplomatic push against the rebels while giving their leaders a "last chance" at a political accord.

The government’s resolve was bolstered after last week’s killing of former NPA chieftain Romulo Kintanar, who led a faction of the guerrilla group that favored peace talks instead of armed clashes, Bunye said.

"In admitting to the assassination of Romulo Kintanar, the NPA really tags itself as a terrorist and criminal organization of the worst kind. This clearly justifies the government’s policy of counter-force against the CPP-NPA, which has lost all legitimacy in its struggle," Bunye said.

"This conflict shall be settled by resorting to all the means within the democratic arsenal, including the use of legitimate force and principled negotiation under our Constitution."

Leftist groups criticized the President’s order for an intensified military campaign against the rebels following Kintanar’s assassination.

One group, Bayan, said the campaign would lead to a "crackdown and an open season on the progressive mass movement."

Kintanar was gunned down last Thursday while having lunch in a Japanese restaurant in Quezon City. Rosal said it was Kintanar’s punishment for "gangster" acts and an alleged plot to assassinate CPP founder Jose Maria Sison.

Authorities said the NPA is targeting government officials including Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople, presidential chief of staff Rigoberto Tiglao and intelligence chief Victor Corpus, an army officer who joined the rebels but later left the movement.

Bunye said they will keep up their guard despite Rosal’s denial that Ople and Tiglao are on their hit list. Rosal said nothing about Reyes and Corpus.

Mrs. Arroyo wants to bring the rebels’ activities to the attention of the international community and has told the Department of Foreign Affairs to see if Sison can be extradited from the Netherlands, where he has been living in self-imposed exile, he added.

"The general instruction of the President is to just bring this matter to the information or the attention of the international community," he said.

Sison has carefully avoided directly linking himself to the communist insurgency to avoid being considered a terrorist by the Dutch government.

He denies founding the CPP and is a self-confessed consultant of the National Democratic Front, the CPP’s political wing.

Some lawmakers have urged the government to resume the peace talks in spite of the Kintanar killing. Sen. Rodolfo Biazon said the assassination only made it "very difficult for the government to declassify the NPA as a terrorist organization."

The rebels found themselves the subject of unwanted attention last year after the CPP and the NPA were included on a US blacklist of "foreign terrorist organizations."

Rosal warned the government against pinning the Kintanar murder on Sison, saying this would hamper a resumption of peace negotiations.

Rosal said Kintanar was considered a "traitor" by Sison for breaking away from the mainstream communist rebellion and sentenced to death by an NPA "court." Sison denied ordering the killing, however.

"Concocting charges against Comrade Sison is a desperate attempt by the Macapagal-Arroyo regime to vilify him and justify their ‘terrorist’ tag on him," he said. "Comrade Sison’s task as senior political consultant to the NDF negotiating panel has nothing to do with the operational matters of the NPA."

NPA rebels, meanwhile, have damaged a telecommunications tower south of Manila in a sabotage raid last weekend, police said yesterday.

The tower near Tagaytay is owned by Globe Telecom Inc. It was the latest raid on the privately owned facilities which have an estimated cost of up to P20 million, Chief Superintendent Vidal Quirol said over dzBB radio. — With Jose Rodel Clapano, Sammy Santos, Katherine Adraneda, Ding Cervantes, AFP