A tenuous road to peace talks

"Social conflict may be defined as a struggle over values or claims to status, power, and scarce resources, in which the aims of the conflicting parties are not only to gain the desired values but also to neutralize, injure, or eliminate their rivals." (Coser, 1968)

I was in Oslo, Norway in the weekend of Nov. 29-30, this year for private reasons - to meet with old friends Joma and Julie Sison, as well as Fidel Agcaoili, Luis and Connie Jalandoni and Nonoy Palima. The last time we saw one another in person was during the ECOFIL Conference held in The Hague, Netherlands in 2001. Joma and Julie have been family friends from way back university days, long before he founded the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1969.

I have been a renegade in the nationalist movement, a drop-out, according to the regional commander of the New People's Army (NPA) I interviewed in Davao city during my days with Far Eastern Economic Review. In a way, I admit to both after exhausting myself in the media struggle to bring to light the abuses of the Marcos dictatorship. When I moved to Mozambique, Southern Africa in mid-1983, and later to Sweden in 1988, I distanced myself from Philippine politics, and from further disappointments over the deterioration of my birth country's political and economic situation.

I did not anticipate that being in Oslo - in the NDF's working room, for such a brief period would bring back an avalanche of memories I thought were laid to rest. I listened to terminologies creating several interpretations such as ceasefire, which I know is a pre-condition to peace talks and conflict resolution. But ceasefire is simply keeping the status quo where both parties desist from any violent actions and harmful political-military propaganda. It definitely does not mean surrender of arms or "returning to the fold". When one party coerces the other into giving up weapons or territorial gain, then it becomes a suppression technique in conflict resolution.

What I understood from my outsider's seat in Oslo was that, Government of the Philippines (GRP) panel did not even have the mandate to sign a Joint Statement to Resume the Peace Talks in Oslo early next year. And that the purpose of the gathering that weekend was purely "exploratory" and "creative". The proposed Joint Statement is quite clear on the NDF's position - that any conflict resolution is meaningless if arrests, killings and false propaganda are being utilized by one party, in this regard the government as pressure points. How about using USD17 billion in foreign remittances of overseas Filipinos as a more effective pressure point, if only those remitting can persuade their beneficiaries to reject the government that does nothing for them?

I also find it rediculous that the "terrorist" labelling of the Communist Party of the Philippines has not been rectified. As a Swedish journalist wrote: " A terrorist in one country is a freedom fighter in another." If the labelling remains, then why hold peace talks which bestows political legitimacy upon belligerent combatants? And what sort of intermediary role is the Norwegian government performing, aside from footing the bill for trips to Oslo? At some point, and a very crucial point - an intermediary must be able to bring contending actors to accept that "scarce or incompatible values can be managed in ways that are advantageous to both parties."

The Oslo meeting unfortunately was just a prisoner's game, no winners no losers.