Ban Ki-Moon, secretaris generaal van de VN en Peter Maurer, de topgraaier van het Rode Kruis, waarschuwen de wereld, dat de conflicten tussen staten moeten worden bijgelegd en dat men internationale wetgeving moet naleven, waar extra werd gewezen op de plicht van hulpverlening aan vluchtelingen. Volgens Thea Paneth zijn er nu net zoveel vluchtelingen op de wereld, als aan het eind van WOII: 60 miljoen!!! Jammer genoeg wezen de twee niet op de oorzaak van ‘conflicten’ (oorlog) en dat die oorzaak vooral weer bij het westen en dan m.n. de VS ligt….. Neem Afghanistan, Irak, Libië en nu weer Syrië, ook de oorlog daar werd opgezet door de VS met behulp van een aantal andere landen, waaronder Groot-Brittannië , Frankrijk en Saoedi-Arabië)…… Thea Paneth vroeg zich af, of we intussen al in de Derde Wereldoorlog zijn beland; hier het artikel uit ICH van Paneth:
Is This War World III?
By Thea
Paneth November
03, 2015 “Information
Clearing House”
– “Common
Dreams”
–
There are 60 million refugees in the world, the same number
as were refugees at the end of WW II.
On October 31 in an
unprecedented joint warning, the United Nations Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon and Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of
the Red Cross called for “states to stop conflicts, respect
international law and aid refugees.” Criticizing the global
response to the refugee crisis, Ban Ki-moon said, “In the face
of blatant inhumanity, the world has responded with disturbing
paralysis.”
Despite the
“unprecedented” warning, it has not received enough news
coverage (a Google search turned up one hit on a news story in the
Guardian
UK
and a post at Common
Dreams)
compared to the many hits any celebrity scandal generates. The
chill goes down my spine when I think it’s like the world inaction
when Hitler was exterminating Jews across Europe.
Is this WWIII?
I don’t know what the
criteria of WW III would be, but when I sat down to make an list of
current factors that could be considered, this is what I came up with
and it’s not looking too good:
-
Multiple
confrontations between the U.S. and Russia on more than one front
(Ukraine and Syria)
-
Ongoing
confrontations between the U.S. and China in the South China Sea
-
A
renewed nuclear arms race in which all nuclear nations are
modernizing their nuclear arsenals instead of fulfilling treaty
obligations to disarm
-
Politically
unacknowledged failure of all U.S. war policies in the Middle East
and across Asia; universal continued pretense by the U.S. military
and political elites that more war will fix the disasters
-
The
global arms trade in which the U.S. accounts for three-quarters of
the global arms market
-
Global
military expenditure are $1.711 trillion, the global arms trade is
$100 billion/annually, AND military spending in the Middle East in
2014 rose by 75% to $173 billion
-
Japan
has scotched its peace constitution
-
The
refugee crisis shows no sign of abating and every sign of growing
and continuing to be ill-managed by the global community complete
with terrible percolations of hatred towards the refugees in nations
experiencing the influx
-
Economic
belligerence by wealthier nations towards less wealthy nations (one
example: E.U. towards Greece, there are many other examples of rich
nations bleeding poor ones)
-
Nations
and mass populations remain stubbornly indifferent to the series of
crises with few exceptions
-
Climate
change is happening, seas are forecast now to rise up to 3 feet and
probably more (even as much as 10
feet in a century or 2) and upcoming Paris talks are widely
expected to fail
- There is
continued suppression of dissent by surveillance, persecution of
whistle-blowers and journalists with repressive police tactics used
at protests around the world
The conflicts driving
people to hit the road or the seas are not going to be solved by any
nations dropping more bombs, putting “boots on the ground”
or arming one or more sides.
Unfortunately, the
U.S. bears the most responsibility for the current crises as the
“greatest purveyor of violence in the world” – as true
today as when Martin Luther King said it in 1967. At the same
time, U.S. peace organizations are all struggling to raise needed
funds to continue our efforts – marginalized though we are.
This is a substantial problem that needs to be resolved. To
solve these crises we need to bring the wars to a close.
If we are so inured to
the suffering endured by our fellow human beings that we do not
address the current refugee crisis, we are in great danger.
Human empathy is a road to transformative change – that which we
would not want to happen to ourselves is something we must work to
prevent happening to our fellow brothers and sisters. This goes
for wars as well as addressing climate change to our greatest
collective ability.
When we fail in our
responsibilities to this fundamental aspect of our being human is
when hatred ascends and wars spiral out of control. Is this the
current moment and if so what are we going to do about it?
Thea Paneth signed
the WRL pledge long ago, was a “rank and file” clam in 1977 and
works for peace and justice in Arlington, Massachusetts as a member
of the United for Justice with
Peace coalition.
Click for
Spanish,
German,
Dutch,
Danish,
French,
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Translation may take a
moment to load. (vertaling is tijdrovend, Ap)
Overigens klopt volgens mij het cijfer van de jaarlijkse wereldhandel in wapens niet, dat zou 300 miljard dollar op jaarbasis moeten zijn, i.p.v. 100 miljard……
Voor meer berichten over/met vluchtelingen, vluchtelingenbeleid, Middellandse Zee, Libanon, Syrië, Irak, Afghanistan, Libië, oorlog, VN, Ban KI-Moon en/of wapenhandel, klik op het desbetreffende label, onder dit bericht.