Venezuelan student protesters seek to woo poor

March 19, 2014

PETARE, Venezuela (AP) — The two students venture into one of Latin America's biggest slums for the first time, feeling scared and somewhat awkward. Their mission: to broaden support for their anti-government protest movement in the low-income barrios whose working poor the late President Hugo Chavez championed.

"Our families didn't want us to come up here," says Fernando Viscuna, a 21-year-old international commerce major at the Instituto Universitario de Nuevas Profesiones. "But if you want a better country, it's got to be done."

He and Jhony Pulido, a curly-haired 22-year-old economics student at Andres Bello University, are earnest foot soldiers in an incipient bridge-building effort by students whose five-week-old protest movement has badly convulsed the country and triggered a firm government crackdown.

The students have no illusions. If anything is to change, they need allies in the very districts that Chavez converted into bulwarks of support by investing tens of billions of dollars in oil income in generous social welfare programs.

In two hours of knocking on doors and canvassing shop owners in the hilltop barrio of El Morro, accompanied by a local auto mechanics teacher allied with the opposition, the students get a polite but mostly cool reception.

Most people barely engage them. Some, like 79-year-old retired plumber Valentin Castillo, openly dismiss them. "You're killing a lot of people, torching cars. You're against us, against everyone," Castillo says, raising his voice.

"Exactly. We agree with you. We're against the blockades, too," says Viscuna, trying to get in a word. But Castillo doesn't buy it. He mentions the slaying of National Guardsmen, the government's shock troops against protesters, by unknown gunmen — four have now been killed — and a motorcyclist who authorities say was killed by a steel cable stretched across a street by protesters.

"What are they looking for with this fight?" Castillo demands, doubting Viscuna's claim not to endorse violence or seek the overthrow of President Nicolas Maduro. Some people the students meet say they, too, are fed up enough with worsening food shortages, crippling inflation and unchecked violent crime — the very maladies that precipitated the unrest — and would take to the streets, too, but for their fear of pistol-packing pro-government posses known as "colectivos" that have violently suppressed dissent. The colectivos have been implicated in at least six protest-related killings, only one in metropolitan Caracas.

Katherin Castillo, a 35-year-old single mother of five, and her neighbors are exhausted by the roulette that food shopping has become, of spending hours in queues outside state-run supermarkets in hopes that flour, milk, cooking oil will show up at subsidized prices.

On this morning, chicken is all Castillo has on offer at the storefront canteen where she serves cheap breakfasts. "I would go out and protest. But I'm afraid," Castillo says after the students leave. "The colectivos are abusing their power, and a mother can't take risks."

The auto mechanics teacher who accompanies the students, Jorge Idrogo, says colectivos threw him to the street when he tried to protest at a busy Petare intersection on Feb. 17, his banner torn away while national police stood by idly. Such stories about colectivos abound.

Earlier this month, colectivos twice prevented students from entering Petare to explain themselves in assemblies with residents in two districts, says Idrogo, 35. "It's the only way around the government media blackout," he says. State-run media portray student protesters as violent troublemakers bent on destroying the gains of 15 years of socialist-inspired advances.

Student leader Alfredo Graffe of Simon Bolivar University said the movement has held more than a dozen informational meetings in working-class districts since late February, but says it is only safe for students to visit by daylight.

In the lower middle-class district of Caricuao in Caracas' mostly pro-government west, colectivos have broken up all five student-organized protests since mid-February. In other parts of the proletarian west, students have dared not even try.

Which is why the handbill that Idrogo presses into people's hands as he works his neighborhood with the students, his wife and two young children, stresses the shared problems of all Venezuelans in simple language spoken by stick figures in comic book-like balloons.

"I've been robbed." "I don't know when the water will come back on." "They didn't get the guy who killed him." "Two months without obtaining milk." The handbills that the students distribute use fancier words and list demands: The government must acknowledge that its economic policies are bankrupting the country. It must halt censorship, reverse violent crime that has made Venezuela a world leader in murder.

