MANILA, Philippines -- Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Ma. Sison has accused the Philippine, American, and Dutch governments of "persecuting" him.

Sison hurled the accusation after Dutch prosecutors said the preliminary investigation against the CPP founder on charges of allegedly inciting the murders of former rebel leaders Arturo Tabara and Romulo Kintanar would continue despite prior court decisions to close the investigation for lack of prima facie evidence.

In a separate statement also released Monday, the chairman of the National Democratic Front (NDF) peace negotiating panel, Luis Jalandoni, said reported plans of the Dutch prosecutor to expand the case against Sison by accusing him of war crimes might confer communist rebels the status of belligerency under international law.

"There are indications that the Dutch prosecutor intends to expand the charge of inciting murder to a charge of war crimes in order to get away from the rigorous rule of evidence of direct and personal responsibility in a case of murder to the rule of command responsibility," Jalandoni said.

"If this shift were to be done, the Dutch prosecutor will be practically recognizing the existence of a civil war in the Philippines and accusing Professor Sison of being a leader of a belligerent force under international law," he added.

A state of belligerency normally applies to two sovereign states engaged in conflict but may also exist between a sovereign state and insurgents if the insurgent forces are recognized and treated as a sovereign power with territory and a populace under their control.

Sison, who has lived in The Netherlands in exile since 1987, was arrested in late August but released about two weeks later on orders of a Dutch court that failed to find "sufficient indications" he was involved in the murders of Tabara in 2003 and Kintanar in 2006.

The day of Sison's arrest, Dutch police also raided the NDF offices in Utrecht and the homes of several of its officers and members, seizing documents, computers, and other material.

The New People's Army has claimed responsibility for killing the two, who helped lead a faction of the communist rebel movement that broke away in the early 1990s and were accused by their former comrades of being military agents.

Kintanar's widow has acknowledged involvement in filing the case against Sison in The Netherlands, where it is a crime to order the murder of someone overseas.

The Dutch Court of Appeals subsequently upheld the decision of The District Court in The Hague to release Sison and, last November the examining judge closed the preliminary inquiry into the charges.

Last week, however, Dutch prosecutors vowed to pursue the investigation into the charges against Sison, with Wim de Bruin, spokesman for The Netherlands' Public Prosecution Service quoted as saying that the earlier inquiry by the International Crimes Team of the National Criminal Investigation Department was deemed insufficient.

"The reason for the decision is the investigation by the police is not yet finished and would take a few more months," he said.

Sison decried the decision, calling it part of "the malicious obsession of the US, Dutch and Manila governments to persecute," which he said, "is persistent and boundless."

Sison, the CPP and the NPA have been on the terrorist lists of the US and European Union (EU) since 2002. Although he won a legal challenge against this designation by the EU, his name was again included in a review of the list and he would need to file a separate challenge.

But while the Dutch have denied Sison asylum, they have also ruled that he could not be returned to the Philippines because his life would be in danger.

While expressing confidence in defeating the charges against him through "competent lawyers," Sison nevertheless worried that "we are confronted with the brute force of state power."

Jalandoni, on the other hand, warned that while "the malicious political intent of the US, Dutch and Manila governments may be to stigmatize and destroy Professor Sison and the NDF Negotiating Panel and pressure the NDF to capitulate to the Manila government," this "may only lead to the complete destruction of the peace negotiations between the NDF and the Manila government and the intensification of the civil war in the Philippines."