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Philippines, communist rebels resume talks in Feb
Associated Press - December 3, 2010
Manila, Philippines – The Philippine government and communist rebels announced Friday they will resume peace negotiations to end the 41-year-old Maoist insurgency early next year after the talks were suspended more than six years ago.
The two sides also agreed during two days of informal meetings in Hong Kong this week to observe a cease-fire for the Christmas and New Year's holidays from Dec. 16 to Jan. 3, 2011, chief government negotiator Alexander Padilla and his rebel counterpart Luis Jalandoni said in separate statements.
The government and the rebels will hold preliminary talks in January to pave the way for the formal resumption of peace negotiations tentatively set for late February in Oslo, Norway, they said.
The Norwegian government is brokering the talks for a political settlement of one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies.
The Dec. 1-2 talks in Hong Kong "were open, friendly, freewheeling and eventually meaningful," Padilla said.
Padilla informed Jalandoni, a former Roman Catholic priest living in exile in The Netherlands, that an agreement giving safe passage and immunity to rebel negotiators and their staff had been restored. An order that could prevent Jalandoni from leaving the Philippines was also lifted, he said.
Jalandoni urged the government to release 43 health workers arrested early this year on suspicion they were part of the New People's Army – the armed wing of the underground Communist Party of the Philippines – and to withdraw charges against rebel negotiators and consultants to show additional goodwill and build confidence for the resumption of talks.
The Marxist umbrella group National Democratic Front, which represents the rebels in the talks, withdrew from the negotiating table in 2004 after accusing the government of then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of instigating the inclusion of the Communist Party and its armed wing on US and European lists of terrorists organizations.
Hopes were raised for the resumption of talks with the communist insurgents, as well as with Muslim separatist rebels, after the country's new and popular president, Benigno Aquino III, took office June 30.
Aquino, son of Philippine democracy icons Corazon Aquino and Benigno Aquino Jr., reconstituted the government peace panels in the talks with rebel groups.
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