Communist rebels show no interest in Christmas truce

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—A series of attacks by New People’s Army rebels occurred in Mindanao on Thursday, a day before the government’s 18-day, unilateral ceasefire took effect.

Colonel Leopoldo Galon, spokesperson of the Eastern Mindanao Command here, said the latest incident took place in San Isidro, Davao Oriental.

Galon said that on Thursday evening, NPA rebels burned a dump truck owned by the San Isidro-based coconut coir company Oz Wisphil.

He said that before the rebels set the dump truck on fire in Barangay Manikling, they ordered the driver and his two assistants to disembark.

“The perpetrators immediately fled after the burning towards Barangay Dugmanon, San Isidro,” Galon said.

On the same day, rebels clad in police uniforms raided the municipal jail of Lianga in Surigao del Sur and took with them several high-powered firearms, he said.

It was the second NPA attack in the town since April, when rebels  stormed the Lianga police office.

Galon said Thursday’s raid at 7:40 a.m. took place two hours after Army troops battled NPA rebels in Barangay San Pedro, also in Lianga.

“The NPA doesn’t care even if it is Christmas,” he said.

The Communist Party of the Philippines, the NPA’s mother organization,  had said early on that it was not interested in a Christmas truce with the government.

Last week, the rebels rejected the military’s declaration of a ceasefire during the Christmas season saying it was just the military’s way of “draw(ing) away attention from its dismal human rights record.”

“All year long, the AFP is on a rampage, committing one fascist act after another, imposing martial law and carrying out Palparan-style population control, food and economic blockades in peasant communities,” the NPA said in a post on its Web site on December 6.

“For the people, it makes no sense for the AFP to declare a ceasefire if military units do not relent in setting up camps and detachments inside their communities and schools, taunt and force the people to follow the AFP’s ‘guardia civil’ policies, harass and prevent them from working in their fields and earning their keep,” the NPA said.