Communist rebels accuse Philippine leader of sabotaging peace talks

Manila (dpa) - Communist rebels on Wednesday accused Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of sabotaging efforts to revive stalled peace talks for alleging that there was growing evidence of links between the guerrillas and foreign terrorists.
Arroyo on Tuesday ordered a review of the peace negotiations with the communist rebels, citing intelligence reports of "growing links between the revolutionary left and international terrorist organizations''.

Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the negotiating panel of the National Democratic Front (NDF), the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), said the accusations were "baseless'' and sabotaging efforts to resume talks.

"Her announcement throws a monkey wrench into the government-NDF peace talks,'' he said in a statement released in Manila from his base in the Netherlands. "Her arrogant and misleading words vainly try to cover up the weakness and instability of her regime.''

Peace talks between the government and the communist rebels have been suspended since August, when the guerrillas postponed indefinitely a scheduled round of negotiations to protest their continued inclusion in the terror listing of foreign governments.

The United States, the European Union, Canada and Australia have included the CPP, it's armed wing, the New People's Army, and the communist movement's founding chairman Jose Maria Sison in their lists of foreign terrorists.

The rebels have accused the Philippine government of not taking steps to remove them from the terror blacklists.

On Tuesday, Arroyo said there was a need to focus government efforts on addressing the threat of the 35-year-old communist insurgency to ensure the country's instability.

"Intelligence reports show growing links between the revolutionary left and international terrorist organizations,'' she said after a National Security Council meeting. "We must meet this threat internally and externally with allies.''

Arroyo added that the CPP and the NPA have also been monitored to be using political institutions as "platforms for dissent bordering on sedition and civil disobedience''.

CPP spokesman Gregorio Rosal denounced the allegations as "mere figments of Arroyo's imagination''.

Rosal stressed the CPP and other revolutionary organizations in the Philippines only "build healthy relations with other communist and anti-imperialist organizations around the world'' based on such principles as social justice, democracy and equality.

He also warned that the military "can never defeat the NPA''. "The NPA will continue to grow as thousands of people are constantly drawn to it by their desire to end the present exploitative and oppressive social system,'' he said.

Communist rebels have been fighting the government since the late 1960s, making the movement one of the longest-running leftist insurgencies in Asia.

Since the postponement of the talks, fighting has escalated between the military and communist rebels throughout the Philippines. The CPP has also ordered the NPA to further increase offensives against government targets. dpa gl jg pe