Communist rebels reject military peace overture

MANILA (AFP) - Philippine communist rebels on Tuesday rejected a ceasefire offered by the country's military chief in a bid to revive stalled peace talks.

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison said the group would only return to the negotiating table when Manila moved to have it removed from a terrorist blacklisting in the United States and Europe.

He said the government must also show it is sincere about stopping the armed forces from carrying out political killings, while also indemnifying victims of human rights violations.

"Until now, the (government) has not made any serious response to the just and reasonable demands of the CPP and its political wing, the National Democratic Front (NDF)," Sison said in a statement from the Netherlands, where he is in self-exile.

In a major reversal of policy, military chief General Hermogenes Esperon on Monday recommended President Gloria Arroyo resume talks with the CPP and that both sides agree to a three-year bilateral ceasefire.

He said the move could help lead to a drop in unexplained killings and disappearances.

But communist chief peace negotiator Luis Jalandoni said Esperon's statement was "cheap propaganda."

"General Esperon does not care to address the root causes of the armed conflict," he said. "He wants only the pacification of the revolutionary movement."

Negotiations with the communists have been suspended since 2004 over the rebels' inclusion on the US and European governments' list of foreign terrorist organisations and a subsequent crackdown on international funds being channeled into the movement.

The CPP, and its 7,000-strong armed wing, the New People's Army has been waging a Maoist rebellion since 1969, in what is one of Asia's longest running communist insurgencies.

Human rights groups have said the insurgency has led to a military strategy that arbitrarily attacked legitimate left-wing political groups labelled as "fronts" for the rebels.

Local rights group Karapatan has documented more than 800 victims of summary executions since Arroyo came into power in 2001, many of them political activists who had been vocal against the government.