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Jamby meets with NDF leaders, pushes resumption of talks
Article posted October 13, 2007 - 04:19 PM
Opposition Senator Maria Ana Consuelo "Jamby" Madrigal met with
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) leaders in The
Netherlands over the weekend in a bid to resume stalled peace talks
with the government.
In a joint statement issued Saturday (Manila time), Madrigal and the
NDFP negotiating panel called for the immediate resumption of formal
peace talks.
"Senator Madrigal and the NDFP Negotiating Panel agreed that all
patriotic Filipino parties, organizations, institutions, individuals and the
broad masses of the people must unite to encourage the GRP and
NDFP to resume the formal talks," they said.
"They agreed that the solidarity and support of the peoples and
states in the international community are needed for the GRP-NDFP
peace negotiations."
Both sides agreed to create a technical working group to assist in
hastening the resolution of the remaining items in the peace talks.
They also scored what they called the "grave economic, political,
cultural and moral crisis" that should be reason for the immediate
resumption of talks.
Also, they said the peace negotiations must address the roots of
the armed conflict and forge the agreements on social, economic,
political and constitutional reforms.
"They expressed common concern about the Arroyo regime's wanton
corruption, gross and systematic violation of human rights and subservience
to foreign vested interests. They pointed to the urgent necessity of
the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations within the framework of The Hague
Joint Declaration," the statement said.
Also during the meeting, Jalandoni turned over to Madrigal videotaped
statements of NDF consultants and members whose offices were raided
last August 28, for an upcoming Senate inquiry into the matter.
Madrigal met with the NDF negotiating panel and chief political consultant
Jose Maria Sison. Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the
Philippines, was arrested Aug. 28 but freed last month.
According to Madrigal, she met with NDF panel also to get information
regarding the raids on their office and homes last August 28.
NDF chief consultant Luis Jalandoni, for his part, said the NDF considers
the peace negotiations as ongoing inasmuch as neither the NDFP nor
the GRP has terminated the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity
Guarantees (JASIG).
He added the NDFP is ever willing to resume formal talks within the
framework of The Hague Joint Declaration of 1992.
Jalandoni said impediments to the resumption of formal talks include the
repeated declaration of all-out war against the Communist Party of the
Philippines (CPP), the New People's Army (NPA) and the NDFP by the
Arroyo regime.
He also scored the brutal campaigns of military and police suppression
involving human rights violations as the forced displacement of more
than one million people from their homes and land and the extra-judicial
killing, abduction and torture of more than 1000 unarmed legal activists.
A third impediment was the raid on the NDF offices and the arrest of
Sison last August 28. - GMANews.TV
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