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“The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres on March 23. “That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.”

“It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives,” he said. “To warring parties, I say: Pull back from hostilities. Put aside mistrust and animosity. Silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes.

“This is crucial … To help create corridors for life-saving aid. To open precious windows for diplomacy. To bring hope to places among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.”

Within a week, 53 UN member nations had signed on to a letter of their own, calling for a global ceasefire. Canada was among the first of the 70 nations that have since endorsed the call. Pope Francis echoed the call on March 29. Such swift global reception was unprecedented, but then, so was the call to lay down arms.   

Other natural disasters have turned adversaries into fellow humans needing or offering help. The Security Council has intervened by ordering a ceasefire in international conflicts. And since 1993, the UN has declared global ceasefires before every Olympics and Paralympics. The pandemic however provides a new opportunity for the UN to declare that war is a non-essential service.  

With at least 70 armed conflicts involving non-state actors raging around the globe, the idea of an immediate global ceasefire may seem like a pipedream. On the other hand, as Guterres said, “Our world faces a common enemy: COVID-19.” Drawing on both the peacekeeping and peacebuilding sides of the UN, Guterres has special envoys in most conflict regions, constantly negotiating for a little more understanding. His words would have reinforced peacebuilding efforts already underway. 

Canada has sent armed forces into many regions to enforce a truce or help prevent further conflict. In 2016, Canada’s military adopted a new operating policy, an official Peace and Stabilization Operations Program. Also in 2016, Canada contributed $22.6 million to peace-building efforts such as $1.3 million to help rehabilitate former child soldiers in the Philippines so they can live peacefully with others. Another $3.6 million over three years went to Syria, to help train women as negotiators in that desperate ongoing war.    

Besides UN peacekeeping, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and UNESCO, globally there are dozens of non-profit peacebuilding groups including the International Peace Institute, Search for Common Ground, Catholic Relief Services, the World Bank, the Peace Corps, the Mercy Corps, Mediators Beyond Borders, and Interpeace. 

Of course, all of those organizations put together probably spend less than the $246 billion U.S. firms collected in 2018 arms sales, and much less than the $420 billion in total global arms sales (excluding China) for the year. U.S. companies sell 59 per cent of the world’s weapons. Russia came in at second place, according to a 2019 paper from SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 

However, in a more recent report, SIPRI concluded that “China is the second-largest arms producer in the world,” and that “If the four Chinese arms companies investigated in the study were included in the Top 100, they would all rank among the top 20, with combined estimated arms sales totalling $54.1 billion.”

Even at that financial expense, and including the squandering of human lives, probably war’s greatest cost is to the environment. Consider the bombed-out ruins of Allepo, and now Idlib. The Pentagon is the world’s single largest consumer of petrol. The Cost of War project at Brown University calculated that in 2017, for instance, “The Pentagon’s greenhouse gas emissions were greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of entire industrialized countries as Sweden or Denmark.”

Talk about a non-essential industry! Wars are destructive enough without the threat of a pandemic, and civilians are usually the main casualties anyway. The UN says 90 per cent of casualties in modern conflicts are civilians, the majority of whom are women and children. Mix in a virulent pandemic, and body counts could soar.   

Fortunately, the UN secretary-general’s call has found favourable response. In Columbia, the ELN, the National Liberation Army, declared a one-month unilateral ceasefire as of April 1; in Cameroon, rebel troops announced a temporary ceasefire on March 26; in the Philippines, the communist New People’s Army ordered its troops to fall back into defensive positions, and in parallel, Rodrigo Duterte’s government announced a temporary ceasefire; in Thailand, the largest rebel group in the South endorsed a ceasefire in early April; and in Sudan, the government and most armed groups announced unilateral ceasefires.

In Libya, the Central African Republic and in Yemen, at least the aggressing parties are back at the negotiating table. The Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirate coalition stopped bombing Idlib and declared a two-week unilateral ceasefire in Yemen on April 9. The Houthi rebels wants to set some conditions before they’ll commit to a ceasefire too. At least they’re talking.

Despite all this compliance, the UN Security Council still has not thrown its weight behind the ceasefire resolution, because the U.S. and Russia both object.

“… both governments fear that a universal cease-fire proposed by the U.N. chief could potentially constrain their own efforts to mount what they consider legitimate counterterrorism operations overseas,” suggests Foreign Policy magazine. 

French President Emmanuel Macron has put forward an alternate motion to support the ceasefire, with a clause that would allow Russia and U.S. to ignore it. But The Guardian reports: “If the big powers can choose to ignore a UN-mandated global ceasefire when it suits them, analysts warn, then non-state actors and terrorist groups may decide to do likewise.”

Meanwhile, international peace organizations are revving up support for the ceasefire. World Beyond War is lobbying for “Ceasefire without cease,” and tracking the countries that support Antonio Guterres’ proclamation. In 2018, WBW proposed a “Global Security System” focused on “1) demilitarizing security, 2) managing conflicts without violence, and 3) creating a culture of peace.”

WBW and Avaaz  both have petitions where the public can support the UN’s ceasefire call. Avaaz has collected more than two million signatures. The newish A Year Without War organization, empowered by a UN resolution, hopes to extend the traditional Olympic and Paralympic ceasefires to a whole year, perhaps in 2021. 

The Institute for Economics and Peace issues an annual Positive Peace Report that measures the factors that sustain peace: well-functioning government, free flow of information, equitable distribution of resources, good relations with neighbors, high levels of human capital, acceptance of the rights of others, low levels of corruption, and a sound business environment.

Maybe the Avaaz and WBW petitions will generate enough momentum to generate a new question. “The UN is working hard to persuade people and governments everywhere to take a break from war, humanity’s most non-essential and deadly activity,” write Medea Benjamin and J.S. Nicholas in Common Dreams. “But if we can give up war during a pandemic, why can’t we just give it up altogether?”  

Award-winning author and journalist Penney Kome has published six non-fiction books and hundreds of periodical articles, as well as writing a national column for 12 years and a local column in Calgary for four years. She was editor of Straightgoods.com from 2004-2013.

Image: UN Geneva/Flickr

Penney Kome

Penney Kome

Award-winning journalist and author Penney Kome has published six non-fiction books and hundreds of periodical articles, as well as writing a national column for 12 years and a local (Calgary) column...