NPA recruiting child warriors
by People's Journal - www.journal.com.ph
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
THE New People’s Army in the Bicol Region is recruiting children aged 10 to 15 with some of them already undergoing orientation on the rebels’ doctrine and training on sniping, assassination, ambuscade and propaganda.
In 2009 alone, 23 teenagers — the youngest being 12 and the oldest 19 — were found to be active NPA combatants. Of the number, 14 voluntarily surrendered, eight were apprehended while one died in an encounter.
In the first quarter of the year, four child combatants from North Cotabato, Quezon, Bulacan, and Compostela Valley were accounted for. Among them is a 15-year-old who aided the NPAs in a landmine attack against a military convoy of the 602nd Brigade. Two others died in combat encounters, while a 14-year-old amazon was among the 13 rebels apprehended by the 25th Infantry Battalion in Salvacion, Monkayo town, Compostela Valley last March 7.
Last year, 24 NPA child combatants availed of livelihood and reintegration projects of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process.
“The CPP-NPA has long been identified as notorious violator of children’s rights. Out of desperation, they are forced to recruit minors. The NPA’s tactic of involving children in armed struggle is worsening. Children are no longer used for supportive missions but being pushed in the forefront as combatants. These children are being drawn into violence, most of whom are too young to resist and understand,” said Brig. Gen. Francisco N. Cruz, Jr., Commander of the Armed Forces-Civil Relations Service.
The children recruits were taught how to fire weapons, gather intelligence reports and act as barangay spotters or informers. Some are being made into spies, cooks, errand boys and girls and assassins. Underage girls are forced to become wives of leaders or abused by fellow cadres.
Recruitment of minors into armed conflict constitutes a war crime. It violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and Republic Act 7610.
The NPA, in recruiting minors, violated its own policy prohibiting the recruitment of minors.
“While the AFP is proactively working to stamp out this grave abuse of children’s rights and rescue them in the clutches of the NPAs, we cannot do this alone. We urge parents to closely supervise their children; and the general public to be vigilant and more cognizant of such condemnable activities. We have to prevent our children from being recruited into the NPA’s valleys of horrors where violence and abuse become the backdrop of a child combatant’s life,” said Cruz.
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