But Venezuela's poor are, on the whole, more worried about losing the pensions, subsidies, education and basic health services gained under Chavez if the opposition were to come to power. That's what University of Georgia sociology graduate student Rebecca Hanson says people tell her in the sprawling working-class district of Catia in Caracas' west, where she has been living on-and-off since 2009. "I think people are widely interpreting the protests as seeking to get Maduro out of office and nothing else."

On top of that, the students have not clearly articulated an agenda, says Luis Vicente Leon, director of the Venezuelan Datanalisis polling firm. And they're divided among moderates and radicals just like the main opposition parties.

"I'd say the majority are moderates, but they've been tainted by the radical battle at the barricades, and get blamed for it," says Leon. In all, at least 27 people have been killed in the unrest, by government count.

Ironically, many of the protesters who have battled riot police regularly in Caracas' upper class Chacao district in recent weeks hail from poorer barrios, where they say they don't dare protest publicly.

Those who have tried to organize peaceful marches in their home districts say the repressive response from armed, government-allied groups has been swift. When colectivos broke up a Feb. 17 protest in the southwestern district of Caricuao, firing tear gas and blocking marchers with motorcycles as National Guardsmen stood by idly, a local colectivo leader approached the father of Jefres Henriquez, a 23-year-old student activist who lives there.

The leader knew both father and son because Henriquez had once worked at a children's summer camp that the colectivo runs. "He showed my father a photo of me and said, 'We need to take action against your son,' said Henriquez.

So he fled, and didn't return for a week. "When I got back, I got calls from colectivo members who said they wanted to meet with me," said Henriquez. Fearful, he declined.

Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report.

US Air Force fires nine in nuclear missile cheating scandal

Washington (AFP)
March 27, 2014

The US Air Force said Thursday it sacked nine nuclear missile officers and will discipline dozens of others over an exam cheating scandal that has sparked concerns about lax ethics.

The officers, including chiefs of four squadrons, were all working at Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana, which has been rocked by cheating allegations that implicated up to 100 airmen.

"Nine officers in leadership positions at Malmstrom were recommended for removal," Air Force Secretary Deborah James told a news conference.

An internal investigation had found that the commanders had not engaged in any test cheating but had "failed to provide adequate oversight of their crew force," James said.

A tenth officer had submitted his resignation over the case, she said.

A top general overseeing nuclear forces said the cheating stemmed in part from a stifling atmosphere created by commanders who over-emphasized perfect test scores for the missile launch officers.

"Although the required test score is 90 percent, crew members felt pressure to score 100 percent on each and every test," Lieutenant General Stephen Wilson said at the same news conference.

"They felt compelled to cheat to get a perfect score," he said.

The "zero-defect" approach was unrealistic and unnecessary, as the rules for managing the ballistic missiles had redundancies and other automatic safeguards, Wilson said.

"Leaders lost sight of the fact that execution in the field is more important than what happens in the class room," he said.

The cheating was first uncovered in January during an unrelated investigation into illegal drugs. The outcome of that drug probe is still pending.

Out of 100 officers potentially linked to the cheating, nine have since been cleared in an investigation, James said.

Another nine cases were being examined separately by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Of those, eight could involve criminal charges related to mishandling classified information -- possibly the exam materials.

About 30 to 40 officers will be retrained and allowed to return to duty to the missile force, while the remainder will face disciplinary action that could include being discharged from the military, officials said.

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel has expressed deep disappointment over the cheating and voiced a wider concern over unethical conduct across the armed forces, after a spate of embarrassing scandals.

Hagel this week appointed a senior naval officer, Rear Admiral Margaret Klein, to serve as a special adviser looking at ethics and "character" issues.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Air_Force_fires_nine_in_nuclear_missile_cheating_scandal_999.html.

