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Philippine rebels say peace talks impossible
Associated Press - March 6, 2009
Associated Press, Manila – Philippine communist rebels blamed government forces Friday for the killing of a guerrilla leader's daughter, saying her death made a resumption of peace talks impossible.
The body of teacher Rebelyn Pitao, 20, was found in an irrigation canal in the southern Philippines with three stab wounds to her chest late Thursday, a day after she was abducted in Davao city, said Chief Superintendent Pedro U. Tango, the regional police chief.
The victim was the daughter of Leoncio Pitao, a prominent regional commander of the New People's Army rebels, who have fought for a communist state for more than four decades.
The killing and other human rights violations allegedly committed by government troops under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's administration "render peace talks with the Arroyo regime untenable," chief rebel negotiator Luis Jalandoni said in a statement from exile in the Netherlands.
Jalandoni said Pitao's brother was abducted and killed last year.
Military spokesman Maj. Randolph Cabangbang condemned the killing and promised to investigate possible army involvement. But he said rebels could be trying to discredit the government.
Left-wing human rights group Karapatan called for an independent investigation by a team representing human rights groups, the church, the local government and the government-funded Commission on Human Rights.
The rebels have intensified attacks on small army and police units and poorly guarded jails to seize weapons and thwart Arroyo's order to crush their insurgency by next year.
Peace talks, brokered by Norway, stalled in 2004 when the rebels accused the Philippine government of instigating their inclusion on a US list of terrorist organizations.
Rebel ranks have thinned to an estimated 5,200 – down from a peak of more than 25,000 in the mid-1980s – because of battle setbacks, surrenders and factionalism.
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