Nine Philippine communist rebels dead in clashes

MANILA: Philippine troops killed nine communist rebels in a series of firefights on Monday, about a month after the two sides agreed to resume peace talks, the armed forces said.

The fighting occurred in four remote villages near the southern city of Malaybalay, a military statement said, at the start of a two-day unilateral Christmas truce declared by the Philippines´ communist party and its armed wing, the New People´s Army (NPA).

The military´s Fourth Infantry Division did not immediately release details of the Malaybalay clashes that it said left nine NPA rebels dead. President Ferdinand Marcos´s government and the rebels announced last month that they intend to resume peace talks next year, following a series of failed negotiations launched by previous governments since the ouster of Marcos´s father, the late dictator, in 1986.

The Maoist insurgency, one of the world´s longest-running, has claimed thousands of lives. The rebels had announced on Saturday that they would observe a two-day “suspension of tactical offensives” from Christmas Day to mark the insurgency´s 55th founding anniversary on Tuesday.

The military had said it would not observe a Christmas ceasefire this year with the NPA, which it said has less than 2,000 members left after a high of around 26,000 guerrillas in the 1980s.