Manila, July 16: Peace talks aimed at ending the Philippines’ 40-year Maoist armed rebellion are to resume in Norway next month after a four-year hiatus, the Manila government’s chief negotiator said.
The prospects of finally signing an agreement with the insurgents “are very good,” said the official, Avelino Razon.
Leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed unit, the New People’s Army (NPA), who are directly involved in the talks, would be immune from arrest on Filipino territory starting Friday, he told a public forum.
This would allow members of the CPP-NPA and its political wing, the National Democratic Front “to prepare for the resumption of the formal peace negotiations, which is set in August this year in Oslo.”
A senior Razon aide said the official may meet with communist rebel negotiator Luis Jalandoni before then. The rebel leader arrived earlier this week in Manila from his Dutch exile.
The NPA, whose membership ballooned to more than 26,000 in the mid-1980s, has dwindled to 5,000 armed members, according to military estimates.
Razon said Oslo had brokered the resumption of peace talks.
Norway had previously hosted the negotiations until they were suspended four years ago after President Gloria Arroyo refused communist demands that she ask western governments to cancel the rebels’ designation as “terrorists”.
Many of the communists’ top leaders, including Jalandoni, live in exile in the Netherlands.
Their designation as “terrorists” on international lists led to the freezing of their assets and bank accounts, including those held by Jose Maria Sison, the group’s exiled leader who is based in the Dutch city of Utrecht.
–Agencies