As this story indicates, first MILF insisted that it did not utilize children for their jihad; now it is saying that it will stop using them — most likely since that will help gain it “a sense of legitimacy and boost the chances of a negotiated peace.” At any rate, it should be recalled that the concept of “slave-soldiers” in Islam is a time-honored tradition and phenomenon. The caliphates and sultanates especially utilized slave-soldiers, such as the Mamelukes and Janissaries. Though slaves have been used as soldiers by many cultures and people, Daniel Pipes, author of Slave Soldiers and Islam, makes the case “that there was something unique about their use in the Muslim countries.”
“PHILIPPINES: Muslim rebels agree to end use of child soldiers,” from Reuters, December 12:
MANILA, 12 December 2008 (IRIN) – Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels have agreed to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, has announced.
“When we met with the leadership of the MILF, they agreed that they had children in their midst and they agreed to enter into an action plan with a UN country team to ensure the separation of the children from their ranks and their return to civilian life,” she said…
If the MILF follows through on this commitment, it could given them a sense of legitimacy and boost the chances of a negotiated peace, she said.
The 12,000-strong MILF has been fighting for an independent Islamic state on Mindanao, in the mineral-rich southern third of this predominantly Roman Catholic country of 91 million people. Tens of thousands have been displaced, in what the government and international aid agencies have described as a complex emergency situation that could lead to a full-blown humanitarian crisis if left unchecked.
Along with the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group and the communist New People’s Army, the MILF has been included in a UN list of groups using child combatants.
Denial:
In the past, the MILF denied using child soldiers, but acknowledged they had been taking care of boys under eight who were orphaned in some of its camps in the south. It argued it was protecting these boys from hostile fire and giving them an education.
Of course they are; that’s where the jihad always starts — education: education in the Koran and Hadith; education in the sunna of their warrior-prophet. And so forth.
But military intelligence sources and child rights groups say many of them are used on the battlefield or in support roles as porters, guides or camp hands.
The London-based Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers – in a report [http://www.child-soldiers.org/home] earlier this year – said that up to 13 percent of the MILF’s 12,000 strong force in 2005 were children.
Documents also declassified by the army intelligence, and obtained earlier by IRIN, showed that the MILF continued to train children as “tough, self-reliant, fighting men”.
Euphemism for “child abuse”?