War in human and non-human contexts

¶ … Social Casualties of War

Whether the war that is being fought is a civil war, or the action of war resulting from a declaration of war between two or more countries, war impacts those people located in the geographical region where the war is being conducted who are not necessarily of a political or socio-economic ideology which forms the basis of the war.. That is to say that the sector of the population who are most likely to be directly impacted by the actions of war are not the political or economic elite whose motives for warring often do not arise out of concern for the masses, but are motives of self-interest. The people, from soldiers to civilians, are people whose lives will not realize direct benefits from the outcome of the war, but who will, nonetheless, suffer the action of war as it is being conducted. This paper examines the impact of war and warring on those people. It is a forthright that does not reflect a political, religious or socio-economic affiliation, but attempts an examination of the impacts of war on non-governing forces.

For purposes of this paper, a governing force is one that is duly elected by a people to act in matters of state and government on behalf of those people; a dictatorship; a theocracy; or an insurgent or guerilla force that is organized an opposing force to the existing or ruling body of a country or region.

Bosnia Herzegovina

After the fall of Communism in the U.S.S.R., and the pull out of Soviet Union military forces from the eastern bloc countries, the populations in those countries reverted to their historical and cultural relationships. In Bosnia Herzegovina, the cultural heritage was a mixed one; Serbs, Croats, Muslims and other groups made up the population of the Balkans since the sixth century (Friedman, 2004). During that early historical period, there was little that caused conflict between those various groups. That changed in the nineteenth century, when local and regional identities began emerging and indicators of nationalism began being evidenced (Friedman, 2004). However, going into the twentieth century, the nationalism of the cultural identities was subordinated to the governing forces, leading up to the post World War II Communist Soviet Union (Friedman, 2004). This is a recurring underlying similarity in those countries and regions experiencing war today, even when the subordinating authority is not the Soviet Union, there is a governing force that once it withdraws and the country achieves independence, violence ensues in a free for all grab for power and governance.

In Bosnia (the former Soviet dominated Yugoslavia), an area the size of the state of Wyoming, in 1987, when the "Communist state" dissolved, "Slobodan Milosevi? In Kosovo Polje, where, prompted by a Serbian mob fearful of the Albanian majority in Kosovo, he promised that "no one has the right to beat the people." As the "protector" of Serbian ethnic rights, his rallying call to Serbs was to reassert Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo and Vojvodina, which the 1974 Constitution had made almost totally autonomous from Serbia, and to reassert Serbia's primacy within Yugoslavia (Friedman, 2004, 34)."

What ensued from that point on was a civil war, arising out of fear, prejudice, and struggles for power and governorship. The civil war pitted neighbor against neighbor, people who had forgotten their cultural differences during the struggle to survive Communism. The result was genocide, because the population in general was unprepared for the manipulations of those seeking power, and to grasp power would incite the historical cultural differences within the diversity of the population (Friedman, 2004).

The result was horrifying, when opposing forces destroyed the region with war weaponry, and slaughtered entire villages where mostly women, young children, and the aged remained in their homes while the young divided themselves into the service of the opposing forces (Friedman, 2004). The violations of human rights were on a wide scale, and widespread, with both sides committing atrocities. However, by the time the United Nations intervened with peacekeeping forces, the impact of the war was obvious in the despair and destruction that the UN forces encountered. Families and friendships were destroyed, senseless loss of lives, economic interruption of work and production resulted in the need for humanitarian aid in the way of food, clothing, and to rebuild the infrastructure of the area (Friedman, 2004)..

Slobodan Milosevi? was arrested, and tried before an international tribunal at the Hague, and found guilty of crimes against humanity. "In response to the ferocity of internecine violence in the former Yugoslavia, known as "ethnic cleansing, " the Security Council utilized Chapter VII of the UN Charter on maintenance or restoration of international peace and security to pass Resolution 827 in May 1993, which authorized the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (Friedman, 2004, p. 76)."

Africa

In Somalia, a Somali proverb orders the life of the Somali this way:

Me and my clan against the world;