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.”
Duterte eyes resumption of talks with rebels
Duterte eyes resumption of talks with rebels
- A foreign neutral venue as mutually agreed upon in JASIG is the best
- President Duterte emphasized the importance of forging a cease-fire agreement to stop mutual attacks and fighting while talks were underway
Counter protesters chase off conservative influencer during Minneapolis immigration crackdown
MINNEAPOLIS: Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement though not yet deployed to city streets.
There have been protests every day since the Department of Homeland Security ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers.
Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-ICE demonstration, saying on social media beforehand that he intended to “burn a Qur’an” on the steps of City Hall. But it was not clear if he carried out that plan.
Only a small number of people showed up for Lang’s demonstration, while hundreds of counterprotesters converged at the site, yelling over his attempts to speak and chasing the pro-ICE group away. They forced at least one person to take off a shirt they deemed objectionable.
Lang appeared to be injured as he left the scene, with bruises and scrapes on his head.
Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. Lang recently announced that he is running for US Senate in Florida.
In Minneapolis, snowballs and water balloons were also thrown before an armored police van and heavily equipped city police arrived.
“We’re out here to show Nazis and ICE and DHS and MAGA you are not welcome in Minneapolis,” protester Luke Rimington said. “Stay out of our city, stay out of our state. Go home.”
National Guard ‘staged and ready’
The state guard said in a statement that it had been “mobilized” by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to support the Minnesota State Patrol “to assist in providing traffic support to protect life, preserve property, and support the rights of all Minnesotans to assemble peacefully.”
Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, a spokesperson for the guard, said it was “staged and ready” but yet to be deployed.
The announcement came more than a week after Walz, a frequent critic and target of Trump, told the guard to be ready to support law enforcement in the state.
During the daily protests, demonstrators have railed against masked immigration officers pulling people from homes and cars and other aggressive tactics. The operation in the deeply liberal Twin Cities has claimed at least one life: Renee Good, a US citizen and mother of three, was shot by an ICE officer during a Jan. 7 confrontation.
On Friday a federal judge ruled that immigration officers cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including while observing officers during the Minnesota crackdown.
Living in fear
During a news conference Saturday, a man who fled civil war in Liberia as a child said he has been afraid to leave his Minneapolis home since being released from an immigration detention center following his arrest last weekend.
Video of federal officers breaking down Garrison Gibson’s front door with a battering ram Jan. 11 become another rallying point for protesters who oppose the crackdown.
Gibson, 38, was ordered to be deported, apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision. After his recent arrest, a judge ruled that federal officials did not give him enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked.
Then Gibson was taken back into custody for several hours Friday when he made a routine check-in with immigration officials. Gibson’s cousin Abena Abraham said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told her White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered the second arrest.
The White House denied the account of the re-arrest and that Miller had anything to do with it.
Gibson was flown to a Texas immigration detention facility but returned home following the judge’s ruling. His family used a dumbbell to keep their damaged front door closed amid subfreezing temperatures before spending $700 to fix it.
“I don’t leave the house,” Gibson said at a news conference.
DHS said an “activist judge” was again trying to stop the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.”
“We will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
Gibson said he has done everything he was supposed to do: “If I was a violent person, I would not have been out these past 17 years, checking in.”
