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From Malacañang, there was neither immediate
reaction to nor confirmation of reported peace talks held this week
in Norway between its emissaries and those of the outlawed National
Democratic Front (NDF) to resolve the “forgotten” Maoist
insurgency in the Philippines.
A Norwegian official, though,
said the meeting had been requested by Manila and the NDF.
Jesus Dureza, presidential
adviser for the peace process, on Friday afternoon said President
Gloria Arroyo will issue a statement on the reported negotiations.
No statement came from the Chief Executive, however.
A Norwegian government website
said the talks held in Oslo from Tuesday to Thursday were
“consultations.” The website showed a picture of Jose Maria
Sison, who lives in exile in the Netherlands, posing with Filipino
government representative Nieves Confesor and their hosts during the
negotiations. Confesor was a former Labor secretary.
Sison supposedly is the founder
of the Communist Party of the Philippines, a member-organization of
the umbrella group NDF. He is also believed to have helped found the
New People’s Army, which is also affiliated with the NDF.
Norway has hosted talks between
the Philippines and exiled leaders of the Southeast Asian
country’s long-running and largely forgotten Maoist insurgency, a
statement released by Oslo also on Friday said.
The statement added that the two
parties “exchanged views on the status of the peace process” and
have agreed to meet again on an unspecified date “later this
year” after having asked Oslo to host the planned discussion.
President Arroyo called off peace
talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines in 2004, making
concerned parties conclude that her government was not interested in
a political settlement with the leftist insurgents.
Norway’s hosting of the
informal meeting between the two parties was seen as a bid to
restart the peace process.
“The Norwegian government acted
as host and third-party facilitator to the talks, which took place
at the request of the two parties,” Raymond Johansen, State
Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in the
statement.
“Norway is seeking to ensure
that efforts to resolve ‘forgotten conflicts,’ such as this,
receive the necessary international support,” he added.
The armed conflict with the
leftist insurgency has claimed tens of thousands of lives and the
President said it has set back the development of large areas of the
Philippines. In those areas, the leftist rebels attack businesses
that fail to pay “revolutionary taxes” that it needs to fund its
armed operations.
Mrs. Arroyo has set 2010 as the
target for breaking the back of the 39-year-old rebellion currently
waged across the archipelago by about 6,000 NPA guerrillas and their
substantial support base.
That deadline may be met, a top
military officer said, only if the Armed Forces of the Philippines
steps up its civil-military operations, or CMOs, in the countryside
where the rebels claim they hold sway.
If the government fails to do so,
Maj. Gen. Jaime Buenaflor said also on Friday, the communist
rebellion might stay and can even go beyond 2010.
Buenaflor, the chief of the
National Development Command, added that the military should give
more focus on civilian-military operations, rather than combat
operations, to ensure victory over the New People’s Army.
“We will be having a hard time.
I’m very pessimistic regarding that [target]. If we don’t
increase our CMOs, it will take us a long, long time [to defeat the
Maoist insurgents], we could even fail to achieve our goals,” he
told reporters.
At present, combat operations get
50 percent to 60 percent of military priorities; intelligence, 20
percent to 30 percent; and civilian-military operations, 10 percent
to 15 percent.
Buenaflor explained that the
focus of the military does not match that of the New People’s Army
wherein 80 percent to 90 percent of its activities are devoted to
ideological, organizational and political work and propaganda.
Military operations account for only 20 percent to 30 percent.
During the first quarter of 2008,
the military said, it was able to neutralize eight guerrilla fronts,
raising the total number of dismantled fronts to 21. Ten other
fronts have been downgraded and 13 are currently on the advance
stage of degradation based on the latest data from the Armed Forces.
The National Development Command
was created last year and is in charge of undertaking infrastructure
projects to transform conflict-affected communities into peace and
development areas.
--Afp And Jefferson Antiporda
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