A Honduran Paradise that Doesn't Want to Anger the Sea Again

By Thelma Mejía

SANTA ROSA DE AGUÁN, Honduras , Mar 26 2014 (IPS) - At the mouth of the Aguán river on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, a Garífuna community living in a natural paradise that was devastated 15 years ago by Hurricane Mitch has set an example of adaptation to climate change.

“We don’t want to make the sea angry again, we don’t want a repeat of what happened with Mitch, which destroyed so many houses in the town – nearly all of the ones along the seashore,” community leader Claudina Gamboa, 35, told IPS.

Around the coastal town of Santa Rosa de Aguán, the stunning landscape is almost as pristine as when the first Garífunas came to Honduras in the 18th century.

To reach Santa Rosa de Aguán, founded in 1886 and home to just over 3,000 people, IPS drove by car for 12 hours from Tegucigalpa through five of this Central American country’s 18 departments or provinces, until reaching the village of Dos Bocas, 567 km northeast of the capital.

From this village on the mainland, a small boat runs to Santa Rosa de Aguán, located on the sand in the delta of the Aguán river, whose name in the Garífuna language means “abundant waters.”

Half of the trip is on roads in terrible conditions, which become unnerving when it gets dark. But after crossing the river late at night, under a starry sky with a sea breeze caressing the skin, the journey finally comes to a peaceful end.

A three-year project to help the sand dunes recover, which was completed in 2013, was carried out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) through the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) Small Grants Program, with additional support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The project sought to generate conditions that would enable the local community to adapt to the risks of climate change and protect the natural ecosystem of the dunes.

The initiative enlisted 40 local volunteers, almost all of them women, who went door to door to raise awareness on the importance of protecting the environment and to educate people about the risks posed by climate change.

“They called them crazy, and thought the people working on that were stupid, but I asked them ‘don’t stop, just keep doing it.’ Now there is greater awareness and people have seen the winds aren’t hitting so hard,” Atanasia Ruíz, a former deputy mayor of the town (2008-2014) and a survivor of Hurricane Mitch, told IPS.

She and Gamboa said the women played an essential role in raising awareness on climate change, and added that thanks to their efforts, the project left an imprint on the white sand and the local inhabitants.

People in the community now understand the importance of protecting the coastal system and preserving the dunes, and have learned to organize behind that goal, Gamboa said. “It’s really touching to see the old women from our town picking up garbage for recycling,” she said.

The sand dunes act as natural protective barriers that keep the wind or waves from smashing into the town during storms.

“When the sea got mad, it made us pay. When Mitch hit, everything here was flattened, it was just horrible,” Gamboa said.

Some people left town, she said, “because we were told that we couldn’t live here, that it was too vulnerable and that the sea would always flood us because there was no way to keep it out.

“But many of us stayed, and with the knowledge they gave us, we know how to protect ourselves and our town,” she said, proudly pointing out how the vegetation has begun to grow in the dunes.

In late October 1998, Hurricane Mitch left 11,000 dead and 8,000 missing in Honduras, while causing enormous economic losses and damage to infrastructure.

Santa Rosa de Aguán was hit especially hard, with storm surges up to five meters high. The bodies of more than 40 people from the town were found, while others went missing.

The effort to recover the sand dunes along the coast included the construction of wide wooden walkways to protect the sand.

In addition, the remains of cinder block houses destroyed by Mitch were finally removed, to prevent them from inhibiting the natural formation of dunes.

The project also introduced recycling, to clear garbage from the beach and the sandy unpaved streets of this town, where visitors are greeted with “buiti achuluruni”, which means “welcome” in the Garífuna language.

Lícida Nicolasa Gómez is an 18-year-old member of the Garífuna community who prefers to be called “Alondra”, her nickname since childhood.

“I loved it when they invited me to the dunes and recycling project, because we were deforesting the dunes, hurting them, destroying the vegetation, but we’re not doing that anymore,” she said.

“We even made a mural on one of the walls of the community centre, to remember what kind of town we wanted,” she added, with a broad smile.

