The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) called on Congress to launch an inquiry on the recent postponement of the peace negotiations between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) scheduled on August 24-30. According to Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos, secretary general of the group, “the root cause of the delay must be found out and immediate action for its resolution should be done. We also need to find out what has been impeding the peace talks for the longest time now. As we know the GRP has unilaterally postponed the peace talks in 2001 and it only resumed this year after more than 2 ½ years, most probably because its an election year?”

“Also we need to know what progress has the peace talks reached since it began and are the two sides complying with what they already agreed upon. An example of which is the Joint Monitoring Committee, there are now 101 cases filed against the GRP, but what has been done about it? How about the delisting of the CPP-NPA and Prof. Jose Maria Sison from the US terrorist list, this was the agreement reached earlier this year but what has the government done about it? The CPP-NPA and Prof. Sison are still unjustly on the infamous list,” said the peasant leader.

Most of the political prisoners that are to be freed as confidence-building measures are still languishing in jail among these are the Mamburao 7 detainees. Of the 25 targeted up to May 10 this year on 10 were set free.

As for his part Carl Anthony Ala, public information of KMP challenged Congress to help in whatever way possible for the success of the peace talks. “Congress as they say is the representation of the people in the government therefore it must do all it can to expedite the resolution of the armed conflict by passing laws which are beneficial for the citizens and by launching inquiries, measures and resolutions that would facilitate the immediate resumption of the talks”

“An example of this measure is for it to pass a resolution for the delisting of the CPP-NPA and Prof. Sison from the US terrorist list, this is a thorny issue that has been on the side of the negotiators for a long time, if this can be done immediately and it can be passed then we think that the peace talks would be well underway,” ended Ala. # # #
 

KMP - 12 August 2004