COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/23 July) – “Please do not allow us to spend another Ramadan in the evacuation center. We want to go home now.”
This sums up the appeal of internally displaced persons (IDPs, also known as evacuees or bakwits) in their collective State of the Bakwits Address (SOBA) read in Maguindanao by Ustadz Norodin Sain and in Pilipino by Oblate priest Eduardo Vasquez.
“This war has left wounds so deep and wide and has made our lives so miserable. Some of our houses have been burned; our meager belongings and farmlands destroyed. Even as many are helping us, many are still awaiting help,” the IDPs said in their 17-paragraph SOBA, read at the Notre Dame University gymnasium.
“Today this will be our classroom,” said Fr. Eduardo Tanud-tanud, OMI, president of the Notre Dame University, as he welcomed the crowd of about 2,000, most of them students from NDU, Notre Dame of Midsayap and Southern Christian College in Midsayap, North Cotabato.
“What is happening in Central Mindanao has an effect on all of us. For you students, you are the future. You are the future of Central Mindanao. You are the future leaders,” said Tanud-tanud, who said he was himself a “bakwit” in the 1970-1971 war.
“Hindi ko akalaing sa mga kaibigan kong Moro ay tuloy-tuloy pa ring nanghihirap,” (I didn’t expect my Moro friends would continue to suffer evacuations), Tanud-tanud said.
“Tama na. Alagaan natin at ibalik na ang mga bakwit sa kanilang lugar,” (Enough.Let us take care and return the evacuees to their homes),” he added.
Kagi Sittie Sandag gave a brief testimony of life as a bakwit as 25 evacuees gathered on stage. “Help us so we can go home. Enough of war,” she said in Maguindanao.
But the young boy, Alimuddin Musa, silenced the crowd as he began his testimony. He tried to avoid crying but broke down.
“I am crying because I want to go home. Please have mercy on us. We have no more money…. We want to go home because we want to return to school. We left our village because day and night we were afraid of getting hit by gunfire or mortar fire….We left our place and went to Datu Piang. We found it more difficult there, as bakwits. Enough already,” Musa said in Maguindanao.
Toh Midpantao, representing fathers in the evacuation centers, said “itigil ang putukan sa Mindanao para makauwi mga bakwit” (stop the firing in Mindanao so the evacuees can go home).
The SOBA also cited the case of Baby Boy Kureg who died at 2 months old because his mother, unable to eat three meals a day, could not breastfeed him. Instead, the boy subsisted for two months on “simbug,” a mixture of water and sugar.
“Baby Boy Kureg is just one of many children who died from illness, lack of nourishment and difficulties brought by war,” it said.
It also cited the case of the Mandi family who fled Barangay Tee in Datu Piang on September 8, 2008, on two bancas. Only one survived from the other boat. Six family members – the father, eldest daughter who was pregnant and four other children, were killed by shrapnel wounds.
The Mandi family, it said, “is just one of many who lost their lives. Many bakwits have been orphaned or widowed. Several pregnant women have suffered miscarriages. Children and the elderly have died of shock from mortar explosion.”
The SOBA also expressed fears about “sudden enforced disappearances” like the case of IDPs Lao, Kaharudin and Harudin, who had not been heard from since May 7, 2009, and getting bombed in the evacuation centers like what happened on June 15, 2009 “when the evacuation center in Libutan, Mamasapano, Maguindanao was hit by three mortars.”
“Even evacuation centers are not safe anymore,” the SOBA said.
The SOBA also expressed fears “for our children,” who constitute the majority in the evacuation centers, many of them no longer in school.
“We fear the children will learn nothing but evacuation, war and hopelessness. We pray to God/Allah, to help us resume our interrupted lives,” it said.
The SOBA asked government and the MILF
- “to immediately declare a ceasefire and to return to the negotiating table to talk peace so that we can return home. We want to go home now!
_”to ensure our safe, organized and permanent return to our respective homes before Ramadan (Ramadan begins on August 21 or 22);
- that the ceasefire mechanisms be reactivated immediately.
The SOBA appealed to the Malaysian government to “redeploy the International Mionitoring Team to help us once again in enforcing the ceasefire agreement.”
It asked “all armed groups to keep away from the evacuation centers and civilian-inhabited areas.”
The SOBA also asked government to
- “provide food and other support and livelihood assistance to the returning IDPs and those still in the evacuation centers;
- “ensure that houses that were destroyed totally or partially, be repaired or reconstructed immediately;
- “ indemnify relatives of the slain or injured IDPs;
- recommend for the Commission on Human Rights to operate in Maguindanao and Cotabato and mobilize its fullest power, mandate and resources in order to protect the human rights of the IDPs.
The SOBA also asked “service providers and international humanitarian agencies” to “step up and coordinate humanitarian efforts and work together to fulfill the rights of the IDPs under the UN Guiding Princeiples on Internal Displacement.”
“Please do not allow us to spend another Ramadan in the evacuation center. We want to go home now,” the SOBA said.
Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, in his message urged the government and MILF to “end your war” because “enough is enough”
The message was read for Quevedo by Sister Rose Susan Montejo, superior general of the Oblates of Notre Dame.
The SOBA is still going on as of 11:20 a.m. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)
No comments:
Post a Comment