The mural includes scraps of plastic, metal, tiles and bottle tops. It reflects the beauty of the Garífunas, showing people fishing, crops of mandioc and plantain, and the sea and bright sun, while reflecting the desire to live in harmony with the environment.

The sand dunes are up to five meters high in this small town at the mouth of a river that runs through the country’s tropical rainforest.

Hugo Galeano, from GEF’s Small Grants Program, told IPS that Santa Rosa de Aguán became even more vulnerable after Hurricane Mitch, which affected the local livelihoods based on fishing, farming and livestock.

For this community built between the river and the sea, flooding is one of the main threats to survival, said the representative of the GEF program.

Ricardo Norales, 80, told IPS that, although the sand dunes and vegetation are growing, “the location of our community means we are still exposed to inclement weather.

“With the project, we saw how the wind and the sea don’t penetrate our homes as much anymore. But we need this kind of aid to be more sustainable,” he said.

The history of Santa Rosa de Aguán is marked by the impact of tropical storms and hurricanes, which have hit the town directly or indirectly many times since it was founded.

But the sand dunes are once again taking shape along the shoreline, where the community has built walkways to the sea.

Local inhabitants want their town to be seen as an example of adaptation to climate change and the construction of alternatives making survival possible. Several of them said they did not want an “ayó” – good-bye in Garífuna – for their community.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/honduran-paradise-doesnt-want-anger-sea/.

Côte d’Ivoire’s Middle Class – Growing or Disappearing?

By Marc-Andre Boisvert

ABIDJAN, Mar 27 2014 (IPS) - “I’m middle class. Definitively,” Sonia Anoh, a young and independent 30-year-old Ivorian tells IPS. Anoh has a master’s degree, earns 1,470 dollars a month working in marketing, lives alone, owns a car and is now shopping for a home.

But while Anoh freely talks about her economic status, not many others brag so easily about being middle class in this West African nation.

Defining the African “middle class” is a challenge. For the World Bank, it comprises everyone who earns between two and 20 dollars per day. It’s a range that is far too broad and while the African Development Bank uses the same income range, it emphasizes the need to subdivide the middle class into two.

The upper middle class, by this definition, earns between 10 and 20 dollars a day, and a vulnerable lower class is one that earns between two and four dollars a day. The latter are just marginally above the poverty line of 1.5 dollars a day and can easily slip back into it.

Côte d’Ivoire used to have the strongest middle class in West Africa until it was seriously hit by the post-1980 economic meltdown and the recent post-electoral political crisis from 2010 to 2011. More than 3,000 people died in the violence that followed former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to concede victory to current President Allassane Ouattara. Now the Ivorian middle class represents over two million of this country’s 23 million inhabitants, according to government figures.

While Côte d’Ivoire’s middle class may have shrunk, there are signs that this economic group appears to be slowly starting to increase. But its expansion remains limited by two decades of economic problems and conflict.

According to the Moscow-based Institute for Emerging Market Studies, the African middle class will rise three times from 32 million in 2009 to 107 million by 2030 — the largest increase in the world. And with the World Bank predicting that Côte d’Ivoire’s economy will grow at a rate of 8.2 percent for 2014, there is hope that this boom will lift many more of the country’s people out of poverty.

Growing or disappearing?

“Building a strong middle class was an important preoccupation for former president Félix Houphouet-Boigny (1905-1993),” Professor Marcel Benie Kouadio, economist and dean at the Abidjan Private University Faculty tells IPS.

“At the time, [middle class] meant mostly civil servants, doctors, magistrates and other liberal workers.

“Houphouet-Boigny [implemented] several policies to transform a middle class dependent on the state into an entrepreneur class. The state fostered the middle class to invest in cocoa or palm oil plantations as a way to build a middle class that would also be able to produce goods.”

Jean Coffie is a retired civil servant and an example of what Houphouet-Boigny dreamt of for the middle class. He is an entrepreneur who lives off his investments.

