ZAMBOANGA CITY, 22 February 2004 — Philippine authorities have filed criminal charges against the country’s communist rebel chieftain, as fighting between government and rebel forces continue despite the peace talks.
Police have filed homicide charges against Jose Maria Sison, founder of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and five captured New People’s Army (NPA) rebels implicated in the Monday killing of 9 policemen in the central province of Masbate, a military spokesman said.
“Police filed new crminal charges against Sison in connection with the killing of nine cops in Masbate,” Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero told the Arab News.
The NPA is the armed wing of the CPP and the National Democratic Front (NDF), its political arm, which is currently negotiating peace with the Arroyo government.
Government soldiers killed two communist insurgents in a clash early Thursday in Masbate Island, where security forces have mounted fresh offensive against the NPA, the military said.
It said soldiers clashed with about 30 gunmen in the village of Cabitan in Mandaon town before dawn, killing two of them. Troops also captured two wounded NPA fighters in a hospital in the southern Philippine city of Davao on Thursday.
The peace talks were suspended in 2001 after NPA assassins killed two lawmakers despite a cease-fire agreement with Manila.
The United States and the European Union tagged the CPP-NDF and the NPA as foreign terrorist organizations and froze its assets abroad on Manila’s recommendation. The rebel’s peace panel chief Luis Jalandoni said the tag and the subsequent freezing of CPP founder Jose Maria Sison’s assets and violated the provisions of the 1992 Hague Joint Declaration.
The NDF had insisted the Philippine government to issue a resolution to pressure the United States and the Council of the European Union into removing them and the NPA from their list of foreign terrorist organizations.
