NPA to intensify attacks following collapse of talks-Joma

LUCENA CITY –Self-exiled Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison on Saturday called on revolutionary forces to intensify armed rebellion following the collapse of the peace talks and President Duterte’s order to hunt and kill the NPA.

“The revolutionary forces and the people have no other choice but to fight in response to Duterte’s threat of surrender or be killed Tokhang style,” Sison said in an online interview from Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Sison blamed the “American-trained war hawks” in the military as behind the cancellation of the peace negotiations.

Sison said the order to re-arrest and recall the bail of more than 20 NDFP peace consultants recently has effectively ended the talks.

“Duterte has terminated the peace negotiations with his call to NDFP consultants to surrender or be hunted down,” said Sison, who served as the NDFP chief political consultant, in the NDFP’s on-and-off peace negotiations with the government.

Sison said the order violated  the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig) which the government and the NDFP signed on February 24, 1995. The agreement is supposed to protect from arrest and other harassments negotiators from both sides who are taking part in the talks. The fifth round of negotiations did not push through on May 27 after the government panel withdrew in protest of the CPP’s order to the NPA to step up attacks against government troops. ‘ Government and NDFP negotiators, however, started back channel talks
this month to revive the talks and had tentatively scheduled the holding of the fifth round of negotiations in August.
But Duterte called off all back channelling efforts on Wednesday after a clash with NPA rebels in Arakan, North Cotabato province, which wounded four members of the
Presidential Security Group (PSG). GAL