Fidel V. Agcaoili
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
December 7, 2018  Press Statement

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) vehemently condemns the arrest last night of Rey Claro Casambre, executive director of the Philippine Peace Center and his wife Cora as they were on the way home to Molino, Cavite.

Casambre was arrested on trumped-up murder and frustrated murder charges related to an incident in Lupon, Davao Oriental on September 13, 2018. Also in the charge sheet and currently experiencing intense harassment and surveillance are others who have assisted the NDFP negotiating panel in various capacities as resource persons, writers, researchers and staff during the peace negotiations.

As was done to the other arrested NDFP consultants, the arresting team planted firearms, ammunition and explosives in the Casambres’ vehicle to ensure their prolonged and unjust detention.

Casambre is the fourth NDFP consultant active in the peace negotiations to be arrested this year. A long-time peace advocate who has closely monitored and conducted extensive research on the Philippine peace process, Casambre was a frequent speaker in fora organized by multi-sectoral groups calling for the resumption of the peace negotiations. He also often granted interviews to the media on issues related to the peace talks.

The Duterte regime’s unjust arrest of Casambre on ludicrous charges virtually closes the doors to any possibility of resuming the peace negotiations with the Duterte regime. To ensure the smooth resumption of the formal peace talks, the detained peace consultants should be released immediately.#

Press Release
7 December 2018

We are shocked by the incomprehensibly brazen human rights violations that marked the arrests of Rey Casambre and his wife, Cora, as they were heading home last night, December 6, 2018 from a wake.

Casambre is a longtime peace advocate and head of the Philippine Peace Center, an institution committed to peace advocacy. As such, he had significantly contributed to the peace process by way of his incisive analysis of issues surrounding the peace negotiations. He is often a resource person for different media outlets and is a publicly known participant in the peace talks between the GRP and the NDFP.

Delivered in a language easily understood by ordinary people, his contributions to the peace process, has had no other impact but to rally the participation of the primary stakeholders – labor, peasant leaders, activists and human rights defenders, in the discourse.

Thus, we cannot help but believe that he is being persecuted precisely for his involvement in the peace process, by a government that seems no longer interested in peace but only wishes to wage a brutal war against the people.

We find the charges being attributed to Rey and Cora outrageous. Both are senior citizens and are known peace advocates. The so-called charges of murder, frustrated murder and illegal possession of firearms are not at all true and defy common sense. We demand their immediate release and a stop to the persecution of peace consultants and activists.

It is a bleak time for peace as a reign of terror is engulfing the whole country, with attacks on human rights taking a toll on human rights defenders, community leaders and peace advocates. The intent is to silence dissent, and thereby eventually deprive the people of their capacity to resist government polices that are detrimental to their interests, and the interest of our nation as a whole. #

Reference:
Bishop Reuel N.O. Marigza, Pilgrims for Peace
<pilgrims.peace.phils@gmail.com > 09283854123

Ronalyn V. Olea – Bulatlat
December 7, 2018

MANILA — Peace consultant Rey Casambre, 67, and wife Patricia Cora Casambre, 72, were arrested along Molino Boulevard in Cavite early morning today, Dec. 7.

Human rights group Karapatan said the two were brought to the office of the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-National Capital Region (PNP CIDG-NCR) in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

Casambre and the six others were charged with murder, according to a copy of a warrant of arrest furnished by Casambre’s lawyer. The warrant, issued on Nov. 23 by Judge Emilio Dayanghirang III of Lupon Regional Trial Court Branch 32, states that Casambre and the six others ” are said to be found to be in barangay Maragatas, Lupon, Davao Oriental.”

The Casambre couple is also charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives. The PNP-CIDG claimed that the following weapons were recovered in the couple’s vehicle: one (1) colt commander caliber 45 pistol; one magazine for cal. 45; seven live ammunition for cal. 45; one bundle electric detonating cord; and one fragmentation grenade.

