Wars around the world

Image: Ales Uscinau
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By MOWED VIANNA*

Regional wars, localized conflicts, just revolts, unjust repression, all of this together creates a broth of blood and hatred, where what is served are the lives of innocent civilians

The mainstream media talks a lot about two wars that are the subject of dispute over ideological narratives in Brazil, the war between Russia and Ukraine and the war between Hamas and Israel. And it seems that only these two wars “exist” in the world.

Touring the continents we have localized conflicts in South America between the Paraguayan People's Army guerrillas and the Paraguayan security forces; In Peru, the army is confronted with the reborn Shining Path guerrilla and in Colombia, after the demobilization of the FARC, the main conflict of the peace process with the Popular Liberation Army guerrilla remains the only conflict with the Gulf Clan narco-guerrilla. All these conflicts are small Latin American wars.

In Africa, Mozambique faces jihadists from the Islamic State of East Africa, ISWAP; Nigeria fights Boko Haram jihadists, Congo is involved in conflicts with the M23 guerrillas; Chad confronts Boko Haram, ISWAP and the Tuareg guerrillas. In Libya there are more than five armed groups vying for power using weapons and the same occurs in South Sudan. And Somalia has its war with the al-Shabaab jihadists. These hidden wars have left thousands of fatal victims, raped women and children recruited by the guerrillas.

In Syria, the Islamic State and the arms of al-Qaeda continue to confront the Kurds and the Syrian government. Turkey has its war against the Kurdish PKK guerrillas.

In Asia, clashes in the Nagorno-Karabak region continue to leave fatalities. In New Guinea the guerrilla for Papua's independence also became a small, never-ending war. Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to clash with ISIS-Khorasan jihadists. In this region, a war that is coming to an end is that between the Indonesian government and the jihadist group Abu Sayaaf.

In Brazil, in the USA, due to political choice, the so-called war on drugs is being experienced, which kills thousands of poor young people, generally black and living on the outskirts, without seeing an end. In fact, in Brazil the warlike growth of narco groups and militias, which eventually come together, is notorious.

Regional wars, localized conflicts, just revolts, unjust repression, all of these combined create a broth of blood and hatred, where what is served are the lives of innocent civilians.

One or both sides of any war or conflict always have justifications for their actions, which they believe to be the best from their perspective. The blindness of wars prevents us from seeing reality.

And I speak, or write, with the so-called “place of speech”, because in 1984 I joined the Simon Bolívar Latin American Battalion for three months in Nicaragua and we were on the frontlines with the “contra” and mercenaries from the USA and France where I actively participated in combat and was able to see the truths of war up close and without any makeup.

There are small wars all over the planet, many unknown to the general public, but which are no less cruel than the wars that occupy the news.

What stands out, however, in the current scenario is the fact that Israel has exceeded its fair right to retaliate against the Hamas attack and declare a war of extermination by bombing all the Palestinian people living in Gaza and with a strong possibility of this war if extend to the West Bank.

Since human beings became socially organized, wars have occurred. All of them are cruel, the vast majority are completely unjustifiable and the biggest victims are always innocent civilians. It is no wonder that human beings, in their hypocritical cruelty, classify the ability to conduct war as “the art of war”. There are books about wars, generally written by the victors, there are war heroes enthroned by the voice of those who need heroes to exalt, there are those who for their actions during the wars were rightly demonized and there are those, generally the troops, who are forgotten by history transformed into numbers and statistics, except for their families.

Wars are romanticized or dramatized in films, often with famous actors, or reported in books by those who only knew the war from afar. Wars are not romantic, even as when inside a trench near the border between Nicaragua and Honduras we exchanged insults with “a contra” listening to Van Hallen or Michael Jackson on portable battery-powered radios, who were the favorites of our Cuban commanders at the time of fighting or of pre-combats. In real wars people die. Your friends die, your fellow fighters die, innocent people die, hit by shots from all sides and in wars, away from the cameras, situations often occur that are considered war crimes and that have never been or will be made public and will only remain in the memory of those who were there at that particular moment and who were forever marked by it, this moment.

We do not intend to be naive or propagators of utopias, as wars have happened, are happening and will always happen, as what drives wars is something inherent to a good portion of humanity, which is greed for financial gains or power. Any war has one or both of these components.

Wars are similar to the parable of the spider and the fly where the spider thinks it is fair to eat the fly and the fly thinks it is really unfair to be eaten by the spider.

Unfortunately, the so-called “world peace” only exists in the answers given in mission contests…

Segadas Vianna is a journalist.


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