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