In a Facebook post, Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general said, “Only fools will believe that elderly couple Rey Casambre, 67 YEARS OLD, and Patricia Cora Casambre, 72 YEARS OLD, has the said weapons in their vehicle…”

In a statement, Edre U. Olalia, legal consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) negotiating panel, said the “non-bailable murder charges are trumped-up and sprang out of nowhere.” Olalia added that the roving firearm and rusty grenade were “routinely planted to make the arrest appear aboveboard for good measure.”

“Nobody would ever believe such false narrative,” he added.

Casambre is a publicly-known peace consultant and executive director of the Philippine Peace Center. He is supposedly covered by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig), a signed peace pact between the Philippine government and the NDFP that provides immunity against surveillance, arrest, among others for those involved in the peace negotiations.

Olalia added that, “their arrest is another signal that the security forces are playing hard ball and are on a wild goose chase. But all these would boomerang in the long run.”

Casambre is the fourth NDFP consultant to be arrested after Duterte declared an end to the peace talks.

Palabay noted that the arrest of the Casambre couple is no different from the arbitrary arrest of other NDFP consultants Vicente Ladlad and the elderly Villamor couple; Adelberto Silva and his four companions; and, Rafael Baylosis in the past months. “All bear the same signs of fabricated charges.”

“Yet, as human rights defenders and dissenters are arrested, plunderers and murderers remain unpunished and are even released from prison,” Palabay said.

Imelda Marcos, who was convicted of graft, was recently freed after posting bail while former Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla has been acquitted by the Sandiganbayan from plunder cases in relation to the pork barrel scam and Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, son of former President Gloria Arroyo, has been cleared of tax evasion charges by the Supreme Court, citing “procedural defects and substantive deficiencies.” (http://bulatlat.com)

Rural Missionaries of the Philippines
November 29, 2018

We, the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP), a national organization of women and men religious, priests and lay, strongly condemn the illegal arrest, detention and the filing of trumped up charges against the delegates of the National Solidarity Mission (NSM) to Talaingod, Davao del Norte. We call for the withdrawal of the fabricated case and the immediate release of the seventy-four (74) delegates including ACT Teachers Party-List Rep. France Castro and former Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Satur Ocampo.

The delegation which includes 29 students and 12 teachers of Lumad schools in Davao del Norte were arrested by the joint forces of the Talaingod police and the 56th IB with the Talaingod Municipal Social Work and Development Office and have been detained at the Talaingod Municipal Police Station since 9:30 Wednesday evening, November 28. Based on reports, fabricated charges of “human trafficking in relation to child abuse law” were filed against them.

The NSM wishes to look into the military encampment in the community and school premises which disrupted the classes of Salugpongan Learning Center’s campuses in Sitio Nasilaban and Sitio Dulyan, Brgy. Palma Gil, Talaingod, Davao del Norte. The NSM also aims to document and validate the reports of threats, harassment, and intimidation against teachers and community members by the 56th IB and the paramilitary group ALAMARA in order to forcibly close the school. They forcibly shut down the campus in Sitio Dulyan on November 28, 2018 at around 6pm and the students and teachers evacuated and were rescued by the NSM team.

We call for the immediate release of the Rep. France Castro, Rep. Satur Ocampo and the rest of the NSM delegates. We also extend our solidarity to our Lumad brothers and sisters in Talaingod and in other militarized communities all over Mindanao. Rural and tribal communities in Mindanao in have long been victims of massive and systematic militarization through various counterinsurgency programs, more so under Martial Law.

We enjoin the Church sectors to denounce this latest attack. We urge you to echo the call for the dismissal of the trumped up charges against our fellow advocates, and to join the struggle against militarization of rural school and communities. Only through a wide-ranging clamor of the public who aspire respect for human rights, justice and peace can we end the fear and uncertainty they live with every day.###

UNTV News and Rescue
Posted on Monday, November 19th, 2018

MANILA, Philippines – The anticipated meeting between officials of the Duterte Administration and some consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) is likely to push through next week and the venue is expected to be somewhere in Manila.

