COMMUNIST rebels are ready to lay down their arms and resume peace talks only if government agrees to wide-ranging reforms, according to communist party founder Jose Maria Sison.

"If they want a cease-fire, we should have a short agreement on principles on just 10 points," Sison said Thursday after he was ordered released by a Dutch court.

He said the proposals include land reforms, tackling bureaucratic and military corruption, canceling the Philippine foreign debt, and giving minority groups proportionate representation in government and its institutions.

He said government "should adopt social and economic reforms before hostilities can end."

Sison, 68, who has been living in the Netherlands since 1987, was released from jail last Thursday after a Dutch court ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove his involvement in the murders of two former allies.

He was arrested on Aug. 28 in Utrecht on charges of ordering the murders of former political associates Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara and the attempted murders of two others, and was detained for two weeks.

"I have nothing to do with any murder. I will conduct my legal defense and further clear my name," said Sison.

Kintanar was shot dead in a restaurant in 2003 and Tabara was killed with his son-in-law in a car park in 2004. Both had broken their ties with the NPA.

Sison called "a show" President Arroyo’s amnesty program for rebels and offer of money to help them set up businesses or farms.

US Ambassador Kristie Kenney said the US government is confident that the Dutch government would pursue charges against Sison who is included in the US list of foreign terrorist organizations.

"The Dutch has very well respected legal judicial system and it cooperates so well with Philippine authorities, and I think we’ll let them sort out what this means and what next steps to take," Kenney said in an ambush interview after the Women’s National Electoral Assembly at the Philippine International Convention Center.

She refused to dignify Sison’s accusations that the Philippine and US governments colluded to have him arrested.

On possible threats from Sison’s supporters, she said the US embassy in Manila is "incredibly well looked after" by the police.

"We continue to be comfortable with the level of security and protection and the fact that we can welcome people in the embassy and go about their business," she said.

Following Sison’s release, national security adviser Norberto Gonzales said government has ordered additional protection for the families of Tabara and Kintanar, whose widows filed the murder charges against Sison.

The Armed Forces said the Dutch court order does not clear Sison of liability in communist purging operations in the ‘80s.

"There is a case filed against Joma Sison for the killing of Kintanar and Tabara and the leadership of the CPP at that time admitted that they issued the order to kill Kintanar and Tabara. They admitted this," said Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, chief of the AFP information office.

Sison has a standing arrest warrant for allegedly ordering the killing of dozens of suspected military agents in Inopacan town in Leyte in the 1980s. The remains of these victims were exhumed by the military last year.

The PNP ordered its ground troops to beef up security measures in identified target areas of the New People’s Army.

Sison might take advantage of the situation to contact his lieutenants to launch retaliatory attacks on key installations in the country after Malacañang admitted it had a hand in his arrest, said Deputy Director General Avelino Razon Jr., PNP deputy chief for administration.

Sison, in a phone patch during a press conference of the Left-leaning group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, maintained he did not have any involvement in the murder of Kintanar and Tabara.

"This (ordering the killing) is against my moral and political principles. I am a teacher by profession who loves the exchange of ideas towards common understanding and practical cooperation. I have long devoted myself to the advocacy of human rights and work for a just peace in the Philippines," he said.

Sison also said spending 17 days in jail was "extremely painful and humiliating."

"It was very difficult to be in solitary confinement. I remembered the time when I was in solitary confinement for five years when I was inside a military detention facility (during martial law)," Sison said.

"My detention cell was 3.5 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and 3.5 meters high. It was cramped. It felt like I was living inside a toilet," he said.

He even said the Scheveningen prison in the Hague was the same detention facility once used by the Nazis to hold captured Dutch resistance fighters.

Sison said he underwent "tough interrogation under overheated lamps" for five to six hours every day.

Sison said his focus right now is to strengthen his legal defense rather than file counter charges.

"We can’t at this point file charges. Until this case (filed against me) is junked, we can’t complain against the violation of my rights. It’s also a question of timing," he said.