CPP welcomes Unicef report linking AFP to abuses vs kids

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) welcomed Thursday a report by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) linking the military's counterinsurgency efforts to human rights abuses against minors. In a statement on the CPP website, Communist Party spokesman Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal scored the military for its "ruthless all-out war" and "desperate effort to destroy suspected support bases of the armed resistance." "In the AFP's vicious and heartless war against the people especially in peasant communities, there is hardly any discrimination between armed guerrillas and unarmed civilians. Worse, in its desperation to suppress whole communities engaged in agrarian struggles and suspected of supporting the armed revolution, the fascist armed forces do not hesitate to direct their armed might and terror against children, women and the elderly," said Rosal. He claimed that people are especially repulsed at how the AFP shows no qualms at all in victimizing children and forcibly using them in military operations. Children are thus employed as objects of their psychological warfare campaign, and in a great number of cases have been subjected to torture, rape, coercion, and even killed, he said. Rosal cited the Unicef report where the Children's Rehabilitation Center (CRC) recorded 800 cases human rights violations of children in areas under military "counterinsurgency" operations from 2001 up to mid-2006. The CPP said the report revealed that 215,233 children were victimized in these operations. Among these, 58 have been killed, while another 58 survived attempts on their lives. Furthermore, ten have disappeared, 40 maimed, 17 more subjected to different types of torture, eight subjected to rape and sexual harassment, 51 victims of illegal search and seizure, 63 victims of coercion, 69 victims of illegal arrest and detention, 40 victims of physical assault and injury and 196 victims of threats and intimidation. It also said that 106 children were orphaned and witnessed the military's killing of their parents or other relatives. Up to 215,060 children were victimized by forcible evacuations as a result of the military's counterinsurgency operations. Rosal urged people's organizations, church groups, lawyers, mass media and other concerned sectors to expose and oppose state-inflicted violations of human rights, especially children's rights. - GMANews.TV