ILIGAN CITY – The rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has asked the United Nations (UN) to also put to task the government for violations against international conventions on protecting children.
Mohagher Iqbal, chair of the MILF peace negotiating panel, observed that the UN seem to be “treating government with kid’s gloves given their own violations.”
Iqbal said that government forces have been employing children in various aspects of its military operations against insurgents, especially through its civilian militias – Civilian Volunteer Organizations and Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units.
“Mahina ang sinabi ng Report on the violations of government forces,” he noted.
Iqbal was referring to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict, which was submitted last week.
It was prepared by Radhika Coomaraswamy, the special envoy of the UN secretary-general for children and armed conflict.
The report gives an overview of the situation of children affected by conflict and action taken for their protection from January to December 2009. It is expected to be discussed by members of the Security Council in mid-June.
In the report, the MILF was among the 16 groups throughout the world listed as “most persistent violators of children in conflict” at least for the last five years.
Other Philippines-based groups in the list are the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf and the communist New People’s Army (NPA).
The report urged the Security Council “to weigh more vigorous measures against persistent violators who have been listed… for at least five years for grave violations against children.”
Military violations
Although admitting to the difficulties of monitoring child rights violations in the conflict-affected areas of Mindanao, the report itself mentioned some six cases of children "used by the Armed Forces of the Philippines to carry supplies, for intelligence purposes, or who had been illegally detained for their alleged association with MILF recalcitrant commands or NPA."
“In one case, three children were blindfolded and mistreated by elements of the 7th and 40th Infantry Battalions of the Philippine Army in an attempt to obtain confessions regarding their membership in MILF,” the Report said.
The Report also mentioned that “mortar shelling by AFP during clashes with MILF has also caused serious injuries to some children.”
Ongoing clashes
The sporadic outbursts of skirmishes between government forces and rebel groups are blamed on the continuing incidents of deaths and injuries of children in conflict-affected areas.
The report particularly noted “10 incidents of attacks on schools and hospitals… where in several instances children were injured as a result.”
From January to December 2009, the report showed 12 children killed and 40 injured in the conflict-prone areas.
The Abu Sayyaf is also attributed for “a considerable increase in incidents involving the use of improvised explosive devices in populated areas” that is “causing more casualties among the civilian population, including children.”
“Furthermore, accounts of schoolteachers abducted in Zamboanga and Sulu provinces by members of the Abu Sayyaf bandits caused fear among the civilian population and disrupted the learning activities of children in conflict-affected areas,” said the report.
The UN noted that “reports on recruitment and use of children by the MILF and the NPA were received consistently” by its local partner organizations even as these await verification.
“We do not dispute the report. We do not claim to have 100 percent success in eliminating child soldiers,” Iqbal said.
But he stressed that the necessary policies have already been hammered down into the group’s various units to set into motion an action plan to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers signed between the United Nations and the MILF on November 20, 2009.
Iqbal said based on a Central Committee directive, the MILF’s armed wing, the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF), has a revised military code of conduct that prohibits the recruitment of children.
The UN report took note of this as a positive development for advancing protection of children in armed conflict in the country although a similar action was not done with the communist rebels because “the Government has not given its endorsement for the United Nations to directly engage the New People’s Army for the purposes of an action plan.”
In the report, the UN said it is looking forward to seeing a programme being formulated for the demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration of children who may be found in the ranks of MILF-BIAF within the year as committed.
The UN is also optimistic over the October 2009 agreement between government and the MILF on the Civilian Protection Component of the International Monitoring Team that binds both parties to an observance of their obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law.
Iqbal explained that the MILF “is not bringing children to war” but rather they are caught in “compelling situations” when they have to take up arms like defending against an attack on the rebel’s stronghold community.
He also said the UN’s parameter or definition of who the children are may need to be reexamined when dealing with rebel groups with members who are Islam believers.
“One’s ability to understand what is right and wrong plus some basic physical attributes constitutes maturity. And this may not necessarily wait before one turns 18 years old,” Iqbal said.
Coomaraswamy said too often, children become collateral damage during military operations.
“Every year the release of this report should give us pause (and) … remember that we must protect the most innocent and most vulnerable,” Coomaraswamy said.
The UN report notes a bright spot in the United States Child Soldier Prevention Act which came into force on June 23, 2009. The law “restricts the provision of US military training, financing and other defense-related assistance to countries identified as recruiting or using child soldiers in Government armed forces or Government-supported paramilitary organizations or militias.”