War Exhibition:
Manifestation Of A Peace-Loving Society
By Sophia Ahmad and Soraya Jamal
www.bernama.com


KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 22 (Bernama) -- "From blood and pus that rot in the soil, from skeletons that have lost their soul, snatched by weapons, the result of belligerents who show no love, the red flowers bloom beautifully, wanting to be adored.

"Those who survived are living on the vestiges of life, full of suffering, hunched, deformed, maimed and blind, war in retrospect is full of horrors, they remember now, in bitterness, in solitude."

These were two verses from the Malay poem "Bunga Popi" (Poppies) penned by national laureate Datuk Usman Awang on wars in 1955, inspired by his observations of the turbulent world then.

Humankind has passed half a decade since Usman penned the poem, yet wars and conflicts remain unending. It is clear that humankind has yet to learn their lesson from the ravages of armed conflicts.

Visitors to the "Expose War Crimes: Criminalise War" exhibition and conference held at the Putra World Trade Centre recently, entered into an unknown dimension that was full of rage, terror and violence against fellow humans.

Organised by Perdana Global Peace Organisation led by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, this conference is seen as a catalyst for the establishment of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission and Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal.

From the outset, visitors were greeted with a baby's heart-breaking cries and followed by the painful screams of abused war detainees. All these heart-rending cries that had probably caused goose pimples on many of the visitors came as a background to the continuous sound of exploding bombs and firing of weapons.

The graphic images of tortured victims shown together with replicas of the victims was also upsetting to many. It was totally unimaginable, of how cruel the perpetrators of war could be against other human beings!

The Iraqis are trapped in a viscous cycle of violence, Palestinians still undergoing bloodbath and the Lebanese still in search of reconciliation to end the periodical skirmishes.

Not only that, the exhibition revealed cruelty during the Vietnam War, the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the horrifying effects of depleted uranium, economic sanctions, killing machines and the infamous torture chambers of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay detention centres.

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It's clear that this exhibition proved the point that war is the scourge of humanity, besides being an eye-opener on the hegemony and cruelty of the Americans and their allies.

The first Gulf War in 1991 launched by the United States paved the way for the continuous suffering of the Iraqis, especially when the economic sanction was imposed on them.

The 13-year sanction imposed by the United Nations left 1.5 million people dead, with 600,000 of them being innocent Iraqi children who were too young to understand the conflict and misery.

What had they done to deserve such inhumane treatment? Was this the price they had to pay for the sins and ambitions of a few adults?

The sanction was carried out with only one intention, to torment the Iraqis.

Is baby powder relevant to weapon making? What is the purpose of sanitary napkins in a rebellious mission? How can a school children's textbook be related to aggression? What has wheat flour got to do with developing missiles?

These are things that are ubiquitous in Malaysia and other countries but something rare in Iraq.

Denis Halloday and Hans Christof Von Sponeck from the UN's food programme in Baghdad reportedly resigned in a show of protest against the UN sanction and this is a clear sign that UN offers nothing but lip service.

UN wisely portrays itself as a world peace body, yet many times it had acted in cohort with the aggressors.

On May 10, 1996, Madeleine Albright (then US ambassador to the UN) was presented with a figure of half a million children under five dying due to the sanction. Without challenging this figure, she infamously replied: "We think the price is worth it."

In a nutshell, for the Americans, the life of others has no value.

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB PRISON

Ali Shalal, otherwise known as "The Man in Hood" and the survivor of atrocities at the Abu Gharib prison, shocked the world when the gruesome photos of his torture was shown by the media worldwide.

The audience shed tears when he recounted his horrifying and painful experience in the infamous prison after being detained without proper investigation by the occupying forces in Iraq.

He recalled detainees at the prison being tortured and tormented with the captors using methods unimaginable to normal human minds.

The Americans have mental and physical methods to interrogate detainees which have also been practised in other detention facilities such as the Guantanamo Bay and Arabian Oil Institute.

Beaten non-stop, a jagged stick and a rifle barrel pushed into his rectum, human excreta splashed onto his face, urinated on, confined in a cell without any clothing for two weeks and electrocuted for several sessions, were some of the tortures that Shalal underwent.

"I was tied to the metal bars of my cell by an Israeli interrogator and he then played the "By the Rivers of Babylon" song by pop group Boney M continuously until the next morning. The effect on me was that I lost my hearing and I lost my mind. It was very agonising and I lost consciousness," Shalal said.

No word could describe all the agonising experience he endured during five months in captivity.

When asked how he survived the torments, Shalal said: "God provides great strength to humans to overcome this, and please don't forget us in your prayers.

"The belligerents have no love for mankind! War rages on and they find profit in the colonised land! War rages and it kills babies in their cradles! War rages on and it destroys a culture and its values!"

CRIMINALISE WARS!

The following facts justify why war should be criminalised:

* Fifty million people were killed in World War II, 70 percent were innocent civilians.

* In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the total number of people who died due to the Little Boy and Fat Man atomic bombs was estimated at 230,000.

* In Iraq, the total number of civilians killed so far is estimated at between 350,000 and 950,000.

* In Lebanon, 1,200 civilians were killed by Israel last year while in Palestine 3,334 people died from September 2004 to September 2006, all because of war.

* The Vietnam War, the longest war in American history, killed two million to 5.7 million people, a large number of whom were civilians.

It's mandatory to declare war as a crime because civilians are the real casualties and the victims.

The questions that have arisen from the conference are who will listen and whether the world wants to listen in the first place?

The proposed Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission and Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal are a step forward in seeking justice for those who have been victimised by war.

The government alone cannot be championing war crime issues, while non-governmental organisations are the best medium to tackle mankind's misery.

On the other hand, a non-governmental organisation can only be successful in its efforts if it has the clout and for Perdana Global Peace Organisation this is where Dr Mahathir comes in.

Dr Mahathir managed to garner the best minds under one anti-war umbrella in elevating public-consciousness and international momentum.

It's time for us to shout confidently that we believe in peace!

"We hate war, full of killing! We cry for a never-ending peace!" -- Poppies, Usman Awang, 1955.

BERNAMA