“My pension is not enough to live on. But I invested in hevea [rubber trees]. Income is random but I still earn more with that than from my government pension,” he tells IPS.

With this extra money, he is helping pay for his grandson’s studies in France. But Coffie is quick to point out that life for a middle class Ivorian is not what it used to be.

“At the time [during Houphouet-Boigny’s presidency], we had a lot of support to develop ourselves. University [education] and health care were more accessible. We might still be middle class but we lost all our privileges.”

Benie Kouadio agrees.

“The middle class has shrunk. Twenty years ago, teachers and doctors were middle class. Now, they can’t afford a new car. The Ivorian middle class lost its purchase power.”

A consumer class

Purchase power is a key word. Accountants differ with economists in their understanding of the middle class; rather than analyzing income, they look at disposable revenue.

Being middle class is about hitting a “sweet spot”, where people are able to spend money for things other than survival, says a report from accounting firm Ernst & Young.

Marcel Anné is the managing director of the supermarket chain Jour de Marché, which is situated in downtown Abidjan, the country’s economic capital. He has a good view of the emerging consumer class.

“Actually, this supermarket is less crowded than it used to be but this is more about changing consumer habits. This used to be [a] central [spot] for the middle class. Civil servants would buy things here and then go home,” he tells IPS.

The middle class here has become a more diverse, complex grouping that is not necessarily just comprised of civil servants anymore. The privatization of companies, the need for qualified labor work in IT and on the new oil and gas fields have diversified this economic grouping.

So now Jour de Marché has opened “more, smaller supermarkets where the middle class live.”

And around Abidjan, the housing boom too suggests that there is a rising middle class.

Riviera Palmeraie, a former plantation where palm oil trees were cut down to make space for several small bungalows, has been one of the first major housing developments in Abidjan based on affordable units.

And now similar developments are slowly spreading across the city and beyond.

Ousmane Bah is the director of Alliance Cote d’Ivoire, one of the companies building middle class housing. His company will build the Akwaba Residence, one of many housing developments being constructed along Abidjan’s outskirts. Prices for homes start at 21,000 dollars for a two-room home and 36,100 dollars for four rooms.

“It targets mostly the young professionals starting up in life, as well as civil servants,” he tells IPS.

His project, like several others, is supported by the government and is part of an initiative to boost social housing for the middle class.

The government targets households with revenue of less than 840 dollars per month. Buyers only need to provide a 10 percent cash deposit, and then benefit from a government-backed loan with low interest rates of 5.5 percent.

It addresses a difficult problem that seriously limits the growth of the Ivorian middle class: lack of credit.

“People are not used to buying flats here. They rent. Credit institutions are not used to provide housing loans. This is a big issue. We cannot simply build and expect people to buy,” says Bah.

Mohamed Diabaté is the first to agree.

“This is ridiculous. I wanted to get a credit for my house. It was easier to get credit to buy a goat for a Muslim holiday than having a real sustainable project. They did not even look at my file,” the 40-year-old IT specialist tells IPS.

He says even though he has a “comfortable revenue” and a steady job for 12 years, he could not obtain a home loan.

Benie Kouadio points out that “this is a clear limitation to the growth of the middle class. The middle class has no access to credit. Banks do not give loans for housing or cars any more.”

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/cote-divoires-middle-class-growing-disappearing/.

AU troops declare war on CAR militia

Wed Mar 26, 2014

The African Union peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic (CAR) has declared war against the majority Christian vigilante groups.

The head of the African-led peacekeeping mission to the CAR blamed the anti-Balaka groups for attacks against the troops belonging to the African Union force.

“From now on, we consider the anti-Balaka as enemies of MISCA,” media outlets quoted Congolese General Jean Marie Michel as saying, adding, “And we will treat them as such.”

The peacekeepers have been fighting the anti-Balaka in the capital Bangui since Saturday, with at least 16 people being killed in the latest clashes there.

