From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Dec 28 2009 - 12:27:12 EST
Fewer Wars, Less Peace
Indrani Bagchi, TOI Crest 26 December 2009, 01:09pm IST
Topics:afghanistan
war
A nagging memory of the 21st century is the chilling images of planes
slicing through the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center, raising
plumes of smoke and engulfing the towering structure in threatening flames.
It was the biggest and the most spectacular terrorist incident ever. In many
ways, it was the defining moment of the decade and somehow prepared us
mentally for the violence to follow in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. You
would hardly be blamed if you thought that the world's conflict quotient had
risen dramatically during the decade.
But here are some counterintuitive facts. The first decade of the 21st
century actually saw the end of many long-standing wars and conflicts around
the world. Mainly in Africa, these bloody conflicts had raged through the
1990s. They dragged on to the 2000s, but gradually petered out. Like the
murderous Rwanda-Burundi conflict which in 1994 saw the massacre of
8,00,000, and the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict that killed 1,00,000. But both
wound down in the 2000s and, by and large, have come to an end. In Liberia
and Sierra Leone, the Charles Taylor wars, after taking a toll of 50,000,
have stopped after Taylor was captured. In the 21st century the main
conflict in Africa has been in Sudan , between the government and the
Janjaweed, Chadian and Darfur-Arab partisans.
In 2008, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program in Sweden recorded 36 active wars
and conflicts in 26 regions of the world. If you go back just one decade to
the 1990s, the figure shoots up to 128. Out of these 36 armed conflicts
about five reached the intensity level of "wars" , meaning that these
conflicts resulted in more than 1,000 battle-related deaths in a year. These
were conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia. The
primary conflicts of the early 21st century are Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Iraq in Asia even as battle-scarred Darfur in Sudan hogs the headlines in
Africa.
Europe, though, has been relatively free of conflict since 2004 when the
Balkan crisis managed to break the deadlock. And despite Russian activity in
South Ossetia, the intensity of the violence in Chechnya, where an estimated
1,00,000 died in the conflict, and in Dagestan, where Chechen warlord Shamil
Besayev swooped down in 1999, has also came down appreciably. The Middle
East, on the other hand, has seen almost no easing up on violence. Along
with the Iraq war that started in 2003, and the Lebanon war in 2006, there
has been a constant stream of civilian deaths in Palestinian territories.
Since 2006, the vortex of world conflicts has shifted to the north-western
edges of South Asia with the Taliban resurfacing in Afghanistan and the
Pakistan Taliban, emboldened by a weak civilian government in Islamabad,
starting their own killing spree inside the country as it stepped up attacks
since 2007. Simultaneously, the war in Afghanistan also intensified in
anticipation of a second surge by the US, after the largely successful surge
in Iraq.
But 2009 also marked the end of yet another long-standing war - 25 years
after it started, the Sri Lankan conflict with the LTTE came to a bloody end
after Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse launched a massive military
operation that saw the death of top LTTE leaders, including V Prabhakaran.
The interesting trend in the bloodshed that marked the first decade of the
21st century has been the violence by so-called non-state actors. There have
actually been less inter-state wars and more violence unleashed inside
states by either terrorist groups, like the LeT in India, or by repressive
governments , like Chinese state authorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.
According to UCDP data, excluding the extraordinary numbers killed in the
Rwanda genocide, non-state actors now claim more civilian lives (78,362)
than state actors (56,418 between 1989-2007 ). In 2008, over 25,000 people
died in armed conflict, the highest being in Sri Lanka (8,400), followed by
Afghanistan (4,600) and Iraq (4,000). But these numbers notwithstanding,
between 2005 and 2007, the world saw fewer conflicts than ever in recent
times. Of course, this dip is now being reversed, particularly in
Pakistan-Afghanistan , Sudan and Somalia . But what's really worrying now is
the rise in civilian casualties caused by terrorism. This is far more
dangerous, say researchers, because while there is possibility of a
negotiated end to interstate conflicts, those that are caused by terror can
have only one clear winner.
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