In a press statement, Presidential Peace Adviser Jess Dureza said President Rodrigo Duterte has tasked him and Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo to have the “informal chat” with NDF consultants Fidel Agcaoili and Luis Jalandoni.

On Sunday, Dureza left for New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and will return next week.

The two communist officials will arrive later this month in relation to their jobs as members of the Joint Monitoring Committee under the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Law.

They will also have a meeting with Norwegian Ambassador to the Philippines Bjorn Jahnsen.

Norway has been the third party facilitator of the GPH-NDFP peace process. – Marje Pelayo (with reports from Rosalie Coz)

Statement of the 7th Ecumenical Church Leaders’ Summit on Peace

November 7-9, 2018, Cebu City

We, church leaders from various denominations and diverse Christian traditions from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, gathered to reflect and discern our ways forward to attain peace based on justice in our country. We gathered driven by our faith in God and in our belief that peace is possible. Our coming together is deliberate because of the status of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. President Duterte cancelled the fifth round of formal talks last June 2018, formally terminated the peace talks and subsequently declared the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) as a “terror organization”.

The situation has turned for the worse. Several peace consultants of the NDFP were arrested, and just yesterday, Mr. Vicente Ladlad was also arrested. There were also significant increases in armed encounters between the Philippine military and the New People’s Army (NPA) and alarming reports of an increase in violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that have mostly affected civilians. During our Summit, we learned of the killing of Atty. Ben Ramos, a well-known human rights lawyer in Negros Occidental and just two weeks after the killing of the Sagay 9. We are very much concerned and alarmed by these reports because of our conviction that respect for human rights and human dignity is a basic condition of peace.

There was a bright prospect when the formal peace talks resumed in earnest in 2016 after four years of impasse. Through the third party facilitation of the Royal Norwegian Government, four successful rounds of formal talks were held in 2016 and 2017.

We are thus saddened that the cancellation of the formal peace talks has aborted the signing of an interim peace agreement consisting of a general amnesty for NDFP-listed political prisoners, agrarian reform and rural development as well as national industrialization and economic development agreements and a coordinated unilateral ceasefire. These would have addressed the root causes of the armed conflict – the long-standing issues of poverty, landlessness and inequality in the country.

We affirm our belief that peace is possible through principled dialogue. The talks are still the most viable option to attain a just and enduring peace in the country. A survey by Pulse Asia this year found 74% of Filipinos are aware of the GRP-NDFP peace talks. Of those who are aware, nearly 80% believe that peace talks can end the hostilities between the warring forces.

On this 7thEcumenical Church Leaders’ Summit on Peace, we continue to call on the GRP and the NDFP to:

– RESUME THE FORMAL PEACE TALKS.

– Honor and implement all signed agreements especially the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).

We make this call guided by the Scriptures:

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace”(James 3:17-18).

Issued and Signed on this day 9thNovember, 2018

(Sgd.)
ARCHBISHOP ANTONIO J. LEDESMA, S.J., DD
Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro
Co-chairperson, PEPP

(Sgd.)
THE RIGHT REVD. REX RB REYES, JR.
Espisopal Diocese of Central Philippines
Co-chairperson, PEPP

(Sgd.)
BISHOP NOEL A. PANTOJA
National Director
Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches

(Sgd.)
MOST REV. BISHOP EMERITUS DEOGRACIAS S. INIGUEZ, JR.
Co-chairperson
Ecumenical Bishops Forum

(Sgd.)
SR. MARY JOHN D. MANANZAN, OSB
Office of the Women and Gender Commission
Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines – Women

*The PEPP is a platform for 5 church institutions/groups, namely, the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) with organizations of Religious, Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) and the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF), in working for a just and enduring peace by supporting the peace process between the GRP-NDFP.

Kodao Productions
November 9, 2018

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) condemned the arrest of its peace consultant Vicente Ladlad along with couple Alberto and Virginia Villamor midnight of November 8 in Barangay San Bartolome, Novaliches, Quezon City.

The NDFP said Ladlad’s arrest is a flagrant violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) it signed with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).

