MikeLigalig.com

By: Carlos H. Conde
www.iht.com

Communist guerrillas have warned of more attacks in the Philippines in response to the government's offer of amnesty, which the rebels called a ploy to break up the four-decade-old communist movement.

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the umbrella organization of various Filipino communist groups led by the Communist Party, called on the New People's Army, the party's armed wing, "to intensify tactical offensives against legitimate military targets."

The call was made Saturday by the front's leadership in Mindanao, in the south, in reaction to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's announcement Friday that she would grant amnesty to Filipino communist rebels.

The communists said the arrest in late August of Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the party, was another reason they rejected the offer. Sison's arrest in the Netherlands, said a rebel spokesman using the nom de guerre Ka Oris, "is a total blow to the chance for the peaceful resolution of the political conflict in the Philippines."

"It is sad that they have called for more attacks in response to the government's sincere and laudable amnesty offer," a presidential spokesman, Ricardo Saludo, said Sunday. "This desperate move by the NPA will not stop the peace efforts now gaining among more and more of their followers on the ground," he said.

Satur Ocampo, a leftist congressman, criticized the amnesty offer as a "counterinsurgency ploy" meant to divide the communist movement. "Amnesty to be meaningful must form part of a comprehensive peace agreement and not a unilateral act of government in an ongoing armed conflict," Ocampo said in a statement.

The New People's Army has been waging a "protracted people's war" since 1969. More than 40,000 civilians, soldiers and rebels have died in the fighting.

In recent years, the rebels, estimated to have 7,000 fighters, have targeted not just military positions but also businesses that refuse to pay "revolutionary taxes." The U.S. and the EU consider the Communist Party and the New People's Army terrorist organizations.

Officials said they had anticipated such a reaction to the amnesty offer. As of late last week, the police and military had been put on heightened alert. "We are prepared for this," said Oscar Calderon, chief of the national police.

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They rejected amnesty...may the hammer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines bring these rebel terrorist to their knees--until they swear fealty to the Philippine Eagle! We shouldnt broker deal with terrorists, anyways.

Don't they know that communism in itself is a failure? It doesn't work.

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