Talks with NPA rebels hit impasse

MANILA, Philippines - Government negotiator Alexander Padilla yesterday said peace talks with communist guerrillas have hit an impasse after they insisted on the release of jailed comrades amid escalating rebel attacks.

Padilla said the guerrillas wanted several more of their comrades freed after authorities released five in recent months, one of whom, Luisa Portal, has returned to fight with the rebels.

Padilla called on the insurgents to show sincerity in the peace process, as he revealed that Portal, identified by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) as one of the political prisoners serving as its consultants and covered by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), has gone underground again.

He said another one of the five supposed consultants has also gone missing.

The five, who are among the 18 JASIG-protected prisoners, were earlier released by the government as part of its confidence-building measures with the CPP-NPA-NDF in its effort to ink an agreement that would end the more than 50 years of insurgency.

Padilla said Portal “is one of the top leaders of the NPA. (She) went underground again, while another one is now missing and is reportedly also joining the underground again.”

“How are we going to release the others that they were claiming to be covered by JASIG, then upon their release they will just go underground again,” he said.

The JASIG, which was signed by the government and the NDF in 1995, provides that no arrests or detention of NDF consultants or members who are protected by the agreement must be made.

Padilla lamented though that the JASIG has been widely abused by the NDF, noting that the three scholars of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines who were arrested in Quezon recently, were also being claimed by the NDF as JASIG-protected.

He, however, said the government is prepared to proceed with the talks with the NDF this month.

The Maoist rebels, estimated to number more than 4,000, have been waging one of Asia’s longest-running communist insurgencies. – AP, Jose Rodel Clapano