17 February 2014

Child Soldiers Employed by BIFF

BIFF Child Soldiers
Children, boys or girls, should be with their family and not in a military environment. This is clear among civilized countries and laws were enacted to enforce this principle.

However, as the world is about to celebrate the International Day against the use of Child Soldiers, three children recruited by hardline Muslim rebels were among the 53 people killed in a five-day military offensive in the restive part of the Philippines.

Regional spokesman Colonel Dickson Hermoso said the offensive against fighters of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) group in the strife-torn southern island of Mindanao had resulted in the deaths of 52 rebels, including the children, and one soldier.

"They are employing child soldiers with guns and camouflage uniforms. When we encounter them, we cannot discriminate if they are children or not," he told the international press.

The military offensive came after the main Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), successfully concluded peace talks with government negotiators last week aimed at ending a decades-long insurgency that has killed tens of thousands.

The BIFF is a small group of militants opposed to the peace effort with the MILF, which has carried out many deadly attacks in recent years in a bid to derail the peace process.

Hermoso said soldiers and local residents confirmed the three child soldiers, aged between 15 and 17, were among the guerrillas buried soon after their deaths, according to Islamic custom.

"The armed forces is strongly denouncing (the use of child soldiers) and we have communicated this to the government's Commission on Human Rights and to other organizations to take cognizance of these findings," Hermoso added.

The website of the UN special representative on children and armed conflict said that it "continued to receive credible reports that the (BIFF) armed group was actively training and providing weapons to children".

According to Article 77.2 of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, adopted in 1977:
The Parties to the conflict shall take all feasible measures in order that children who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities and, in particular, they shall refrain from recruiting them into their armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of fifteen years but who have not attained the age of eighteen years, the Parties to the conflict shall endeavor to give priority to those who are oldest.
With the reports from military confirmed by United Nations group, it remains to be seen how the active radical-thinking political left-leaning political pundits will react. Are the Bayan Muna, Migrante, Gabriela, Partido ng Manggagawa, Anakpawis, Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino, Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa ng Pilipinas, among others condemn this BIFF act and exhibit the same level of zealotry as they did when protesting for the oil price hike? I don't think so, but that's just me.