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Peace Advocates Brand Esperon’s Appointment as Peace Czar ‘Ironic, Tragic, and Outrageous’ edited.jpg) Senators, human rights, and peace advocates questioned the appointment of former AFP chief of staff Hermogenes Esperon as Peace Adviser. Inpeace Mindanao called it “ironic, tragic, and outrageous.” BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO Esperon retired from the AFP on May 9 – three months after reaching the age of 56, the mandatory retirement age from military service. (He was to retire on Feb. 9, but the Arroyo administration extended his term for another three months.) After his retirement, the Arroyo administration wasted no time in appointing him to the top post at the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP). He replaces Jesus Dureza, a former journalist, who was reappointed as Press Secretary. Esperon has been criticized, notably by Caloocan City Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez, for his “anti-peace image.” His appointment to the OPAPP comes on the heels of the informal talks held by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) on May 13-15 in Oslo. According to NDFP Negotiating Panel chairman Luis Jalandoni, the purpose of the meeting in Oslo was “(to find) ways of resuming the formal meetings of the negotiating panels in GRP-NDFP peace negotiations in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration.” In that meeting, the NDFP presented 13 impediments to the resumption of the peace negotiations, among them the “terrorist” listing of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) and NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison; the illegal “suspension” of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG); Oplan Bantay Laya I and II and the consequent gross and systematic violations of human rights; the persecution, murder, arrest and enforced disappearance of NDFP consultants; the demand for capitulation of the NDFP to the GRP in the guise of prolonged ceasefire before addressing the fundamental problems of Philippine society and the roots of the armed conflict; and the failure to indemnify the victims of human rights violations under the Marcos regime. Esperon’s appointment to the OPAPP also comes shortly after Malaysia, which facilitates the peace negotiations between the GRP and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), pulled out its delegates from the International Monitoring Team (IMT) which is tasked with monitoring the implementation of agreements in relation to the talks, as well as the implementation of development projects in the areas of conflict. Malaysian facilitator Othman Abdul Razak was reported as having issued a statement on May 3 blaming the GRP for the continuing impasse in its peace negotiations with the MILF. The GRP-MILF peace talks hit a snag in December last year, after the GRP panel insisted that the MILF’s ancestral land claim be subjected to “constitutional processes.” The MILF has criticized Esperon’s appointment to the OPAPP as “an indication of the growing militarization of the Arroyo administration, including the peace process.” “Military men are trained to fight, not to negotiate,” said Mohagher Iqbal, chairman of the MILF Negotiating Panel. A military officer through and through Esperon entered the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in 1970, shortly after graduating as class valedictorian from the Philippine Science High School (PSHS). He graduated from the PMA in 1974. He began his military career as a platoon leader in Basilan, and later headed several Army units as company commander, battalion commander, and brigade commander in various areas in Mindanao. He also served in the Presidential Security Command (PSC), the forerunner of today’s Presidential Security Group (PSG), during the Marcos dictatorship. He was appointed as Philippine military attache to Chicago, Illinois from 1982 to 1986. After the People Power I uprising of 1986, Esperon returned to the Philippines and immediately reported to Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, who was then AFP chief of staff. He was assigned to Camp Servillano Aquino in Tarlac, where he worked as an intelligence officer. Esperon was already a lieutenant colonel when he was taken out of his post as area command staff for intelligence at the AFP’s Southern Command (Southcom) and called to palace duty in 1996. He was assigned as deputy commander of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) from 1996 to 1998, under then President Fidel V. Ramos. He went back to combat duty in Mindanao after his stint at the PSG. In 2000, during the Estrada administration’s “all-out war” against the MILF, Esperon commanded the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade. The “all-out war" between government forces and the MILF in March 2000 was sparked by a ferry bombing, which the Estrada government blamed on the MILF – an accusation the group denied. Government troops used the bombing as pretext to break into and overrun MILF areas. The “all-out war" led to the loss of thousands of lives and the displacement of as many as half a million civilians. In 2002, Esperon was called back to Palace duty to serve as PSG commander, under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. As PSG commander, Esperon implemented a policy of “use of extreme force” in preventing demonstrators from getting near Malacañang. This period saw the start of violent dispersals of protest actions at the foot of the Chino Roces Bridge, a few meters away from the presidential palace, under the Arroyo regime. In the May 2004 presidential elections, Esperon served as deputy commander of Task Force HOPE (Honest, Orderly and Peaceful Elections). In mid-2005, his name would figure twice in the so-called “Hello Garci” tapes. The “Hello Garci” tapes were a series of wiretapped and recorded conversations in which a voice similar to Arroyo’s is heard instructing an election official – widely believed to be former Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano – to rig the presidential polls. There is a specific instruction that a victory of “more than 1 M” be ensured for the woman. Both Arroyo and Garcillano were forced to admit that they talked to each other during the counting period following the 2004 polls. They have however denied rigging the said elections. In August 2005, Esperon was appointed as Army chief. In July the following year, he was appointed as AFP chief of staff. His stint as AFP chief of staff saw the escalation of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of activists and other government critics. UN (United Nations) Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston went on a mission to investigate extrajudicial killings in the Philippines late last year, and came up with a report specifically pointing to the military’s involvement in these. “In some parts of the country, the armed forces have followed a deliberate strategy of systematically hunting down the leaders of leftist organizations,” Alston, who is also a professor at New York University (NYU), said. “His record as AFP Chief of Staff shows nothing that qualifies him as peace adviser, aside from the imprudent idea that a freshly-retired general, not a civilian, is tasked to address the complexities of the country's continuing civil war,” said Beverly Musni , a lawyer and convenor of Inpeace Mindanao, an organization of peace advocates. “What advise would Esperon give to Ms. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in addressing the issue of peace?” Ironic, tragic, and outrageous Inpeace Mindanao, in a press statement, called Esperon’s appointment as “ironic, tragic, and outrageous.” “Ironic because in the effort to address the issue of armed conflict raging in Mindanao between the GRP and the revolutionary forces of the MILF and the NDF, principled dialogue and sincerity is the key. But with General Esperon, comes a war hawk who is hell-bent to quash the armed conflict rather than talk peace.” “Esperon’s appointment also becomes tragic. The people remember it was Esperon who vowed to crush the insurgency by 2010. It was Esperon who, a few months ago when his term was extended as Chief of Staff, said the months ahead would be bloody. As a military man he has relentlessly pursued war as a solution to the country’s armed conflict without making himself accountable for the devastation wrought by military operations and all-out wars on civilians. Esperon is no student of history to believe that the military solution cannot root out a political movement that is bred by decades of poverty and injustice in just three years.” “Finally, Esperon's appointment is so contemptible it insults the common sense. What credibility, for example, does the ‘Hello Garci’ general have in talking about the substantive agenda in the peace process such as socio-political, economic, and electoral reforms?” “By surrounding itself with loyal hawks like General Esperon, the Arroyo administration shows no hope and sincerity to seriously talk peace. What Arroyo gives with her left hand, she takes back with her right: while informal talks with the NDFP were opened in Norway at the start of last week, Esperon was appointed peace adviser at the end of the week.” “Of course, we could all be wrong, if the peace Arroyo and Esperon mean is the silence of the graveyard.” Seeing no hope in the peace process with Esperon’s appointment, Inpeace challenged peace advocates to work with the marginalized and oppressed and to “unite and confront the barriers to peace, starting with rejecting a general's appointment as government's peace czar.” Bulatlat ( categories: )
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