EDITORIAL — Confidence-building

If the government and communist rebels are sincere in their desire to revive peace negotiations, both sides should stop insisting on preconditions that are unlikely to be met at this time. The New People’s Army is not going to lay down its arms, as certain security officials are insisting before peace talks are revived. And the European Union – as its foreign policy chief has made clear – and the United States aren’t about to lift their terrorist tags on the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA.

Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermo-genes Esperon Jr. had proposed the resumption of peace talks with the communists, making no secret of his hope that the rebels would assist the government in stopping the killings of left-wing activists. He also proposed a ceasefire for three years – a period that would coincide with the remainder of President Arroyo’s term, which could be why the rebels were cool to the proposal.

CPP chairman Jose Ma. Sison welcomed the proposed revival of the talks, initially with only one condition, which was reasonable: the talks must be held, as in the past, outside the Philippines. Later, he tacked on the demand to lift the US and EU terror tags on the CPP-NPA. Inclusion in the list of foreign terrorist organizations, with Sison himself classified as a terrorist, has dried up foreign funding for the CPP-NPA, opened the rebels’ bank accounts to scrutiny and cost the exiled leaders their welfare benefits in the Netherlands. The terror tag also means Sison and company cannot get political asylum in their adopted country.

Reviving peace talks will require certain confidence-building measures. But Sison knows his condition for the revival of peace talks is a tough one, especially because the NPA had assassinated US Col. James Nicholas Rowe, a former Viet Cong prisoner of war, in April 1989 when the Special Forces officer was with the Joint US Military Advisory Group in Manila.

The terror tag may be lifted in the future, and an endorsement from the Philippine government may help, but the lifting is unlikely to happen before peace talks are revived. If the rebels insist on the lifting of the terror tag, perhaps rival communist factions in the Philippines are right: the exiles aren’t interested in a peace agreement. They just want their funding and Dutch welfare benefits back.