Word: aquinos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...answer, alas, is many. Last week a tough-talking Corazon Aquino symbolically snapped the olive branch of peace she had extended to the Communist rebels throughout her 13-month presidency. "Police and military action, not social and economic reforms, is the immediate solution to terrorist acts," she told an audience at the Philippine Military Academy. Earlier that day she had pledged to "smite the foe on the left and the right." Said Aquino: "I want a string of honorable military victories." Her speech represented a dramatic shift in tactics aimed at ending both the 18-year Communist insurgency and coup...
...change in policy toward the rebels? Aquino had reluctantly concluded that her conciliatory approach had run out of steam. Since a 60-day cease-fire ended in early February, military officials said 170 N.P.A. rebels, 115 soldiers and police and 31 civilians had been killed. Pressure from her generals and Washington was also a factor. Most Reagan Administration officials believed that she was wasting her time negotiating with the Communists...
...great hope of Corazon Aquino's ascension to power was that the Communist insurgents might heed her plea to disarm and join in the rebuilding of Philippine society. That hope got a lift when the Communist New People's Army agreed last December to a 60-day cease-fire, a first for the 18-year-old rebel insurgency. But the truce broke down last month amid bitter charges and countercharges. The Ministry of Defense estimates that at least 350 people have died since the fighting resumed. The violence often plays out in a lethal tit for tat. Last week, after...
...resumption of fighting comes at an awkward time for the Aquino government. The Philippines is preparing for May 11 congressional elections, the first legislative balloting since Aquino took office last year during the popular revolt that toppled former President Ferdinand Marcos. Aquino has tried to regain the initiative for a truce by making a number of almost desperate attempts to get the Communists back to the bargaining table. The President has offered to conclude regional cease-fires and proclaimed a "full and complete amnesty" to rebels who lay down their arms in the next six months...
...offers have been spurned by the National Democratic Front, the Communist-dominated alliance that bargains on behalf of the insurgents. The peace bids, scoffs N.D.F. Negotiator Antonio Zumel, are part of the Aquino administration's "soft tactics to countervail its naked sword of war. It is a sheer farce." Says Vicvic Justiniani, the national spokeswoman for MAKIBAKA, a women's organization that is part of the N.D.F.: "Our view of what constitutes peace is not the same as Cory's. Peace can only come with social justice. So it is a question of whose ideas prevail, ours or hers...