“They even fire on people who are here to try to end this crisis on behalf of the Central African people to which they belong. We hold them responsible for attacks that have targeted our troops in recent days,” the general added.

The AU mission is in the CAR to help end an ongoing violence which broke out between Muslims and Christians a year ago.

The United Nations Human Rights chief, Navi Pillay, has recently expressed horror at the level of the ongoing violence in the CAR.

The developments come as UN has described the displacement of the Muslims of the CAR as ethnic-religious cleansing.

The conflict in the CAR erupted after Christian militia launched coordinated attacks on the mostly Muslim Seleka group, which toppled the government last March.

Christian militiamen, however, have been targeting the Muslim population as a whole.

French and African peacekeepers are on the ground, but they have been unable to stop the violence and even in some occasions have been accused of killing Muslims.

France currently has around 2,000 troops in the CAR, while the African Union has three times that number.

So far, thousands of people are believed to have been killed and more than one million displaced.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/356108.html.

Philippines, Muslim rebels seal historic peace deal

Manila (AFP)
March 27, 2014

The biggest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines signed an historic pact Thursday to end one of Asia's longest and deadliest conflicts, promising to give up their arms for an autonomous homeland.

Following four decades of fighting that has claimed tens of thousands of lives; the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed the peace deal with President Benigno Aquino's government at a high-profile ceremony in Manila.

"The comprehensive agreement on Bangsamoro is the crowning glory of our struggle," MILF chairman Murad Ebrahim said at the signing ceremony, using a local term that refers to a Muslim homeland.

"With this agreement the legitimate aspirations of the Bangsamoro and the commitment of the government of the Philippines to recognize those aspirations are now sealed."

The pact makes the MILF and the government partners in a plan to create a southern autonomous region for the Philippines' Muslim minority with locally elected leaders by mid-2016.

"What is being presented before us now is a path that can lead to a permanent change in Muslim Mindanao," Aquino said at the ceremony, attended by more than 1,000 people.

The Bangsamoro region would cover about 10 percent of territory in the mainly Catholic Philippines. The planned region has a majority of Muslims, but there are clusters of Catholic-dominated communities.

Muslim rebels have been battling since the 1970s for independence or autonomy in the southern islands of the Philippines, which they regard as their ancestral homeland dating back to when Arabic traders arrived there in the 13th Century.

The conflict has condemned millions of people across large parts of the resource-rich Mindanao region to brutal poverty, plagued by Muslim and Christian warlords as well as outbreaks of fighting that has led to mass displacements.

The conflict also created fertile conditions for Islamic extremism, with the Abu Sayyaf group and other hardline militants making remote regions of Mindanao their strongholds.

The MILF, which the military estimates has 10,000 fighters, is easily the biggest Muslim rebel group in Mindanao, and the political settlement was greeted with relief and optimism in the south.

"I am really happy. In the face of all the hardship of our parents, we the next generation hope and pray that Christians and Muslims will have peace," Mona Rakman, 42, a mother of four who lives close to the MILF headquarters, told AFP.

The autonomous region would have its own police force, a regional parliament and power to levy taxes, while revenues from the region's vast deposits of natural resources would be split with the national government.

It would have a secular government, rather than being an Islamic state. The national government would retain control over defense, foreign policy, currency and citizenship.

There are about 10 million Muslims in the Philippines, roughly 10 percent of the population, according to government statistics. Most live in the south of the country.

- Fragile peace -

However there are no guarantees the peace deal will be implemented by the middle of 2016, a crucial deadline as that is when Aquino is required by the constitution to end his six-year term.

Aquino needs to convince Congress to pass a "basic law" to create the Bangsamoro autonomous region, ideally by the end of this year to allow time for other steps such as a local plebiscite.

But even though Aquino enjoys record-high popularity ratings, there are concerns politicians could reject or water down the proposed law.

Powerful Christian politicians in Mindanao are regarded as potential deal breakers, while others elsewhere may see political advantage in opposing the deal to appeal to some Catholics ahead of the 2016 national elections.

