No Holy Week truce—CPP

LUCENA CITY, Philippines—The New People’s Army will not also observe a Lenten ceasefire due to continuous military offensives by government forces, the Communist Party of the Philippines has announced.

The CPP, in a statement issued Tuesday, said there could not be a Holy Week truce because “the brutality of the Aquino regime’s war in the countryside has stepped up in the past few months, with state forces resorting to aerial bombings, massacres and shootings directed against unarmed people waging struggles against oppression and exploitation.”

The CPP also blamed the Aquino administration’s failure to advance the peace talks between communist rebels and the government as also one of the reasons behind their decision not to observe cessation of armed hostilities in the Holy Week.

“Peace talks and human rights are completely out of the list of priorities of the US-Aquino regime as shown by the intensified atrocities being carried out by its armed forces under its Oplan Bayanihan war of suppression,” said the CPP.

On Tuesday, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda announced that there will be no suspension of military operations against NPA rebels during the Holy Week.

There had been no Lenten truce between communist guerillas and state security forces in the past.

The government and the communist rebels have yet to return to the peace table months after they first met in Oslo in February last year.

Peace talks between government and the communist-led National Democratic Front of the Philippines recently reached an impasse following a disagreement over the release of detained communist rebels.