The group also accused arresting officers of “planting” explosives on Ladlad to justify his prolonged detention on non-bailable offenses.

The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Ladlad was in possession of two assault rifles, two handguns, four grenades and assorted ammunition at the time of his arrest.

Ladlad is the third NDFP consultant actively participating in the peace talks to be arrested by the Duterte regime.

“Less than a month ago, Adelberto Silva, a member of the NDFP Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms was arrested with five others in Sta. Cruz, Laguna on October 15 while conducting sectoral consultations,” the NDFP said.

A third consultant, Rafael Baylosis, was arrested along Katipunan Ave. in Quezon City on January 31.

Silva and Baylosis were also accused of possessing guns and explosives when arrested.

“Under the JASIG, Ladlad, Silva and Baylosis as duly accredited NDFP consultants publicly known to be involved in the peace negotiations should have been free from surveillance, harassment, search, arrest, detention, prosecution and interrogation or any other similar punitive actions,” the NDFP said.

Just two weeks ago, Ladlad’s wife Fides Lim reported being tailed by suspected state agents riding a silver Innova van with plate number TY 4585 as she left her house.

A check with the Land Transportation Office revealed that the number is registered to a red Honda TMX motorcycle. In a separate statement Thursday, Lim challenged the PNP to conduct a fingerprint test of all the guns the arresting officers said they found in the house where Ladlad was staying.

“They will not find a single speck of his fingerprint in any of that trove because they were all planted to keep him locked up on non-bailable charges. They faked their evidence because they have no case against him,” Lim said.

Lim said the PNP failed to present Ladlad in a press conference in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig Thursday in time for Director General Oscar Albayalde’s birthday when their stunt “flopped”.

“[T]he PNP failed to present Vic because their publicity stunt flopped when the media began interviewing me right inside that room and I said that all those guns the PNP says they captured from him were all planted,” Lim said.

“I kept on insisting that all I want is to see my husband, to verify with my own eyes that they have not harmed him in any way. But the PNP maneuvered at least three times to get me and the media out of that room,” she added.

Lim said she told the media that the PNP is doing this because it wanted to display the “planted guns” on the tables inside the room and it did not want the feisty woman around.

“What is PNP Chief Albayalde so afraid of? The truth. Because he is a liar who manufactures evidence to justify their cases that are built on pure lies,” Lim fumed.

She added it was only after nearly nine hours that she was able to see her husband when they sped after the PNP convoy that brought him back to Camp Karingal to imprison him.

“Happy birthday, Gen. Albayalde, I’m glad I rained on your parade,” Lim taunted. The NDFP said it demands its consultants’ immediate release and the dropping of “trumped-up criminal charges” against them to end their unjust detention.

The NDFP likewise demanded the release of four other “unjusty imprisoned” NDFP consultants Rommel Salinas and Ferdinand Castillo who are being held in BJMP facilities and Eduardo Sarmiento and Leopoldo Caloza who are incarcerated at the national penitentiary. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Philippine Peace Center
Press Statement
26 September 2018

“Red October”– the supposed plot exposed by Malacanang and the AFP top brass wherein the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the Liberal Party (LP), Tindig Pilipinas (TP) and the Movement Against Tyranny (MAT) have allegedly banded together in a conspiracy to oust President Duterte is nothing but a big fat lie. It is a Red-scare fabrication aimed at splitting the opposition, preventing the various legal groups from closing ranks and undertaking bigger joint protest actions. It is part of the scheme to Red-tag, demonize and stigmatize the more militant and progressive groups as “terrorists” and “communists” as a prelude to and pretext for “neutralizing” them with more repressive measures.

