02 December 2016•Update: 02 December 2016
By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines
A Communist rebel group has warned President Rodrigo Duterte's government that it may end a unilateral ceasefire if it fails to release 432 political prisoners.
The cease-fire was agreed on in late August after a weeklong meeting in Norway with government officials aimed at ending one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies.
In a statement posted on its official website Friday, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said it rejects Duterte's plan to release a mere 50 political prisoners by the end of December.
"If it fails, the Duterte regime will not only forego the possibility of forging a bilateral ceasefire agreement, but will risk cutting short as well the mutual interim ceasefire declarations with the NDFP [The National Democratic Front, the CPP's political arm], especially amid the continuing military deployments and operations in the countryside," the statement read.
According to the CPP, justice demands that all 432 remaining political prisoners be released immediately.
“Every additional second that political prisoners remain incarcerated add to the grave injustices which they have been made to suffer throughout the years in jail," it said.
The releases were originally expected to be carried out in the last week of October before the original date of the signing of a bilateral ceasefire agreement.
The Duterte government remains in discussion with the Philippines' communist movement in an effort to a conflict which has been waged since March 1969 and has claimed more than 3,000 lives.
