Philippine president declares truce with communist rebels
Let me say this, all of us want peace. Not the peace of the dead, but the peace of the living.” Rodrigo Duterte, Philippine President
manila — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced on Monday a unilateral ceasefire with communist rebels who are waging one of Asia’s longest insurgencies, and urged them to reciprocate.
Duterte made the announcement in his first ‘State of the Nation Address’ to Congress as he laid the groundwork for peace talks with the communists that are due to begin in Norway next month.
“To stop violence on the ground (and) restore peace, I am now announcing a unilateral ceasefire,” Duterte told lawmakers, as he called on the rebels to do the same.
Addressing the New People’s Army guerrillas, Duterte said: “Let us end these decades of ambuscades and skirmishes. We are going nowhere and it is getting bloodier by the day.”
The Philippine military welcomed Duterte’s announcement but said it “will remain alert, vigilant and ready to defend itself and pursue attackers if confronted by armed elements of the New People’s Army.”
“The commander-in-chief has initiated a very bold move and we fully support him in his effort to bring sustainable and lasting peace,” military spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla said.
The decades-long communist insurgency, one of Asia’s longest, has left nearly 150,000 combatants and civilians dead and stalled economic development, especially in rural areas where the Maoist insurgents have had a long presence.
Government negotiators have met with rebel counterparts and agreed to restart peace talks in the next few months. A rebel leader in self-exile in Europe, Jose Maria Sison, plans to fly home soon to meet Duterte, his former student in a Manila university.
Duterte also said his administration was ready to pursue peace talks with Muslim guerrillas in the country’s south, where he was a longtime mayor of Davao city, where he built a name for his tough crimebusting style before rising to the presidency.
“Let me say this, all of us want peace,” Duterte said. “Not the peace of the dead, but the peace of the living.” The communists’ armed wing, the New People’s Army, is believed to have fewer than 4,000 gunmen today, down from a peak of 26,000 in the 1980s, according to the military.
But it retains support among the deeply poor in rural areas, and its troops regularly kill security forces while extorting money from local businesses.
Dutere’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino, revived negotiations soon after taking office in 2010 but shelved them in 2013, accusing the rebels of being insincere about finding a political settlement.
The talks collapsed after his government rejected the rebels’ demand to release scores of their jailed comrades, whom they described as “political prisoners”.
Duterte, who took office on June 30 and counts exiled communist rebel leader Jose Maria Sison as a friend, had previously offered to release some political prisoners. —