Malacanang and the AFP have nothing but tall tales and conflicting statements to back up their story. President Duterte says the information was provided by a foreign power, but could not reveal which one. The AFP generals say they retrieved the information from seized laptops, but could not show a single page of documentary proof. (But of course, “producing” and displaying such documents would not prove anything, since any grade schooler can produce any kind of “document” from a computer!) If there are really such documents, Secretary of Defense Lorenzana, the Commander-in-Chief’s alter-ego to whom the AFP should report directly, has no knowledge of them, thus declaring, “We have no proof of such conspiracy.” To date, PNP top brass cautiously qualify “Red October” as an allegation– all they have is raw information that they still need to validate.

And yet the AFP generals have gone on a red-tagging spree, branding workers’ strikes dubbed “Aklasan”, and student protests as major parts of the conspiracy, both allegedly serving as recruiting ground for the New People’s Army (NPA). The communists are behind all the protest movements! Ergo, the armed NPA cannot be eradicated unless their legal political infrastructure is neutralized and dismantled, and the protests are suppressed. All government agencies, institutions, LGUs must be geared at crushing both the armed and unarmed components of the communist insurgency ; the military cannot do it alone. This is the “whole-of-nation” approach.
What does all this have to do with the peace process? Why has the AFP singled out two of the better known peace advocates—former Rep. Satur Ocampo and Philippine Peace Center Executive Director Rey Casambre, as orchestrating the “Red October” ouster plot in behalf of the CPP? Surely the AFP and PNP know this could not be true. They know there is no “Red October” plot. Besides, no matter how challenged military intelligence is, it is easy to determine that neither of them is in the “secretariat” or is not even an organizer of MAT or any of the groups in the imaginary conspiracy.

An underlying argument in the militarists’ approach to the peace process is that the armed conflict causes underdevelopment and poverty, not the other way around. Thus, development can only be pursued and poverty eradicated once the insurgency is defeated, mainly through military means. This approach is contrary to the view, adopted by the GRP & NDFP Negotiating Panels and by peace advocates here and abroad, that genuine peace can only be achieved by instituting basic social, economic and political reforms that address and eradicate the roots of the armed conflict.

Over the years, the GRP has balked at negotiating basic or fundamental social and economic reforms, such as land reform and national industrialization. While it appeared, in the first year of the Duterte regime, that some major headway was achievable in discussing these reforms, the talks deteriorated drastically after martial law was declared in Mindanao, and virtually collapsed last June when the GRP unilaterally cancelled the resumption of the formal talks, declared the termination of the negotiations, declared the CPP and NPA as terrorist organizations and announced a shift to local peace talks in violation of prior bilateral agreements.
Former Rep. Ocampo and Mr. Casambre were the most vocal and visible peace advocates criticizing the imminent “paradigm shift” as a virtual abandonment of the path to genuine peace and warning against the rise and dominance of the militarist and even fascist approach to “ending the insurgency”. The calls to resume formal peace talks, honor all bilateral agreements and address the roots of the armed conflict resonated not only among peace advocates but with various sectors – peasants demanding land reform, workers demanding an end to contractualization, ordinary people protesting spiking prices and rampant human rights violations such as the drug killings.

It would seem that the outlandish accusations against Rep. Ocampo and Mr. Casambre are a product of “failure of intelligence” if not a dearth of it. But no, it does not take much intelligence to determine that Rep. Ocampo and Mr. Casambre could not have orchestrated “Red October”, even assuming without granting that there is one. Perhaps by branding the two as “communists” and “terrorists” the AFP hopes to discourage, if not scare, other peace advocates from being vocally critical of the GRP’s new “paradigm shift”. Or in a broader context, to discourage and pre-empt protest actions against the government.

If this is so, then Malacanang and its minions have not learned their lesson in history: Repression only breeds further resistance. ###
___________________________________________________
Reference: Rey Claro Casambre, Executive Director; rey.casambre@gmail.com; Tel: 0943686195

Ecumenical Voice for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (EcuVoice)

Press Statement
September 25, 2018

A recent interview of AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Carlito Galves and Brig. Gen. Antonio Parlade, Jr. revealed the sad truth that the Armed Forces of the Philippines remains in a quagmire of anti-democratic war-mongering, stale conspiracy peddling, and vicious red-tagging of known peace advocates in the GRP-NDFP peace process.

