Philippines to resume talks with communist rebels

[Coventina]

Source: AFP

MANILA (AFP) — The Philippines is set to resume peace negotiations with communist insurgents, four years after long-running talks were suspended, President Gloria Arroyo's chief aide has said.

Norway is to host the talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) at a still unspecified date, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said.

He said the government would suspend arrest warrants against rebel leaders who take part in the talks, giving them immunity starting July 17 until the conclusion of talks aimed at ending the 40-year Maoist rebellion.

"We have enough good reason to agree to the resumption of the talks facilitated by the Norwegian government," Ermita told reporters.



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[David__77]

1. Negotiate what?

Really, I do not understand it. CPP does not want to become an unarmed political party. Its strategy is protracted guerrilla warfare aimed at seizing power.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. Why couldn't it be convinced other strategies are better?

A la Batasuna or Sinn Fein? (sp)

[BOG PERSON]

3. Maybe they're just buying time to regroup

or seeing what (if any) concessions they can extract from the Philippine government.

[Douglas Carpenter]

4. I live part of the year in Neuva Ecija in north/central Luzon - once the center of NPA activity in

the northern Philippines.

It appears to me and to everyone I talk to that the New Peoples Army, the armed wing of the Philippine Communist Party is little more than a faint shadow of its former self. Although it once enjoyed some serious degree of popular support with the rural poor who are the vast majority - I don't get the impression that anyone sees them as a significant force anymore.

In the past, they established themselves and earned a lot of support as the peoples' avenger. In a society where the rich can quite literally get away with murder and any other crime with total impunity, the NPA would deliver its vigilante justice quickly and swiftly. Now even that role which once won them much respect has largely faded. They appear to most people at least in the center of what was once their stronghold as little more than a rough version of the boy scouts.