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During great international sporting events like the Olympic Games, the world stops, as the general attention is focussed on the best athletes and their exceptional performances.
The talk of the town will centre on the limits of man as records continue to be broken. Millions will be glued to the small screen and will forget their usual routine.
Front pages will splash impressive titles and spare few superlatives on those who run fastest, jump highest and throw furthest.
United Nations Assembly calls for a truce
Even wars are conveniently forgotten. Killings take a break because usually, during the games there is a cease-fire in all conflict areas. It is imperative to remember that there are many zones involved in war and destruction; most of these are totally ignored and forgotten by the media.
The United Nations General Assembly has once again called for a truce during the Games. 190 nations joined Greece in unprecedent support for peace – “and not just for the 16 days of the Athens Games, but hopefully beyond.” Fine words indeed.
Past experience has shown that once the curtain goes down, shooting restarts, hundreds are killed and tears again start to flow. The world headlines will revert to the same old clichés of terror, destruction, bombings and funerals.
When the UN general assembly discussed the resolution, the Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou referred to the roots of both the truce and the Olympics which go back to the 8 century BC. He insisted that they “want to revive the basic principle of the Olympics - which is primarily a peace project’ and the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed hope that “the Olympic truce would have an impact.”
The UN resolution is the seventh which was adopted since 1993 but as today’s world is totally different to that of the early nineties there are many who still express doubts as to whether it will meet with the previous agreements.
What if the truce is not respected? What if there is a terrorist attack on the Greek capital?
The Athens’ edition is the first after nine-eleven and many are those who fear the worse. The Organisers are hardly taking any chances. By the time the Games are over, £1.3 billion would have been spent on security. According to Denis Oswald, Head of the IOC co-ordinating committee, the seven-nations advisory group is taking all the precautions necessary for the safety of athletes, officials and the people.
Peter Ryan, Head of security, confirmed that they are well aware that the main targets are the Olympic Village, the venues, the city itself and its four million inhabitants.
The advisory group of seven countries - Australia, Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Israel and the US have had regular meetings and planned for many long months. Russia also provides expertise.
NATO will also be well involved. The alliance will provide air and sea surveillance to protect the August Olympics from chemical, biological or radiological attack. Greece officially asked for NATO help to boost security for the games in March one day after 10 bombings in Madrid killed 200 people and injured 1,500.
In the past NATO has provided protection to member countries at summits, ministerial meetings, as well as the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt lake City, Utah.
More than 50,000 members of Greek security forces and emergency services will be directly involved in protecting athletes and visitors, but the Greek government has made it clear that no armed foreign police would be allowed on their territory.
Certain countries have made certain restrictions on their squads. For example US athletes will only leave the village for actual participation and for no other reason.
Europe has not had any wars in the last sixty years and only the older generation remember the sufferings of World War II. The history of Modern Olympics mentions the fact that the 1916, 1940 and 1944 editions were not held because of wars.
Eleven mothers make millions cry
As the Jews were celebrating Easter, their Channel II screened a fifty-minute documentary which made my heart bleed. The film which was produced by Adi Arbel, 34, of Tel Aviv related the interviews which were carried out with eleven Israeli and Palestinian women who lost their children, as they gave accounts of their sorrows and sadness. An emotional experience of misery and despair which can hardly be explained. Millions cried while watching.
A French woman who had financed the documentary insisted with Adi Arbel to include a ray of hope towards the end. “What hope?”
“My only consolation” said Ronit Ilan “is that in the end there is death and with death there is an end to their suffering. I keep asking whether it would have been better if I didn’t have them, known them and loved them. I have no answers!”
Ronit, a beautiful woman from Rishon Letzion, south of Tel Aviv lost two kids during a terrorist attack, Lidor 10 and one-year old Uriya. On that day her brother, his wife and their three sons were also killed!
‘Nunnananna’ the title given to the documentary also tells of Susan Hajo of Gaza who lost her daughter Iman, of three months when her house was targeted. “I opened my eyes and saw blood coming from her mouth. I took her in my arms, rushed under a tree, tried to cover her, but she was already dead. I did not know what to do...and why they killed an innocent baby.”
According to the daily ‘Haaretz’ in three and a half years of ‘intifada’ the figures of young people killed is saddening....122 Israelis (all under 18) and 468 Palestinians (255 under 14).
The documentary shows the sad experiences of both sides. The common factor is that all those who were interviewed had suffered the loss of at least one child. “I have, I want to say, I had two young boys!”
It there is an agreement on cease-fire and then we revert back to the customary atrocities, it is merely a sad reflection of the world we live in. Why can the powers that be agree to a temporary suspension and not to long-lasting solutions?
Kofi Annan feels that the resolution sends a strong message, "telling the warring parties to stop and reflect even if it is for 24 hours. Hopefully some of them will stop not just for 24 hours, but for a much longer period.
“I hope that people in all conflict areas from Iraq to Afghanistan, to Liberia, to the Congo will really listen to the message. But it is not just those who are actually fighting. The population should also work to make demands that they want peace, and that the fighting must stop.”
And so say all of us.
Wars never solved conflicts.
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