Topic: Netherlands

“It’s not negotiable,” he told reporters. “No way peace talks held in the Philippines can be protected and spared from sabotage by spoilers and enemies of a genuine peace process.”

The group said a GRP team led by panel member Hernani Braganza travelled to Utrect, The Netherlands on June 18 to 20 to personally explain GRP’s cancellation of the June 28 resumption of formal negotiations.

The government conveyed its decision to suspend all backchannel talks with the NDF pending the three-month review of all signed agreements. But the two parties can communicate if necessary.

Formal resumption of negotiations between the government and the NDF was supposed to take place on June 28 in Oslo, Norway, but Duterte called it off last week to give way to public consultations.

Revolutionaries do not negotiate under the terms and conditions “of an emergent fascist dictatorship and in a place where mass murders are occurring with impunity,” said Sison, chief political consultant to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the CPP’s political arm that is negotiating with the government.

Agcaoili revealed that even before Dureza’s announcement to postpone both the “stand down agreement” and the resumption of formal talks on June 21 and June 28, respectively, the GRP has already told him and the Third Party Facilitator (TPF), the Royal Norwegian Government, of its unilateral decision.

“Duterte and Dureza want nothing but the immediate capitulation of the revolutionary movement under the guise of an indefinite ceasefire and killing the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations,” he told ABS-CBN News from Utrecht.

“It is most reasonable that the June 28 resumption of formal peace talks proceed in Oslo. The agreements to be signed under the general title of interim peace agreement are well within the competence of the negotiating panels. However, Duterte or his Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea can grace the occasion and co-witness with me the signing of the agreement,” Sison told Kodao.

The stand-down agreement precludes government forces and the rebels from committing “any offensive action or operation against combatants and civilians.”
Both sides will also “stay where they are” and “take an active defense mode,” according to a copy of the deal obtained by ABS-CBN News.
The agreement will then be replaced by a clearer and more binding coordinated unilateral ceasefire deal once formal talks resumed.

Sison said the thrice-cancelled fifth round of formal talks shall push through on June 28 to 30, contrary to GRP President Rodrigo Duterte’s latest statement that the negotiations would resume sometime in mid-July.