It’s not just wars and rumors of wars we are seeing and dealing with as a world but also a new kind of war. Wars fought without uniforms and by unconventional means. More signs, check out the stats below:
According to a Wikipedia list of wars, the past 500 years have witnessed an increase in the frequency of wars:
15th Century – 29 wars
16th Century – 59 wars
17th Century – 75 wars
18th Century – 69 wars
19th Century – 294 wars
20th Century – 278 wars (wars transformed to unconventional as well)
The first decade of the 21st Century has already witnessed 55 wars, putting humanity on course for 550 wars over the next one hundred year period.
Have these wars increased in intensity? Yes.
Matthew 24:4-8 (NIV) – “4Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains.”
_________________________________________________________________
Sri Lankan president urges rethink on rules of war
The Sri Lankan president has called for a rethink on international rules governing the conduct of war.
Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, President Mahinda Rajapaksa stopped short of explicitly calling for the Geneva Conventions to be changed.
Diaspora groups, meanwhile, have renewed calls for an international tribunal over the alleged war crimes committed by the security forces.
The Sri Lankan government denies its side committed any war crimes.
Speaking 16 months on from the military victory over the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, Mr Rajapaksa called the rebels brutal, highly organised and effective.
In Thursday’s address, he said the Tigers had rejected attempts at dialogue with “contempt”.
The president said Sri Lankans had faced the “atrocities of terrorism” for decades, and that the country lost nearly 100,000 lives.
It was therefore, he said, worth examining the capacity of international humanitarian law to meet today’s needs.
This law is embodied in the Geneva Conventions, which among other things govern how prisoners of war should be treated and how civilians should be protected in conflict.
President Rajapaksa said that these laws had evolved for conflicts between states.
But last week his attorney general went further, saying the rules of war were “inadequate” and suggesting a new protocol on combating non-state actors.
As Mr Rajapaksa arrived in New York, a pro-separatist Tamil diaspora group called for a tribunal to be set up to prosecute alleged war crimes committed by Sri Lankan forces.
_________________________________________________________________
Click on the article title for a link to full original referenced article.
