RP Communists want commander release

RP Communists want commander release

MANILA (DPA): Communist rebel negotiators urged the government
yesterday to release an arrested ranking field commander in the
southern Philippines as a sign of goodwill in ongoing peace
negotiations aimed at ending one of Asia's longest-running
leftist insurgencies.

Luis Jalandoni, chief negotiator of the National Democratic
Front (NDF), said Amado Payot alias "Ka Benzar" was captured
while "in transit to a consultation with NDF Mindanao chairperson
Jorge Madlos on matters pertaining to the peace negotiations".

Jalandoni said the NDF panel will raise Payot's case when it
meets with the government panel Monday in the Netherlands to sign
an agreement on human rights, the first comprehensive pact since
peace talks started nearly four years ago.

"Ka Benzar is a revolutionary and not a common criminal,"
Jalandoni said in a statement released in Manila. "It would be
against the legal posture of the government itself if he would be
accused of so many ordinary crimes, instead of a simple case of
rebellion which is bailable."

Payot was arrested on March 2 after a brief firefight with
patrolling troops in North Cotabato province, some 900 kilometres
south of Manila. He has a standing warrant of arrest for the
slaying of two police personnel in April 1988, when he also
robbed a truck carrying rice in Digos, Davao del Sur.

He is notorious for leading leftist rebels on a June 1989
attack on a farming village in Digos, shooting to death or
beheading some 40 tribesmen attending a mass in a makeshift
chapel. One of those beheaded was a pastor, a member of the
Bagobo tribe who had converted to Catholicism.

Jalandoni, who was in self-imposed exile in the Netherlands
for 11 years, returned to the Philippines in January to hold
consultations with rebel forces and human rights groups. He is
scheduled to travel to the Philippines again.