Suffer little children

Elaine Smith MSP

As declarations from both the White House and Downing Street grow more frequent and bellicose in tone by the day, even the most optimistic pacifist among us would have difficulty refuting the fact that as this year progresses we appear to be being led closer to the precipice of war.

Whilst we may, or may not ever, be made party to the confidential intelligence which the US and UK Governments maintain demonstrates the threat posed by the Iraqi regime, for as long as there remains such a dearth of evidence in the public domain it is the duty of everyone in Britain to consider the facts which we do have access to; the actual facts which demonstrate the consequences and human cost of war.

As the military manoeuvring continues in foreign waters and on land thousand of miles away, it is difficult to fully appreciate the realities of war. It is essential that we realise the enormity of the situation and the potentially disastrous costs which a war may have for the people of Britain and most certainly the population of Iraq.

UNICEF, in a 1996 report, considered the variant features of conflict in our modern world and concluded that 'the singular characteristic of warfare in our time is that children suffer most'.

This is a particularly sobering thought if we consider that 42% of the current population of Iraq are children under the age of 15 years. Given that 90% of those killed in modern wars are civilians we must realise that the lives of 9.6 million Iraqi children are on the verge of being threatened by a war set to be fought in our name.

The full extent of human casualties in war often goes unrecognised. Those killed & maimed in past conflicts have frequently been described in the dehumanising terms of collateral damage. We must realise that collateral damage translates as loss of life and human injury.

Let us be in no doubt that such collateral damage will be a feature of any US/UK led conflict in Iraq. So called 'smart' weapons such as cluster bombs, land mines, daisy cutters and other anti-personnel devices kill people, indiscriminately and in large numbers. "Smart" they may well be, but they don't stop to enquire as to whether their victim is a civilian, combatant or child. Anti-personnel land mines, with their colourful appearance, are particularly dangerous to children. The enquiring child who touches one of these mines is unlikely to survive and if they do is almost certain to be disfigured or maimed for life.

John Pilger, in a recent article recalled a horrific encounter which he experienced during his coverage of the Vietnam War. Speaking of his arrival in a village which had earlier been bombed by American B52 bombers he said:

I slipped on the severed shank of a buffalo and fell hard into a ditch filled with pieces of limbs and the intact bodies of children thrown into the air by the blast.

The children's skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. A small leg had been so contorted by the blast that the foot seemed to be growing from a shoulder. I vomited.

Current international sanctions are already having a profound effect on the lives of Iraqi people. At present in Iraq, one in five children are chronically malnourished with poor water quality being the prime cause of child mortality. There are also currently over 700,000 displaced persons in Iraq, the majority of whom are women & children. There can be little doubt that a war would have devastating consequences for civilians in a country already so dependent on outside assistance.

These civilians, these children, have names, they are real people & cannot be dismissed & dehumanised as possible "collateral damage".

There are, in international law, a number of conventions established for the protection of children. Article 38 of the convention on the rights of the child calls on state parties to apply the rules of international humanitarian law relevant to children and take every feasible measure "to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by armed conflict" and to ensure that children under 15 have no direct part in hostilities.

On their informative website, Operation Desert rescue point out that in 2002 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution 'A World Fit for Children' which pledged to "protect children from the horrors of armed conflict" and asked that the UN & all Governments involved announce how they intend to honour this pledge.

A war on the underlying causes of conflict such as poverty and lack of development would be a war worth waging. I believe a civilised nation should wish to deploy it's resources that way and not in spending on weapons of mass destruction to be deployed in an unjustified & immoral war against a country where almost half the population are innocent children. We are all responsible for all of the world's children, not just Scottish ones. "They are all our children too" (Miss Saigon)