GOVT TO RELEASE 32 POLITICAL PRISONERS
MANILA, April 3, 2004 (STAR) The government announced yesterday it will release 32 detained members and supporters of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), including women and minors, as part of the peace process with communist rebels.The release of political prisoners has been one of the key demands of the rebels, who opened a new round of talks with government negotiators in Norway this week on ending the 35-year-old Maoist insurgency.
The announcement from Manila came after chief rebel negotiator Luis Jalandoni claimed the government and the communist umbrella group National Democratic Front (NDF) are locked in a dispute over demands to release all political prisoners.
The rebels have complained that the government reneged on its promise to free political offenders.
But chief government negotiator Silvestre Bello III said in a statement from Oslo that 32 "alleged political offenders" will be released starting next week, in addition to 98 others who have been freed since 2001.
Bello said among those who will be released are seven women, including a nursing mother, 10 minors and the sick and elderly.
He said the government "continues to release alleged political prisoners as one of its confidence-building measures for the ongoing peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front to end the 35 years of armed conflict in the Philippines."
The NDF includes the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army.
Marie Hilao Enriquez, secretary-general of the human rights group Karapatan, claimed there are 310 political offenders nationwide and that most of them were charged with murder and illegal possession of firearms to prevent them from posting bail.
Government and rebel negotiators are now meeting in Oslo for the second round of the revived peace process to tackle anew the issue of releasing all political prisoners.
Last Feb. 14, the two panels signed what is now being referred to as the Oslo Accord, under which government negotiators agreed in behalf of Malacañang that all political prisoners, including those charged with common crimes, will be unconditionally freed from imprisonment.
According to Jalandoni, this is the second time that the government promised to release the political prisoners, as he pointed out that it failed to comply with this the first time it did so in 2001.
He said Malacañang’s "lack of compliance" with its agreements with the NDF has been "causing a delay in the peace talks."
The peace talks in Oslo are also expected to tackle the controversial terror tag on the communist movement.
The NDF had asked the Philippine government to join its demand for Western countries to delete the communist movement from their terrorist blacklists.
The declaration calls on the US, the members of the 15-nation European Union (EU), Canada and Australia "to support the efforts of the parties in resolving the outstanding issue of the CPP-NPA being on the terrorist listing."
The government and the CPP-NPA had also agreed in the first round of talks to create a joint committee to monitor the implementation of an agreement they signed in 1998 on the respect for human rights and international humanitarian law. - Benjie Villa
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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