Gov’t to pursue ‘localized peace talks’ with NPA

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–How about localized peace talks?

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin on Monday said the government might initiate negotiations with field units of the New People’s Army after chief government negotiator Alexander Padilla reported that a peace deal with the Communist Party of the Philippines leadership based in the Netherlands seemed unlikely for now.

“We’re in an impasse right now. There’s no progress because they are asking many preconditions,” Gazmin said in a news briefing.

“Something has to change. They should agree on one point first. Do you agree to sit down and talk? The government says yes. But the (CPP-NPA panel) says, ‘Yes, but.’ There are preconditions,” he said.

“We want to have peace. We have been hurting each other for so long. We are all Filipinos. We should sit down and talk so that we save more lives. Our country’s progress will be much faster if there’s peace,” he added.

Facing a possible collapse of the peace talks with the National Democratic Front, the CPP’s political alarm, Gazmin said the government might study the possibility of having separate negotiations with the local rebels in a bid to end the world’s longest Maoist insurgency.

In fact, he said the Armed Forces of the Philippines had been conducting localized peace talks with the communist insurgents.

Gazmin, a retired Army general, said he himself witnessed territorial peace agreements between the military and the insurgents when he was still in the active service.

“We all know that the top leadership (of the CPP) cannot control those on the ground so we encourage the localized (negotiations),” he said.

“The CPP leaders maintain a very hardline stance. They do not know what their people experience in the countryside. These people are the ones who sleep under the trees in the hinterlands. Those leaders in the higher echelon do not feel that.”

While it was not an official stand of the government, Gazmin said the military had been encouraging its field commanders to engage the local NPA rebels in negotiations “to achieve peace in their area of responsibility.”

“If we wait for the order from the CPP leadership, it would really take a while. Their leaders based in Netherlands and their local leaders also differ (on some issues),” he said.

Asked if the government could adopt such a policy, he said: “They can adopt it. They can see in the reports submitted by the military that there’s progress in what we’re doing. It has been successful many times.”