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| Southeast Asia |
| Philipine Communist Party Leader Killed in Clash |
| 2004-02-13 |
| Four communist guerrillas, including a ranking party leader, were killed in fierce clashes in the southern Philippines, a military report said yesterday. Among those reported killed were Jose Adora, front secretary of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which is currently holding peace talks with the Arroyo government. Well, he’s peaceful now. Adora was killed along with three other rebels in a weekend gunbattle in the village of Cecilia in San Luis town, Agusan del Sur province, the military’s Southern Command in Zamboanga City said. The report said the rebels retreated to the hinterlands, dragging the bodies of their dead, but they left Adora’s behind as soldiers pursued them. "He’s too heavy, and he ain’t my brother" Manila yesterday resumed peace talks with the CPP and its political wing the National Democratic Front (NDF) in Oslo, Norway. The talks hit a snag, however, after rebel leaders demanded a resolution from Manila to pressure the United States and the Council of the European Union into removing the CPP-NDF and their military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA) from their list of foreign terrorist organizations. The United States and the European Union tagged the CPP-NDF and the NPA as foreign terrorists 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. "Tell them to quit calling us terrorists or we’ll blow stuff up!" Both the United States and the European Union blacklisted the local communist groups on Manila’s recommendation after NPA rebels executed two lawmakers despite a the peace negotiations and an existing cease-fire agreement in 2001. |
| Posted by:Steve |