From: news@netnews.upenn.edu (USENET News System)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Peace Talks to Proceed without a Cease Fire
Date: 10 Sep 92 18:27:25 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.filipino
Organization: University of Pennsylvania


	MANILA, Philippines (UPI) -- Communist guerrillas killed 12 soldiers
in a central Philippines ambush Wednesday.
	Meantime, government and rebel leaders said formal peace talks could
proceed even without a cease-fire.
	Military and radio reports said the soldierds were en route to their
base in Candoni in Negros Occidental province, 300 miles south of
Manila, when fired upon by 60 heavily armed guerrillas.
	The fatalities included six soldiers, and six militiamen, said the
reports monitored in the provincial capital of Bacolod.
	No casualties were reported on the side of the New People's Army
rebels.
	The ambush, one of the bloodiest this year, came hours after
officials from both sides agreed in a television interview in Manila
that a cease-fire should not be a pre-condition for formal talks to end
the 23-year insurgency.
	Communist and government negotiators, who met for exploratory talks
in the Dutch city of Utrecht early last week, agreed to enter into
formal discussions but set no date for the meetings.
	Formal peace talks between former president Corazon Aquino's
government and the guerrillas which began in December 1986 collapsed in
early 1987 over rebel demands for power-sharing.
	The talks coincided with a 60-day nationwide cease-fire, marred by
allegations of violations from both sides.
	``If we have a cease-fire now, we may just be bogged down with
charges of violations and neglect the basic problems that should be
solved in order to end this fighting,'' said former rebel chieftain
Romulo Kintanar in a television interview.
	Satur Ocampo, alleged chairman of the communist-led National
Democratic Front, said both sides should defer a truce and agree first
to respect international humanitarian laws.
	He said what was important was for the two warring groups to reach a
``middle ground, wherein minimum reforms...would be accepted by the
government and government suggestions would be accepted'' by the rebels.
	Kintanar, who headed the 13,000-member NPA at the time of his arrest
in 1991, and Ocampo were freed from a military prison last week after
the government dropped objections to their release.
	Justice Secretary Franklin Drilon, who appeared on the same program,
said the government favored a halt in the fighting, but agreed it should
not be a pre-condition for the talks.
	Francisco Nemenzo, a political science professor at the University of
the Philippines, said a cease-fire should be the product of careful
negotiations and not a requirement for the talks.
	``They should talk about the conditions for a cease-fire during the
talks in order to make a ceasefire more effective,'' Nemenzo told United
Press International by telephone.
	``In El Salvador, the cease-fire was a result of the talks rather
than a pre-condition,'' he said, referring to the peaceful settlement of
a 12-year rebellion by the leftist Farabundo Marti Liberation Front in
January this year.
	``The ultimate goal is a cease-fire, an end to the civil war. It is
theoretically possible to achieve this without a truce, but it would
really facilitate the whole process if both sides agree on a truce,'' he
said.
	President Fidel Ramos Monday rejected rebel demands to hold the talks
outside the Philippines, saying the insurgency was an internal problem.