Duterte threatens to end peace initiatives if rebel attacks persist

President Rodrigo Duterte INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered government peace negotiators not to resume peace talks with the communist rebels until the New People’s Army (NPA) stop their attacks against government forces.

Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza said on Wednesday the peace talks–its fifth round–with the communist rebels remain suspended.

“The talks, the fifth round are still officially suspended,” Dureza said in a phone patch interview with reporters.

“Yun ang last directive niya kagabi. Sabi niya wala munang resumption of peace talks (This was his directive last night. He said no resumption of peace talks at the moment). Back channel muna kayo,” he added.

Dureza and other government negotiators met with President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday night in Malacañang.

The fifth round of peace talks with the rebels was suspended on May 27, after the government panel withdrew from the negotiating table due to the order of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) telling the NPA to intensify attacks against security forces.

READ: Defense chief Lorenzana, leftists swap blame for stalled talks
Dureza said the President only agreed with the holding of back channel talks with the negotiators from the National Democratic Front (NDF).

“There is no decision to resume it. Ang in-okay ng Pangulo yung mag-back channel, informal (The President approved the back channel),” Dureza said.

“And then after that, kung anong resulta (what’s the result), we report to the President to find out kung okay na ba to resume (if it’s ok to resume),” he added.

Duterte has previously slammed the communist rebels for its attacks against government troops despite the peace talks. He said he won’t allow the resumption of peace talks unless the NPA stopped their extortion activities.

The government blamed the NPA — the 4,000-member armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines — and threatened to shelve peace negotiations unless the guerrillas stopped targeting soldiers in the south.

“The president directed the government panel… not to resume formal peace talks unless the reds (leftist rebels) agree to stop their attacks against government troops in Mindanao,” said a statement issued by the presidential palace.

Aides said Duterte, 72, was not in the convoy when gunmen opened fire on two Presidential Security Group vehicles along a highway on the main southern island of Mindanao, where martial law is in effect.

READ: Duterte security men ambushed in North Cotabato; 6 wounded

The communist party, which is waging Asia’s longest-running insurgency, called on its armed wing on Tuesday to launch offensives in response to Duterte’s plan to put Mindanao under martial law until the end of the year.

The communist insurgency that began in 1968 and which the military says is now mostly waged in Mindanao has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives.

The rebels have been in off-and-on peace talks with the government since Duterte, a self-described socialist, was elected last year.

Both sides declared unilateral ceasefires, but these did not last.

To try and end the two-month impasse, Duterte was planning to send negotiators shortly to an unspecified venue and informally discuss a possible bilateral ceasefire agreement, the government statement said.

But it warned that for formal peace talks to resume, the rebels must commit to “suspending operations against the military and the police and stopping all their extortion activities on the ground.”

A senior Mindanao military official, Brigadier-General Gilberto Gapay, said the communists were behind the attack on the Duterte bodyguards.

“This is part of their nationwide call for armed groups to oppose martial law by launching intensified offensives against government forces,” Gapay told radio station DZBB in Manila. With a report from Agence France-Presse / CBB / JPV