War & Conflict War and Conflict by Kristin 1. What are the main issues for this topic?   2. What are some regional examples of these issues? 3. How does this issue affect me (at the personal level)? Youth voices on war and conflict Roxana from El Salvador: "It was very terrible for me to know day by day that people were killing each other. There was a time when I knew I was alive that day, but I didn't know about tomorrow's destiny. When a country is at war, people become untruthful and most people lose perspective. The war hurt me very much, not only because I lost family members, but also because of the way they were killed." Haiveen, Nova Scotia "My country - Kurdistan - is not independent. In the part where we lived, there's no war, but it's like you don't exist. We couldn't read or write in Kurdish or listen to music in Kurdish. My dad was in prison for 10 years because he was politically against the government and he wanted freedom. My dad wants rights for humans, for everybody. When he was in jail, it's not like Canadian jails. They abuse you physically and emotionally. When my dad was let out of jail he said we had no future in Kurdistan. So we left." Children live through terrible experiences during times of war. Even after the conflict is over, children suffer from depression and nightmares, unable to play or go to school, and feel insecure or hopeless about the future. *A 1995 survey in Angola found that 66% of children had seen people being murdered, 91% had seen dead bodies, and 67% had seen people being tortured, beaten or hurt. [Unicef] Children may also be forced to be soldiers - or may join on their own to get food and protection, to fight for social justice, revenge or religious beliefs, or to find a new "family" in the army when their own is lost. *Currently there are 300,00- children under 18 fighting in wars around the world. [War Child] 4. How does this issue affect youth in my community? Starvation and disease - deadly by-products of conflict. War disrupts the growing and transportation of food, safe water supplies and access to health care and medicine. Bullets and bombs may seem to us the most deadly part of war, but in reality, starvation and disease can take more lives than violence during conflict. Landmines are often "indiscriminate" weapons of war - targeting civilians more often than soldiers. The cost of landmines is felt for years after the end of conflict in many ways - causing death and injury, preventing the growing of crops in mined fields, and stopping families from returning to their villages long after peace has been established. In countries where there aren't wars going on, war and conflict can show itself in different ways. "Massacre in schoolyard," "Gang violence runs rampant - television and newspaper headlines declare in local and national newspapers the daily violence that happens in the most peaceful of countries. Violence, abuse and neglect are faced by people and communities in every country - what seeds of future violence are being planted today? 5. How does this issue affect youth in the Americas? In 1991, developing countries spent US $121 billion on military expenditures. In some of the poorest countries, more money is spent on the military than on education and health (UNICEF, 2000) UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2000 states that "it is not accident that more than half of the world's poorest countries are embroiled in ongoing and incipient crises." What responsibility do wealthy countries have to help address poverty in other countries? And why do we have poverty in the first place? Although poverty is often at the root of conflict, the causes of each conflict are complex - the competition for scarce resources, greed, the arms trade, ethnic and religious tensions. Wealthy counties are often the supplier of weapons to poor countries - companies and individuals in both wealthy and poor countries often get rich off the "profits" of war. For example, the United States now controls 50% of the international arms market, and is the world's largest exporter of weapons (Peter Coombes, End the Arms Race www.peacewire.org). One important question we can keep asking ourselves when it comes to war is - who is benefitting? The answer to this question will help guide us in our passion and activism in fighting to end suffering caused by war. Sources used in the creation of this article: 1: End the Arms Race website www.peacewire.org 2. Unicef www.unicef.org 3. War Child www.warchild.ca or www.warchild.org