A father mourns his teenage son, killed during a Russian shelling attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo: GETTY IMAGES.
In times of war, the children suffer. What did they ever do to you Putin?
You’d think everyone would agree that life is precious. You’d think everyone would be in fierce agreement that the life of a child is even more precious, given they have lived very little of it, and without being all religious about it, in a state of grace. You would, of course, be wrong.
Enter Vladimir Putin. And Putin is only used as his is the most recent example of such bastardry of the soul. Watching in the wings of course are Hitler and Stalin, among many others.
We speak of the children of war. With the shrug of a tyrant’s shoulders and a flick of nonchalance, children are killed and maimed, lose their mothers and fathers and families. It is almost too self-evident to state but this: children are not the enemy, holding guns, launching missiles, driving tanks. And yet they die.
When Putin lays his head on his pillow each night, does his mind swirl with images of child corpses? I expect not.
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says about 500 children have been killed in the past year and about 1000 injured. It’s an inexact calculus of cruelty, of course. The UN human rights office, the OHCHR, says about 8000 civilians have died and more than 13,000 have been injured.
Of those dead civilians, adults and children, 90 per cent came from explosives that were indiscriminate in their accuracy, which is the effect of carnage covering a wide area. Destroy the building, you murder those inside and nearby. Let’s call it collateral damage, eh Vladimir.
Ukraine says more than 1000 schools have been hit.
It is a sick perversion in the face of cold reality, given that an invader cannot kill all the children, thus annihilating future hatred and uprising, that there comes re-education. Ideologies have used it through history, China and Pol Pot most notably.
The Yale University School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab has recently released a report looking at human rights violations and war crimes allegedly committed by Russia.
The report found more than 6000 Ukrainian children, held in Crimea and Russia, were being politically re-educated in more than 40 camps.
“The primary purpose of the camp facilities we’ve identified appears to be political re-education,” Nathaniel Raymond, one of the researchers, has said. “What is documented in this report is a clear violation of the fourth Geneva Convention.”
The fourth convention relates to protection of civilians during war.
In the past couple of weeks, the US has upped the public outrage. The Vice-President Kamala Harris, speaking in Munich, said: “In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity.
“To all those who have perpetrated these crimes, and to their superiors who are complicit in those crimes, you will be held to account.”
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The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said: “We reserve crimes against humanity determinations for the most egregious crimes. These acts are not random or spontaneous; they are part of the Kremlin’s widespread and systematic attack against Ukraine’s civilian population.”
The US President Joe Biden visited Kyiv a week ago, walking arm in arm with Ukraine’s President Zolodymyr Zelenskyy. As far as symbolism goes, it was ultra forceful. Biden has labelled Russian actions as genocide. He has said Ukraine will never be Russian. He has promised billions of dollars of war’s machinery.
Putin addressed the nation a week ago. Incoherence now has a new benchmark. Part of what he said of the West was this:
“They distort historical facts and constantly attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church, and other traditional religions of our country. Look at what they do to their own people: the destruction of families, of cultural and national identities and the perversion that is child abuse all the way up to paedophilia, are advertised as the norm … and priests are forced to bless same-sex marriages.”
When this all ends, as it must, probably around a negotiating table as experts predict, how then to sit opposite a killer of children? Certainly Putin did not fire the missiles, but the hand that did was moved by his. A godforsaken island home in the Arctic Circle perhaps? The International Criminal Court takes years to process these things, and has had few convictions.
The despairing end note, however, is that the deaths of children in conflict is common and relentless.
A recent report from Save the Children stated:
“At least 550,000 deaths of children under the age of one could be attributed to the effects of conflict in the 10 worst-affected conflict zones between 2013 and 2017, the most recent year for which data was available.
“Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Iraq, Mali, Nigeria and Somalia are the countries where children were hardest hit by conflict in 2017.
“The death toll does not include children killed directly by fighting. Instead, it estimates the number of infants and young children who may have died from the knock-on effects of nearby conflict, such as starvation, outbreaks of disease, damage to hospitals, or delays to aid deliveries.
“Child deaths rose to 870,000 when all children under the age of five were included. The estimates are likely conservative.”
Sixty years ago, a young songwriter called Bob Dylan released “Masters of War”, some argue the greatest protest song. Dylan rages against arms manufacturers that is all the more urgent these days, but it has a verse that can speak more widely of the consequences of war.
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins.
That would be your veins, Vlad.
