War on Terror: Kids Edition

There’s something pretty messed up when a 12 year old is accused of kidnapping 52 people and held in captivity without a completed trial into his twenties.

Today I went to visit a group of accused Abu Sayaff (the militant Al Quaida offshoot) prisoners at Camp Bagong Diwa, a prison in metro Manila. All of the group I met today were imprisoned barely into their teens, all are now in their twenties, and none have seen the end of their trials.

They were all arrested in Mindanao and brought to Manila to showcase to the media the “success” of the government in routing the Abu Sayaff. All are accused of crimes that seem outlandishly ridiculous like a 12 year old kidnapping 52 people, but even if they were true what’s happened to them since seems horribly unjust.

I went with a couple members of the Children’s Rehabilitation Center to discuss some proposed art programs for the inmates. I wasn’t allowed to bring a camera or recording equipment, so I felt somewhat handicapped, but I still wanted to see the conditions in which they lived. Hopefully if the programs are approved I’ll be able to bring in my gear.

They live on the first floor of the jail which is dedicated to Muslim detainees all accused of being Abu Sayaff members, of the 130+ only around three had had completed trials, many had been imprisoned over five years.

Around five to seven lived in each two part cell that measured approximately 3x6 metres for the inner room and 2x3 for the outer room. Each inner cell had a washroom facility that has running water about six hours each day. Between 8 and 3 pm the cells are opened and they are allowed into the approx. 6 metre wide inside hall of the jail (they are the only ones in the multistoried jail that had access to this) this have a basic weight set, a basketball net, and a pingpong table (though the inmates had to supply their own basketball and pingpong gear). They are not given any regular access outside so they would crowd around the one corner of the jail where light would come in on nice days. And after 10p the inner cell door is also locked down for the night.

One of the kids, Bimbas, showed me his cell which he shared with six others. It was set up bunk style, but instead of one raised bed over another, some slept on the floor under raised beds. He didn’t even have his own bed, he shared it with one other.

They have been housed in adult prison and denied schooling for the last four to five years. Despite this, he says that the conditions are better now. He used to be housed in the second building in Camp Bagong Diwa with criminals convicted of hard crimes like rape and murder. There he says he slept thirty to a cell (so crowded that you have to sleep on your side, he tells me with eyes glazed and mouth smiling). There water was rationed at four litres per person, per day—and that for all their needs from washing to drinking.

I was impressed by the strength of these young men. They greeted us with smiles and treated us with respect. It almost didn’t feel like I was meeting kids with their childhoods robbed from them—except for that glazed over look they all had when they weren’t talking to us directly. This was especially pronounced with Taufic Munir, the former 12 year old accused of kidnapping.

Ikram Amiruddin, who seemed to speak for the group, said as we were leaving “when you see us we are smiling and seem happy, but remember that there’s more. We’ve been taken from our families and imprisoned so far away from them that they can’t visit.”

That these young men have kept their sanity and decency after what’s happened to them humbles me. Sadness and anger are some other emotions I leave with, they may not have been militants when they were captured, but I have no doubt this is exactly what would spur others on to become one.