Reds threatened with US-backed attacks – Sison

A document of surrender.

This was how Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Ma. Sison described the "final peace agreement" the government peace panel proposed to the rebel leaders when they met in Europe for the resumption of the peace negotiations.

The self-exiled communist leader claimed that instead of seeking a resumption of the peace talks, the government mission gave the National Democratic Front (NDF) a "military ultimatum to surrender in six months."

Sison said that government peace panel chair Silvestre Bello III and Presidential Management Staff chief Silvestre Afable told NDF panel head, Luis Jalandoni, that communist forces in the country will "face joint combat operations of the US and the Armed Forces of the Philippines" if rebel leaders refuse to sign Mrs. Arroyo’s so-called "final peace agreement."

Because of this, Sison said that they are now more convinced that the proposed "final peace agreement" is a document of surrender.

In a media briefing at Camp Aguinaldo on Friday, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes said it was most "unfortunate" that the NDF has rejected the government’s effort to reach out to the rebels and give peace a chance.

Sison insists, though, that it was the government which abruptly broke off the negotiations.

"The NDF cannot be intimidated," he said.

Sison said that both Afable and Bello also stated that it was in the country’s national interest that US troops being deployed for joint exercises "have jurisdiction" over domestic armed conflicts, including the AFP’s counterinsurgency campaign against the New People’s Army (NPA), the CPP’s armed wing.

It appears then, he said, that the White House and Malacañang are out "to insult and provoke the NDF with the demand for surrender and misrepresent the refusal to surrender as a refusal to engage in peace negotiations."

This would likely be used to justify an all-out war by combined American and Filipino soldiers against the NPA, Sison said.

In August last year, Washington designated the CPP and NPA as "foreign terrorist organizations."

This was followed in October by a high-level lobby by Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople that led the Council Common of the 15-member European Union (EU) to also regard Sison and the CPP-NPA as "terrorist threats."

Malacañang is firm that the "terrorist" label is "hanging like a Damocles sword over Sison, and two of the NDF’s major organizations, the CPP and the NPA," he said. It is putting the rebel peace panel under duress, he said.