Duterte eyes resumption of talks with rebels

MANILA: Formal peace talks between the Philippine government and communist rebels may resume in July, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday night.
Speaking before newly elected village officials in Central Visayas, Duterte said that the government is talking to self-exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison about the resumption of peace talks.
“I’m talking to Sison. We will start the talks maybe mid-July,” the president said.
Earlier reports said that discussions might resume in July after the two parties agreed on a preliminary peace agreement. This came as the government peace panel chair, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, disclosed that there were ongoing backchannel talks and “forward movement.” Sison said that the peace talks could start within the month.
In an online interview, Sison said that if the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) negotiating panel “agrees to a stand-down agreement” with the government (GRP) negotiating panel, the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), “also agree and will follow the terms of the stand-down agreement.”
“The stand-down agreement creates a favorable atmosphere for the resumption of the formal peace negotiations and the interim peace agreement to be signed in Oslo, hopefully on June 28,” he said.
Sison said that it was premature for the government or anyone to suggest that the negotiations be held in the Philippines.
“A foreign neutral venue as mutually agreed upon in JASIG (Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees) is the best. A Philippine venue at this time would make the peace negotiations vulnerable to control by the GRP or to sabotage by ultra-reactionary elements,” Sison said.
The communist leader said that the exact date would be known only from the joint announcement to be made by the GRP and NDFP on or about June 9.
“The peace talks shall have begun on June 28 in Oslo as far as the panels are concerned. That is close to July anyway but not in Manila,” he said.
Sison had previously said that the government “has not yet removed the hindrances to the participation of six NDFP consultants in back-channel talks and bilateral discussions of the Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ARRD) and the National Industrialization and Economic Development (NIED).” He said that it was therefore necessary to reset the start of the stand-down to June 21.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, meanwhile, said that he had yet to talk with Bello and the presidential adviser on the peace process, Secretary Jesus Dureza, about the stand-down.
“We have to consult with our negotiators before we have a stand-down, and what they mean about a stand-down.” Lorenzana has expressed apprehension about whether the communist rebels would halt their operations, particularly the recruitment of new members and attacks.
The president in April ordered Dureza to work on the resumption of the stalled peace talks with communist rebels. In his directive, the president emphasized the importance of forging a cease-fire agreement to stop mutual attacks and fighting while talks were underway.
And last month Duterte announced that he had invited Sison to come home for “make or break” peace talks. He said that Sison agreed.
“I gave him a window of two months, very small,” the president said, adding: “I will see to it and will personally maybe escort him to the airport if nothing happens within that two months. I will allow him to go out. I will not arrest him because that’s a word of honor.”
Sison, in response, set some conditions for him to return.
“I have consistently declared that I will return home when substantial progress is already achieved in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and my comrades and lawyers are satisfied with the legal and security guarantees,” he said in May.
“For my soonest possible interface with Duterte, the NDFP has considered my meeting at the signing of the Interim Peace Agreement, packaging the cease-fire agreement, amnesty proclamation and the ARRD and NIED sections of CASER (Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms) either in Oslo or Hanoi,” Sison said. He added that Duterte had insisted that the meeting be held in the Philippines.
Sison pointed out certain important considerations against prematurely returning to the Philippines.
First, he would be “going against the established mutual agreement to hold the peace negotiations in a foreign neutral venue in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration and JASIG.”
Second, he would be placing himself and the entire peace negotiations “in the pocket of Duterte and at his mercy.”
And third, “any peace spoiler or saboteur would be able to destroy the entire peace negotiations by simply abducting or harming any NDFP panelist or consultant.”