RP commies vow to let Bush live

RP commies vow to let Bush live

PHILIPPINES: Communist guerrillas pledged on Friday on the eve of
President George W. Bush's stopover visit to the Philippines that
they will refrain from mounting an assassination attempt on the
U.S. leader.

"If you are asking if we will mount a military action, after
the military and the police warned that an NPA (New People's
Army) team will assassinate George Bush, that is not among our
plans today, tomorrow or in the coming days," Communist Party of
the Philippines (CPP) spokesman Gregorio Rosal said over DZBB
radio, referring to his party's armed wing.

Bush is to make an eight-hour state visit to the Philippines
on Saturday.

"It is true that George Bush is our enemy, but that step is
not among the protest actions that we are eying," said Rosal.

The CPP and the 9,000-member NPA has been waging a 34-year
Maoist campaign in this former U.S. colony. The U.S. State
Department considers the CPP-NPA a "foreign terrorist
organization".

Rosal urged Filipinos to join street protests against the
"imperialist United States" and its "puppet" Philippines
President Gloria Arroyo. -- AFP