NDF shelves peace talks with Manila

Communist rebels yesterday shelved low-profile peace negotiations with the Philippine government and charged it with undertaking "state terrorism worst of its kind".

"The NDF (National Demo-cratic Front of the Philippines) negotiating panel is recommending to the NDF National Council to hold under indefinite study the NDF's negotiations with the government of President Gloria Arroyo," Luis Jalandoni, chairperson of the National Democratic Front negotiating panel, said in a statement yesterday from his office in the Netherlands.

Most of the NDF leaders have been in self-imposed exile in Netherlands for more than two decades.

The statement from the NDF came a day after its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA), called for attacks on U.S. troops and companies in reaction to Washington's labelling of the group as a terrorist organisation.

Jalandoni claimed the Arroyo government is committing "massive human rights violations against the people".

"This constitutes state terrorism of the worst kind." He cited documentation of human rights violations allegedly committed by the military from January 22, 2001, to July 15, 2002, showing 1,334 cases involving 37,164 victims plus 1,265 families and 38 communities.

"These include cases of killings, massacres, forced disappearances, torture, forced evacuation, destruction of properties, food blockades," he alleged.

Jalandoni added that by declaring an all-out war against the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the NDF and the NPA, "it is collaborating with the U.S. in misrepresenting the negotiators, consultants and staffers of the NDF as 'terrorists' and oppressing them abroad".

Jalandoni warned that as long as the Arroyo government persists in its "acts of state terrorism" and alleged massive human rights violations while refusing to respect and comply with agreements it has signed, "it must be held accountable for destroying the possibility of advancing the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines)-NDF peace negotiations".

The peace negotiations between the NDF and the government were stalled last year when two legislators were gunned down by communist assassins because of alleged "blood debts" to the revolutionary movement and the people.

Recently, the U.S. government categorised the 33-year-old communist movement as a "terrorist" organisation, citing the group's attacks on civilians that included American diplomats in the Philippines.

Manila said it agrees with Washington's move even as it refused to scuttle so-called "back channel" negotiations with the communists.

Last Saturday, Gregorio Rosal, spokesman of the NPA, said the "terrorist" label was a sign of American "preparations for justifying its violation of Philippine sovereignty and launching a war of aggression" against local communist guerrillas.

"The revolutionary and progressive forces must take action to thwart armed aggression even before it is actually waged and frustrate it once American troops enter the Philippines.

"We must unite the people, raise their spirit of militant patriotism and mobilise them in all arenas of resistance, both armed and unarmed," he said.

He also said that U.S. economic interests in the Philippines could be attacked through labour unrest by leftist unions and by "calculated pressure" from the NPA.

"U.S. multinational companies will realise just how much a U.S. war of aggression in the Philippines will disadvantage them," Rosal said.

He did not specify how U.S. firms would be targeted. Americans are the largest foreign investors in this country.