The deal is also likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court, which in 2008 struck down a planned peace deal the MILF had negotiated with Aquino's predecessor, Gloria Arroyo.

Islamic militants opposed to the peace deal are another threat, and could continue to create enduring violence in Mindanao.

Among the potential spoilers is the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), an MILF splinter group of a few hundred militants that has carried out deadly attacks in the south in recent years.

"We will continue to fight against the government of the Republic of the Philippines because we are for independence and nothing else," BIFF spokesman Abu Missry Mama told AFP by phone from his southern hideout.

The MILF leadership has committed to working with the government to neutralize the threat of the BIFF.

However the MILF will not give up its arms or the identities of its fighters until the basic law has been passed, highlighting the fragility of Thursday's peace deal.

In his speech, Aquino warned militant and political foes alike that he was prepared to crush any challenge to the peace deal.

"I will not let peace be snatched from my people again," Aquino said to applause.

"Those who want to test the resolve of the state will be met with a firm response based on righteousness and justice."

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Philippines_Muslim_rebels_seal_historic_peace_deal_999.html.

Philippines refuses to free 2 top communist rebels

March 23, 2014

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine officials said Sunday that they would not release two leaders of a violent rebel group fighting to overthrow the government, whose arrests were a serious blow to one of Asia's longest-running communist insurgencies.

Communist rebels have demanded the release of Benito Tiamzon, chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and his wife, Wilma Austria, who were captured in central Cebu province with five other suspected Maoist insurgents on Saturday.

The arrests were a big blow to the 45-year Marxist insurgency, one of Asia's longest and most violent. The military has described Tiamzon, 63, as the "center of gravity" of the Maoist insurgency who has overseen major rebel actions for years. The United States has blacklisted the group, which has about 4,000 armed fighters, as a terrorist organization.

The Tiamzons have been charged for their alleged involvement in the 1985 massacre of 15 people whose remains were discovered in a mass grave in 2006 in the central province of Leyte, according to the military.

Military chief of staff Gen. Emmanuel Bautista said the two were arrested "for their crimes against humanity, including multiple murders." The two and their companions were traveling in two vans, apparently to move to another hideout, when about 40 military intelligence agents, soldiers and policemen blocked their path in a downtown area of Cebu. Authorities seized four pistols, ammunition, two grenades, four laptop computers, 16 cellphones and rebel documents from the captured guerrillas, the military said.

The rebels condemned the arrests, saying the two were consultants in stalled peace talks who were granted temporary immunity from arrests under a 1995 accord with the government. Government peace negotiators, however, said they could no longer verify whether Tiamzon, who uses a rebel alias, was on a secured list of rebels given immunity from arrests. His wife was ineligible because she escaped from jail in 1989 and jumped bail, officials said.

A list of 75 rebel consultants supposedly with pictures was jointly deposited by the Philippine government, the rebels and church witnesses in a Dutch vault in 1996 so it could serve as a future basis for identifying guerrilla consultants who could be immune from arrests.

Philippine officials and the rebels, however, discovered in 2011 that two diskettes containing the list have been damaged with the passage of time and its details could no longer be retrieved. It made it impossible for the government to verify rebel claims that some of their captured comrades were in the roster of guerrillas with immunity, officials said.

The government's refusal to release those rebels led to the collapse of yearslong peace talks brokered by Norway. A recent wave of rebel attacks against government forces and foreign-owned mining companies and vast plantations in the south has also damaged efforts to revive the talks.

"We are happy to resume talks based on a clear, doable and time-bound agenda," said presidential peace talks adviser Teresita Deles. "But when their public statements say that they're working to bring down this government, how do we restart talks?"

The rebels have been fighting since 1969, accusing successive Philippine administrations of subservience to U.S. interests and failing to improve the lives of the poor. Their numbers have dwindled amid battle setbacks, surrenders and factionalism, but the resilient guerrillas remain the country's most serious security threat.