PH rebels vow to revive ‘ceasefire’

Indonesia holds 4 militants

MANILA, March 25, (Agencies): The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said on Saturday that its armed units will declare a unilateral ceasefire no later than March 31, ahead of the resumption of peace talks with the government of President Rodrigo Duterte next month.

The CPP, who’s armed wing, the New People’s Army, has fought a nearly five-decade-long insurgency, expects that the Philippine government will declare a similar unilateral ceasefire as part of an agreement reached during backchannel talks from March 10 to 11, the group said in a statement.

Negotiators from both sides agreed on March 12 to resume formal peace negotiations in The Netherlands from April 2 to 6, a month after an angry Duterte cancelled talks after the rebels ambushed soldiers after unilaterally ending a previous ceasefire.

Duterte, in an interview on Saturday with reporters in Bukidnon province in the southern Philippines, said he would consult with the country’s political and security leaders “whether or not it would be good at this time” to resume the government’s unilateral ceasefire.

Duterte

“I have to consult the (House) Speaker, I have to consult the Senate President, I have to convene the National Security Council, and I have to ask the generals of the army and the police,” he said.

Philippine troops rescue ship captain:

Philippine soldiers on Saturday rescued one of two Filipino cargo ship crewmen taken captive just two days ago by suspected Abu Sayyaf militants, a security official said.

The troops recovered Aurelio Agacac, the ship captain, in the remote village of Basakan in the southern Philippine province of Basilan, said Colonel Juvymax Uy, commander of the military’s 104th Brigade and Joint Task Force Basilan.

The kidnappers took Agacac and his companion Laurencio Tiro captive from a cargo ship off Basilan on Thursday, only hours after soldiers rescued two Malaysians held for about eight months on a southern island.

Uy said the abductors were forced to abandon Agacac to delay the pursuing troops and evade a firefight. “The victim looked alright,” he told reporters. Uy said the soldiers had also captured a wounded suspect during the pursuit who died while being transported to the hospital in Basilan.

Uy did not confirm that the kidnappers were Abu Sayyaf members.

Philippines leader scolds EU:

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte hit out at the European Union on Friday for hypocrisy and called the bloc “sons …” after its lawmakers issued a resolution calling for restraint and a rethink in his bloody war on drugs.

Duterte castigated the EU for urging him to focus his campaign on drugs rehabilitation and stood by his security-centred approach to a crackdown that has left thousands of people dead since he took office nine months ago.

He turned angry during a speech to Chinese businessmen, where he praised China for its no-strings-attached loans and aid and said he did not need the EU, or “idiotic” rehabilitation programmes that failed to stop addicts committing robbery, rape and murder.

Fact-finding mission in Myanmar OK’d:

The UNbacked Human Rights Council on Friday approved a resolution by consensus to “dispatch urgently” an international fact-finding mission to Myanmar to probe alleged abuses by military and security forces, particularly against the minority Rohingya Muslim community.

In a move bound to put pressure on State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, the 47-member body threw its weight behind existing efforts to investigate alleged rights abuses such as torture, rape, arbitrary killings and forced displacement of the Rohingya in western Rakhine state. Zaw Htay, a presidential spokesman, said Myanmar “cannot accept” the council’s decision.

“What the UN Human Rights Council did to us is totally not fair and not right under international practices,” Htay said by phone, citing a domestic investigation. “They should have waited and watched the correspondent country’s investigation, and the result coming out from that,” and only then offer possible criticism of its work, he added.

Sydney teen pleads guilty to plot:

A Sydney teenager pleaded guilty on Friday to plotting a terrorist attack on an Australian Veteran’s Day ceremony last year.

The then 16-year-old was arrested and charged with one count of planning a terrorist attack on April 24, one day before hundreds of thousands of Australians gathered at ceremonies across the country to mark ANZAC Day.

The annual holiday commemorates the April 25, 1915, Gallipoli landings in Turkey — the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I.

The youth, who cannot be identified because of his age, pleaded guilty in Parramatta Children’s Court in western Sydney to planning a terrorist act by trying to source a gun or a bomb-making manual. He will remain in custody until the case returns to court on April 21. He faces a potential sentence of life in prison.

Indonesian police arrest 4 militants:

Indonesia’s counterterrorism squad has arrested four suspected Islamic militants who were trying to establish a jihadist training camp in eastern Indonesia and who likely had links with Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines, police said Friday.

National Police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said the men were arrested in several locations on the island of Java on Thursday and were connected to four militants ambushed by police on the same day near Jakarta. One of those in the ambush was fatally shot by police.

Amar said all eight were members of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, a network of Indonesian extremist groups led by imprisoned radical cleric Aman Abdurrahman that was formed in 2015 and pledges allegiance to Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Muslim-majority Indonesia has carried out a sustained crackdown on militants since 2002, when bombings on the tourist island of Bali by al-Qaeda-affiliated radicals killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. A new threat has emerged in the past several years from IS sympathizers.