In dropping the names of Rey Casambre and former congressman Satur Ocampo as being in the center of an imagined, nay, invented conspiracy plot, the AFP has provided concrete evidence that they are indeed war-mongering peace-spoilers. Rey Casambre of the Philippine Peace Center and Satur Ocampo of Pilgrims for Peace are publicly known peace advocates. Their efforts in seeking to move the peace talks forward in addressing the roots of the armed conflict towards the aspiration of a just and enduring peace in the Philippines are well known to peace advocates throughout the country and internationally.

Naming Casambre and Ocampo as central figures in the AFP’s poorly concocted conspiracy theory makes abundantly clear that Duterte’s state forces are prone to fascist machinations and red-tagging which undermine democracy and impinge upon democratic freedoms.

Many peace advocates—both in the Philippines and around the world—will insist that part of peace building is allowing and even encouraging the participation of dissenting and marginalized voices in government and society. In contrast, the blatantly oppressive character of the military was revealed as they repeatedly warned of infiltration by communists in government. Peace advocates applaud the participation of progressive, pro-poor leaders in government, especially as they have been seen to deliver reforms and services that benefit the poor and toiling majority.

The AFP made evident that they wish to blame a faltering economy on the opposition. They even went as far as to accuse the opposition of manipulating the price of rice. This is ridiculous. Meanwhile, they also exposed the lie of their so-called “Whole of Nation” approach where the military seeks to control and manipulate access to basic and social services for their anti-insurgency campaign, while feigning that they are apolitical.

We want peace for the Philippines. The way to move in this direction is to resume GRP-NDFP peace talks intended to address the roots of the armed conflict. The negotiating parties had hammered out meaningful agreements, ready for signature, on much needed Socio-Economic Reforms. These very peace spoilers in the AFP and the security cluster are the ones standing in the way of democracy and peace building.

The public would be wise not to give an iota of credence to the AFP’s conspiracy tales. An open opposition exists. It would be much worse for democracy in the Philippines if it didn’t. And as Duterte’s military henchmen grasp at straws to attempt to tie together these perceived strands of opposition and falsely render them into a tidy conspiracy, they only lay bare their penchant for military rule.

On some level, President Duterte appears to have coalesced with their thinking. We must urge him that it is not too late to recalibrate toward peace talks and addressing historic injustices and root causes of armed conflict in our beloved homeland. People like Rey Casambre of the Philippine Peace Center and Satur Ocampo of Pilgrims for Peace would welcome such developments.

As President Duterte continues to follow the AFP’s war-mongering and martial law, opposition will continue to grow in response to increased oppression and militarization. Not only should we not believe this conspiracy they are peddling, we must encourage the Duterte administration that peace-building and resuming GRP-NDFP peace talks is the better option altogether. ###

Reference:
Bishop Rex RB Reyes, Jr., D.D.
Convenor, Ecumenical Voice for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (Ecuvoice)

Fidel V. Agcaoili
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
September 13, 2018

The Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) welcomes the passing of House Resolution 1803 by the House Special Committee on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity on September 12, 2018 that urged President Duterte to resume the peace talks.

The resolution is a positive move by the committee members and contributes to calls of various other sectors and groups to continue the peace negotiations. We hope this welcome move by the House Special Committee can encourage President Duterte to go back to the negotiating table and work towards a just and lasting peace.

When Duterte unilaterally terminated the peace talks in November 2017, there were already significant advancements in the negotiations in the form of tentative agreements on the sections of agrarian reform and rural development and national industrialization and economic development of the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER); coordinated unilateral ceasefire; and, amnesty of all political prisoners listed by the NDFP.

These agreements had been formulated and initialed by representatives of the GRP and NDFP during the monthly informal or back channel talks from March to June 2018 and were subject to finalization in the aborted fifth round of formal talks on June 28, 2018.

The NDFP is always open to resumption of peace negotiations in accordance with all signed agreements such as The Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantee (JASIG), and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), without preconditions. ####