WAR CRIMES

War Crimes in Egypt

War Crimes in Egypt

Thesis Statement

“Egypt has often acted as a mediator in regional disputes, hosting peace summits and overseeing negotiations between warring factions.”

Introduction

War crimes are the violations of laws and humanitarian conduct in time of war like abuse, torture or murder of POWs and civilians. In these crimes the schools, hospitals, mental institutions are targeted, along with other non-combatant, non-military related targets. When it is normally acknowledged by several scholars that war normally have a disturbing effect on non- participants, particularly ladies and children and that violence range from rape to prowling and murders are expected, some rules should be maintained that differentiate tolerable from non tolerable activities that may lead to genocide since we have a large number of cases. Egypt has gone through serious war circumstances and war crimes.

Discussion

Warfare is an organized, socially sanctioned armed conflict that takes place between two independent political units, groups, or communities using military force (Malinowski, 1941; Mead, 1940, 1968; Otterbein, 1994). Otterbein (1994) has categorized warfare into three types: (1) internal war and two types of external war, (2) offensive war and (3) defensive war. While internal warfare is between political groups within the same cultural unit or larger aggregates within society, external war is between culturally different units or between the society under study and other societies (Ember & Ember, 1997; Otterbein, 1994). Of the two types of external war, offensive is attacking and defensive is being attacked

Despite lack of concrete evidence, pre-historians believe that violent clashes between different groups were likely since Paleolithic times (Guilaine & Zammit, 2001/2005). According to Leroi-Gourhan (1965), aggression, an integral part of hunting, was essential in prehistoric times as a technique for obtaining food and warfare. Thus, violence, an extension of hunting, was a natural means for survival. Among the few remains that exist of Neanderthal man in the cave of Shanidar in northern Iraq, there appears to have been a high frequency of trauma-related deaths that show a likelihood of aggression (Cunliffe, 2006). Remains found in the Upper Paleolithic cemetery of Gebel Sahaba in Nubia, Egypt, show that at least 50% of those buried died from violence (Cunliffe, 2006). Looking at the aggression shown by the hunting populations of American Indians today, Guilaine and Zammit (2001/2005) surmise that hunting societies of the Upper Paleolithic Age were warring societies.

Burials of the Mesolithic man in Europe show signs of deaths by traumatic injuries, and those found in Bavaria show that heads were severed from the bodies, which could be indicative of either ritual sacrifice or widespread warfare among the hunter-gatherers. Among early farmers of the Neolithic Age from about 6000 BCE, violence and warfare in the form of raids and routs using bows and arrows, along with spears and axes, seem to have intensified as people started competing for resources (Cunliffe, 2006). The reason that warfare was so rampant among the hunter-gatherers and the early farmers is because they enjoyed war and it formed an integral part of their social existence (Clastres, ...