Arroyo's regime is accused of treating Moro people like "animals".

By Rexcel Sorza , IOL Correspondent

ILOILO CITY, Philippines, August 18, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - The Moro people continue to suffer from human rights violations and "are being treated like animals," a group of human rights and peace advocates forming an International Solidarity Mission-Moro Team (ISM) said Thursday, August 18, 2005, after their investigation on the plight of the Moro.

"The Bangsamoro people under the Arroyo government are being treated like animals," the 11-member mission tasked to look into the Moro people's issues said in a statement sent to IslamOnline.net.

After the group's five-day integration in Moro communities and a visit to Camp Bagong Diwa prison facility, where more than 100 Moros are detained, it issued "a call for justice and end to the culture of discrimination against the Moro people."

Neil Stone, an ISM delegate, who is a member of the United States-based Network in Solidarity with the People of the Philippines, said they have "witnessed that the Moro people continue to face all out persecution by the Arroyo government and its military, the interests of foreign corporations and the war of public opinion."

He added that the Moro people "are driven out of their lands and have been deprived of their livelihood and other basic rights" apart from the "gross violation of their human rights and disregard for international human rights laws."

The Moro communities visited by the mission delegates were those of the thousands of Moro people, or Bangsamoro, who were forced to leave their homes in Mindanao due to clashes between government soldiers and revolutionary fighters, and lately between soldiers and bandit group Abu Sayyaf.

Inhumane

After a visit to Camp Bagong Diwa prison facility in Metro Manila, another ISM member, Sharon Eolis of the International Action Center-USA, concluded that the
detainees' "present situation is inhumane."

"The condition we have witnessed means minors and adults thrown together in a 10x12-foot cell with six inmates barely able to sleep on the concrete with cardboard as their mat," she told IOL.

Eolis, a physician, also noticed that an inmate, who has diabetes and tuberculosis, was not being treated and their "food is also unreliable causing many inmates to suffer from diarrhea and gastro-intestinal diseases."

During the military assault on alleged Abu Sayyaf Group members at the Camp last March 15, a total of 22 Moro detainees were killed, including a child detainee. Many others were wounded. Currently, there are 130 Moro detainees still languishing inside the Special Intensive Care Area of the prison facility.

Children

Even children are not spared, according to the Mission's findings.

Carlos Padolina, secretary general of the Salinlahi Foundation, an organization working for the rights of children, said the detention of 11 Moro minors alleged
as Abu Sayyaf members "is even more appalling."

Padolina said they found out that most were detained in 2001 and 2002, with the youngest during the arrest was only 14.

"Some of them were arrested inside their homes while they were with their families. We have also documented cases of torture after their arrests," he told IOL Thursday.

He said under their present condition, these minors were stripped of their rights to be rehabilitated, be given access to their families, a social worker and legal counsel as well as their be afforded their right to be separated from adult detainees.

Philippine Congress Rep. Liza Maza of Gabriela Women's Party also deplored the continuous incarceration of minors.

"These young boys have experienced enough that will traumatize and scar them for life. Many have experienced torture and were even witnesses to the March 15 jail siege. At a young age, they are first hand witnesses to the injustices of this regime. Their release is most urgent," she said in a separate statement sent to IOL.

Families Complain

The families of the detainees are also complaining about visitation policies of the jail.

"While families are allowed daily visitation rights, even the modest Muslim woman is subjected to a humiliating strip search," said Hayudini Caldo, spokesperson for the Basilan 73, the Muslim individuals arrested during the "state of lawlessness" declaration in Basilan, Sulu and Zamboanga provinces in 2001.

Caldo also underscored that several prison policies are inconsiderate of the most sacred Muslim beliefs and practices.

"The detainees are not allowed anymore to go to the corridor of the jail where they can collectively pray.

"With the Ramadan approaching, their only request is so simple though to be allowed to prepare their own food in their own cells as they did before to carry out their religious rights."

Amirah Ali Lidasan, Suara Bangsamoro spokesperson, decried that despite these Moro people being in jail for years now, most of them "have not seen a day in
court or been charged with any crime."

Lidasan, whose group is one of the mission's hosts, said the illegal arrests and detention of Moro people is being considered "as one of the gravest impacts of
the government's war on terrorism to the Muslim."

She further charged that the military's easy justification of crackdowns on Muslim communities and madrasahs is "a vicious anti-Muslim habit" that has become a policy of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Loud Voices

Emmi de Jesus, Gabriela secretary general, added, "Never has the cry for peace and justice been louder. Now is the time for Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike, as well as Christian brothers to stand in solidarity for truth and justice, of re-igniting the human spirit and standing together for the rights of the Moro people. The Arroyo government must end its militarist and discriminatory policy against the Bangsamoro people."

Gabriela, another mission host, laments that the "Arroyo regime's war against the Bangsamoro people is being committed on all fronts. They have been denied
their native lands, livelihood and decent living. They are dubbed as terrorists and are often jailed for no apparent reason."

The International Solidarity Mission-Moro Team is composed of 11 delegates from the United States , New Zealand , Brazil , Canada , Australia , and Japan , together with the Moro-Christian People's Alliance , Gabriela and Salinlahi Foundation. A total of 85 foreign delegates from 16 countries are here for the International Solidarity Mission 2005.

The findings of the whole mission will be submitted for trial at the International People's Tribunal, set on August 19, at the University of the Philippines Film Center in Quezon City .

President Gloria Arroyo's culpability will be scrutinized by a trial endorsed by more than a hundred international personalities and institutions, including former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
academician and linguist Noam Chomsky, and former Justice of the Supreme Court of India Jittendra Sharma.