Philippines Appeal to UN Committee on Children in Armed Conflict; Amnesty International calls India on its Record of Impunity and Abuses; U.S. and Afghanistan call for Pakistan to end Support for Terrorists

By:  Lindsey Brady
Impunity Watch Managing Editor - News

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines have asked to be removed from the United Nation's list of countries requiring monitoring for their use of child soldiers in armed conflicts.  The Security Council is in charge of monitoring such countries but the Philippine's Ambassador, Hilario G. Davide, Jr. has said the Manila government has great concern for all children, not just Filipino children involved in armed conflict.  Celia C. Yangco, the Undersecretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development of the Philippines pointed out to the UN that about half of the population of the Philippines was children and the country strives to protect them through various laws that make it clear children are not to be recruited or employed by the Philippines Armed Forces.  Resolution 1612 was adopted by the Security Council, and the Philippines was added to the Annex 2 list, in 2005 after the actions of the communist New People's Army, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the Abu Sayyaf Group according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.  Davide, told the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict that "in view of my country's legal firewall for the protection of children, the relative calm in the country and the cultural values placing children as the centerpiece of a family's attention, the Philippines should be dropped from Annex 2 so that the Working Group could train its eyes on other countries facing worse circumstances in regard to children and armed conflict."  Davide states the country has done a great deal to prevent and rehabilitate any children that have been involved in armed conflicts in its country. 

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, said that the inclusion of the Philippines on the Annex 2 was only meant to point out that children where indeed being recruited as late as 2007 for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Abu Sayyaf Group and the New People's Army.  These children are being used as cooks, porters, and message carriers trained to protect the community of these groups if they fall under attack.  But Coomaraswamy does agree with Davide that the Philippines do have the ability to deal with these issues and should be supported.  The Committee on Rights of Child is currently considering the Philippines report on children in armed conflict and is expected to release its conclusions on June 6, 2008.  The main concerns the committee will consider in their report are "the number of children affected by the armed conflict; the conviction of offenders under the existing laws; the work of the national human rights committee; the status and promotion of the Optional Protocol within the Armed Forces and military groups; recruitment of indigenous children; and the affects of poverty on the number of children joining armed rebel groups."

For more information please see:

Global Nation - Philippines Seeks Delisting from Nations with Child Soldiers - 28 May 2008

ReliefWeb - Committee on Rights of Child considers report of Philippines under Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict - 30 May 2008

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict - 12 February 2002

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SRINAGAR, India - Amnesty International has released its 2008 report and India is among the countries being criticized for its human rights record.  The Pakistan Observer says focuses on the Jammu and Kashmir regions where the reports finds state and non-state actors continue to enjoy impunity for torture, deaths in custody, abduction and unlawful killings."  The report comes before the 60th anniversary of the 1948 human rights declaration.  In the area of economic, social and cultural rights the report says private militias were battling local organizations in Nandigram in West Bengal for control of land.  The clash had resulted in numerous human rights violations which the reports claims includes forced displacement, violence against women and protesters and in general denial of punitive consequences for the perpetrators of the violence.  The report also claims that National Human Rights Commission has failed to charge any of the 38 government officials charged as perpetrators of the unlawful killings, torture, sexual assault and illegal detention of adivasis in 1998.  The adivasis are the indigenous minority population of India.

In Jammu and Kashmir the report claims that human rights organizations have found that over one thousand people have been the victims of forced disappearances in the past 18 years in the district of Baramulla alone.  Official claims that there had been no disappearances until late 2007 have been challenged by those saying 60 people have been victims of such disappearances since 2006.  The biggest claim by the Amnesty International report in the area of Jammu and Kashmir is the widespread impunity enjoyed by the violators of human rights.  The Chairperson for the  Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, Parveena Ahangar, commented on the report to the Pakistan Observer saying, "we demand the whereabouts of our children who have gone missing or were abducted.  We have been appealing to the government to cancel the Armed Forces Special Powers Act."  The AFSPA was passed in 1958 by the Parliament of India and gave special powers to officers of the armed forces.  One area of the Act is said to allow an officer to fire upon or use other kinds of force even if deadly to arrest without use of a warrant and with "necessary force" anyone who has committed or is suspected of committing certain offenses and to enter and search any premise in order to conduct such an arrest.  The officers have immunity for their actions and cannot be prosecuted against for the actions granted to them under the Act.  Despite great amounts of protest, the Act has still not been repealed.

For more information, please see:

Pakistan Observer - Amnesty targets India Again - 31 May 2008

Amnesty International - Amnesty International Report 2008 - 28 May 2008

South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre - Armed Forces Special Powers Act:  A Study in National Security Tyranny

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KABUL, Afghanistan - Leaders from Afghanistan and the United States are calling on Pakistan to stop being a safe haven of sorts for insurgents causing terrorism in Afghanistan.  Afghanistan Senate Speaker, Sibghatullah Mijaddedi stated today that, "Pakistan is exporting terrorism to different parts of the world.  Eighty to 90 percent of terror attacks around the world can be traced back to Pakistan.  The ISI is exporting terrorists trained in their terror camps."  The ISI stands for the Inter-Services Intelligence and is one of the three main branches of Pakistan's intelligence agencies.  Mijaddedi goes on to ask why the allied forces have not focused their "war on terror" away from Afghanistan and more towards Pakistan and its alleged terror training camps.

U.S. officials agree that Pakistan's cooperation with the suspected terrorists is cause of concern.  General Dan McNeill, American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said Friday May 30th, that peace deals between Islamic insurgents and Pakistan were resulting in increased violence in Afghanistan.  General McNeill was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "if there are going to be sanctuaries where these terrorists, these extremists, these insurgents can train, can recruit, can regenerate, there's still going to be a challenge there."  NATO has suggested that there has been a 50% spike in violence in the eastern part of Afghanistan in spring 2008 compared to spring 2007.

For more information, please see:

The Hindu - Pak Exports Terrorism to World:  Afghan Speaker - 1 June 2008

Associated Press - General calls on Pakistan to help with Insurgents - 30 May 2008