(Eagle News)–Communist Party of the Philippines founding chair Jose Maria Sison slammed the government’s decision to hold localized peace talks with the Communist rebels.
In a statement on Tuesday, April 16, Sison called the peace talks “fake,” saying it was clear President Rodrigo Duterte and “his running dog” Peace Adviser Carlito Galvez “are not interested in serious peace negotiations through panels duly authorized by the (National Democratic Front of the Philippines) National Council and the (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) president as the principals at the national level.”
“Duterte and Galvez are interested merely in a psywar campaign to stage fake localized peace talks and fake surrenders between military officers and their military assets (disguised as surrendering rebels) in a stupid and futile attempt to deceive and divide the broad masses of the people,” he said.
He said such a “psywar campaign is a mere minor adjunct of the all-out war campaign to attack the people through red-tagging, mass intimidation, fake surrenders, bombing of communities, mass murder, forced evacuations and other atrocities in order to perpetuate the oppressive and exploitative ruling system of big compradors, landlords and corrupt bureaucrats headed by Duterte.”
“All commands of the (NPA) at all levels have rejected since a long time ago the offer of localized peace talks as an inutile tactic of deception to divide and defeat the armed revolutionary movement,” he said.
“It will be fun to ridicule Duterte and Galvez from month to month for failing to negotiate with a single real NPA commander or even to make any credible fabrication in this regard,” he added.
Duterte officially ended peace talks with the Communists in 2017, citing what he said were their atrocities that included the killing of a baby.
He recently dissolved the government’s panel in charge of such peace talks, opening the possibility of creating a new panel for the peace talks composed of at least two civilians and three military officials.
