One billion people, one sixth
of the earth’s population,
have directly experienced torture, terrorism or
mass violence through war, ethnic conflict or genocide. This
has occurred in more than 47 countries in Asia, Africa,
Europe, Latin America and North America. Unfortunately,
the effects of oppression, cruelty and torture do
not fade when the oppressors leave. The victims are
often left with lifelong disabilities preventing
them from working, caring for their families and
learning new skills. Not
only does untreated depression tend to lower life
expectancy, it appears to extend into the next generation
and beyond. Some
examples of the magnitude of t
he problem include
Africa,
Asia,
Latin
America,
North America.
Every
country south of the Sahara has either been affected
or borders on a nation that has been devastated by
mass violence that threatens to expand into regional
civil war.
Algeria
lost 50,000 of its people in a civil war in the 1990s.
Rwanda
had 800,000 people, or 10% of its population butchered
in a genocidal war that lasted 100 days.
In Uganda
300,000 people were killed at the hands of Idi Amin, 25,000 children
have been kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army and 2 million
people are in camps where the current death rate
is 1,000 per week.
In Sudan
400,000 people have been murdered by government forces at the rate of
80,000 deaths per month and 200 million survivors displaced from their
homes
Central African Republic and Chad are overrun
by terrorists who are systematically raping and
murdering the occupants of villages and small towns.
The spread of mass violence from Darfur to Chad
and the Central African Republic threatens the
economy and societies of an entire region.
ASIA
In Cambodia,
Pol Pot’s regime killed 2
million people and forced 16 million more into
exile.
In East Timor, 200,000 Catholic men, women and
children were murdered and 300,000 more were forced
to flee the country.
In North
Korea, an estimated 2 million people have been tortured, raped and murdered
in state run detention camps, while the remainder of the
population slowly starves.
EUROPE
In Germany,
the Nazi government starved, tortured and exterminated
6 million Jews, 4 million Russians and Poles, 800,000 gypsies and smaller
numbers of communists, homosexuals and handicapped persons.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina,
200,000 Muslims were butchered and 2 million more forced
into exile by the Serbian government’s systematic effort to erase
a people from the earth.
In Srebrenica,
8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered in a ten-day
period
In Beslan,
Russia, Chichen terrorists took 1,200 people hostage,
killing 148 adults and 186 children.
In Madrid,
Spain, terrorists bombed commuter trains killing 190
people and wounding 1,200 more.
In London, England, Al-Quaeda suicide bombers
attacked the subway system and a double-decker
bus killing 57 people.
LATIN AMERICA
In Guatemala,
1 million indigenous Mayan Indians were killed or driven
into exile by a state-sponsored genocide lasting 35 years.
In El Salvador, 75,000 people were killed in
a 12-year war that ended in 1992.
In Peru, 28,000 people have been kidnapped and
murdered by resurgent guerillas.
In Argentina,
30,000 people who “disappeared” during
a “dirty war” years ago are still largely
unaccounted for.
In Chile,
3,000 people were “disappeared” during
the Pinochet regime in the late 1970s.
In the United
States, suicide bombers converted domestic airliners into missiles and
murdered 2,973 people.
A MANDATE FOR ACTION
Victims of terrorism
and mass violence are left with invisible emotional wounds that do not
disappear with the passage of time, affecting their ability to lead
productive lives. According to a landmark
study, The Global Burden of Disease: A Comprehensive
Assessment of Mortality and Disability from Disease, Injuries and Risk
Factors in 1990 and Projected to 2020 (Editors: Murray CJL and Lopez AD.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1996), depression
is the 4th leading cause of death and disability in the world today. It
is predicted, that depression will become the 2nd leading cause by 2020.
If this problem is left untreated, individuals, families, cities,
countries and even whole continents can fail socially and economically.
The Peter C. Alderman Foundation is effective in returning
children, women, and men to productive lives and communities to economic
vitality. Support
the Foundation.
