Friday March 9, 8:09 PM Philippines declares 30-day ceasefire with communist insurgents SANTA CRUZ, Philippines, March 9 (AFP) - Philippine President Gloria Arroyo declared Friday a 30-day unilateral ceasefire with communist insurgents as government negotiators held talks with the rebels' Netherlands-based leader. The truce starts Monday, giving the New People's Army (NPA) an opportunity to make good its pledge to free captive army Major Noel Buan, the president announced during a provincial visit to this city of Santa Cruz, south of the capital. Government forces would refrain from conducting "offensive military operations" across 11 provinces south of Manila. Arroyo urged the NPA's mother organization, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), to "reciprocate this gesture" by freeing the kidnapped soldier. Arroyo later flew to the nearby town of Sariaya to attend the wake of a police officer who suffered fatal bullet wounds when his rebel captors clashed with a military patrol near the town of General Nakar north of here early Thursday. Chief Inspector Abelardo Martin, 52, was abducted in November 1999, amid an NPA kidnapping spree which forced the previous government to call off peace negotiations with the communists. Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza flew to the Netherlands and met Wednesday with the exiled CPP founder Jose Maria Sison, government sources said Friday. Sison has expressed interest in resuming peace talks owing to the confidence-building measures initiated by the new government, said the sources, who asked not to be named. Braganza is due to return to Manila next week. "I do not wish the unfortunate incident involving police inspector Abelardo Martin to happen again. The families of Martin and Buan as well as the entire nation have suffered enough anguish," Arroyo said. "Let us set us the tough talks and polemics and for once, give our people a break." National police chief Leandro Mendoza has ordered an investigation into the death of the police officer, including where the fatal bullets came from, police spokesman Superintendent Rodrigo De Gracia said. The NPA armory is largely made up of guns which they strip off the body of soldiers killed in hit and run attacks. Military spokesman Brigadier General Generoso Senga denied that Martin died from negligence and said that Martin was not killed by government bullets. He reiterated that the soldiers were not trying to rescue Martin but were merely attempting to interdict an NPA unit which raided a police station last week. They did not know the captive was with the rebel unit, he said. The month-long truce effectively gives the NPA a "presidential safe conduct pass to come down from the hills ... without fear of being interdicted by our troops," Arroyo said. Despite the ceasefire, she stressed that Manila would not allow the NPA to carry firearms openly or engage in criminal acts. The provinces covered by the ceasefire are Cavite, Batangas, Laguna, Quezon, Palawan, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Rizal, Marinduque, Aurora and Rombon. Arroyo last month, ordered a unilateral ceasefire in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao with the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The MILF mounted two raids in the southern island of Mindanao on Friday, killing one soldier and leaving seven other people wounded, a military spokesman said. Two other soldiers were injured when they stepped on a land mine laid by the MILF. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Copyright © 2001 AFP. All rights reserved. All information displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presses. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved.
