WAR: Ugly!

Lots of good and controversial stuff to talk about the Olympics; almost all ears are concentrated in China. However, allow me to skip China for this mid-week blog. Let me talk about the problem going on between Georgia and Russia, because one of my Russian friends asked me to join an online group about stopping genocide in Georgia.

An attempt to annihilate a people group in the planet is despicable. No one has the right to curtail the existence of anybody.

While I have been following the news, I got interested to know how the affected population look at the conflict.

Here are some words I gathered on BBC Online News (Aug. 13):

For many Russians, they were alleging that Georgians are trying to wipe out the Ossetians. Dmitry Petrov, an architectural administrator said, "The Georgian military has used...Grad mortar rockets...to destroy the city of Tskhinval and some Ossetian villages where there were many civilians."

For Georgians, they were blaming Russia and the Ossetian separatist for the conflict. Mikheil Sukhitashvili of Tbilisi, after realizing that the Russians are bombong outside South Ossetian said, "...We are just a small country and Russia is a superpower. Why are they bombin so far outside South Ossetia?...We(Georgian) do not have anything against the ordinary Ossetians. There are many of them in the capital...and they live peacefully with Georgians."

For Ossetians, they were glad that the Russians are helping them push the Georgian military away from their land. An Ossetian English professor said, "...We (Georgians and Ossetians) are a very different people." And they are hoping that Russia will continue to protect them.

Culling statements from all the people directly affected by the conflict tell us that Ossetians wants to have independence from Georgia (because they are different from them). Oftentimes, a conflict happens upon the initiation of a group dissatisfied of a status quo; hence, the group wants change. Since the news also said that most Ossetians are holding Russian passports (and not Georgian's), it could be interpreted again that they are not happy how the Georgian government is treating them. It therefore could be true that the Ossetian separatist asked the help of the Russians.

The problem with the action of the Russians is that it failed to respect the sovereignty of Georgia. Russia should have acted as a mediator between the Ossetian separatists and Georgian government, and not as an invader. Now, like any others, I believe Russian is more to be blamed for the escalating conflict. I just hope that the 5-Point Peace Plan that the Russian and the Georgian have agreed upon will be carried out by both government, because war to me is ugly, pure and simple.

THE UGLINESS OF WAR
(A Tercet)

The booming of heavy mortars
And the popping of bullets
Made everybody jumped over bars.

Running away from the hamlets
Scampering from obvious harm
From arms that left walls with pellets.

Bullets peppered mud walls in swarm
See e’en traces of shrapnel’s
Some when touched are still awfully warm.

Holes are even in tin barrels
Feel them, they are like Braille.
They’re so ugly like walnut kernels.

On paper, they look like a trail.
When read, it surely tells us:
War is ugly; it must not prevail.

Edmund Melig Industan (c) 2007

Note: Tercet or Terzet is a rhyming 3-line poetry form where the first and the third lines of the first stanza rhymes, the second line rhymes with the first and the third lines of the second stanza. The Ugliness of War is included in my upcoming book, 100 + 1 Poems on THE EXPERIMENTAL DASANG (Hey Poems)and 45 OTHER POETRY FORMS: An Anthology.