Social Issues

Ms Yvonne Lee, a Year 3 student who majors in Chinese and English at the University of Hong Kong, recalled this scene from a trip organized by the Hong Kong Red Cross.

She was one of the 18 delegates who participated in the summer project named "People on War", which brought them to war-ravaged lands in Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

In order to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, the project was launched to promote public concern about the significance of the International Humanitarian Law.

Mr. Wilson Wong, Hong Kong Red Cross assistant secretary general for international and relief services, explained that the selected countries represent a continuation of armed conflicts at different time frames.

Delegates visited war victims who suffered from landmines in Cambodia, from Agent Orange in Vietnam, and from continuous civil war in the Philippines.

Mr. Leung Chi Kai, a Year 1 engineering student at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, interacted with people in the Philippines during his 7-day trip.

Said he: "Continuous domestic armed conflicts have caused underdevelopment of the country.

"Local people do not know how to protect themselves and seek help.

"They are so desperate that they called themselves 'small community', which meant innocence and neglect," he said.

Mr. Law Tan Sing, a postgraduate student in architecture at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, was another delegate of the project.

Before going to Vietnam, he had seen victims of Agent Orange in photos and had prepared psychologically for the most heartbreaking scenes.

During the Vietnam War, varieties of highly toxic defoliants, most of it called Agent Orange, were sprayed on 965,006 acres of land by American aircraft.

Not only did the toxin poison the land, but also the following generations of children, who were born with physical handicaps and facial deformations.

Said he: "I remembered when I visited the Friendship Village and the Peace Village, where war victims rehabilitate, we saw people with an extraordinarily big heads or without ears and limbs.

"I was so sympathetic with them that I could hardly take pictures of them," Mr. Law said.

War brought sorrow to the victims, yet it also brought out the best of humanity.

Many war victims have tried their best to sustain their livelihoods in their ruined lands and love everything they possess.

Though every day is a trial, they cherish every opportunity to survive.

"They are very different from many Hong Kong youngsters who take everything for granted," Mr. Law said.

"In Hanoi, I met an old woman whose husband and son died during the war.

"When talking about the war, she could not control herself and burst into tears. Indeed, the war ruined her heart."

Yet, the old woman showed no signs of hatred.

"She forgave the government because the war had passed already.

"She thought it was meaningless to blame others and to be angry," Mr. Law said.

Not all war victims resort to forgiveness. What they do is just to forget.

Said Mr. Law: "I found that they were not willing to talk about war.

"Therefore, they were annoyed when we asked them such kinds of questions."

In war-torn Cambodia, Ms Yvonne Lee realized how serious the plight of the inhabitants was.

Said she: "Living on heavily-mined land is not what they desire.

"However, they all have no choice," she said.

Because of poverty, some Cambodians had to join "de-mining" activities to earn money.

However, some of them thought that it was an honour to work.

"They were just innocent people without knowing how dangerous it was at the sites," Ms Lee said.

Another delegate, Ms Kit Choy, who works in a local bank, said that wars brought no glory for Cambodia.

"No matter which party won the war, the country has been ruined and the psychological pain of war victims cannot be compensated for," he said.

All of the delegates realized that the destruction of wars are tremendous.

No matter what kind of war it is, the impacts are long lasting and harmful to all mankind.

A wrong step is tragic to this Vietnamese child.
Courtesy of Mr. Law Tan Sing