AFP report highlights Reds’ child soldiers violation

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has formally submitted a report to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), identifying the communist rebel force that persistently employs children in armed conflict and detailing child soldier recruitment.

Col. Sonny Tutaan Jr., chief of the AFP Human Rights Division, said the 4th Division of the Philippine Army based in Cagayan de Oro City prepared the report documenting the capture of the three child warriors following a gun battle between government forces and New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in San Agustin, Surigao del Sur last week.

According to the military official, the children aged 12 to 16 years old were used by the NPA in planting landmines which is banned by the United Nations because of its devastating effects to non-combatants.

He said the AFP is duty-bound to protect children from the NPA deception by recruiting minors as child warriors.

Government forces were conducting security operations in Pung-on village when they clashed with NPA rebels belonging to the Guerrilla Front 19-B Northern Mindanao Regional Committee led by Aka Michi.

During the firefight, the rebels detonated a landmine. Two rebels were killed in the gun battle. The soldiers

recovered several undetonated landmines.

The three captured child warriors were unharmed.

During tactical interrogation, one of the children admitted he was the one who detonated the landmine.

In recruiting minors, the NPA offers guns to the children to join the communist movement.

Col. Romeo Gan, commander of the 401st Brigade of the Philippine Army, said the capture is a “concrete evidence that NPA has been recruiting children and using them as warriors in the frontlines.”

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) denied the military claim that the three children are NPA members, accusing the AFP of “fabricating stories of victories in the face of constant losses.”

“It is not true that the three children arrested in Hanipaan, San Agustin, Surigao del Sur last June 26 were members of the NPA or ‘ordered by the NPA to operate a landmine’” it said in a statement posted on the NDFP Website.

The truth was, the group said, the military in operation came upon the three children who were with their father and a relative in their farmland in Hanipaan.

“Because of the losses the military suffered by the active defense of NPA units and apparent and united resistance of the people against the counter-insurgency COPD under Oplan Bayanihan in the mountains of Caraga region, they consider all the people, civilians, young and old, as members of the NPA.”

It stressed that the NPA in North-Eastern Mindanao region “strictly adheres to the international laws of war, Protocol II of the Geneva Convention and United Nation Convention on the Rights of Children. There is no child warrior within the New People’s Army in North-Eastern Mindanao Region and it fights for the rights and holistic advancement of children.” –Daily Tribune