In Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sahel, Colombia or Libya, the guerrillas, radical groups, militias and armies have chosen to take advantage of the health contingency to advance their military and political objectives

The COVID-19 can't handle wars

photo_camera AP/HANI MOHAMMED - A Houthi rebel fighter holds his weapon during a meeting in Sana'a, Yemen

If the crisis of the COVID-19 has served to introduce a parenthesis in the convulsive turn of the world, scene in 2019 of dozens of popular revolts now in suspense, it doesn't seem to have been able to pause the violence and wars in progress.

In Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sahel, Colombia and Libya, the guerrillas, radical groups, militias and armies in conflict have chosen to take advantage of the health contingency to advance their military and political objectives, intensifying the confrontations. Especially in Syria and Libya, where Turkey and Russia, powers involved in a civil war with multiple edges, haven't ceased to encourage the geostrategic pulse that they have been fighting for more than five years.

In the last week of March, with infection rates soaring across the globe, in Libya, for example, more than a hundred militiamen from both sides have perished in the worst fight since Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the country's strongman, launched a siege on the capital a year ago. “I think it' s an illusion to think that with the health crisis of COVID-19 the conflicts will come to a standstill. In fact, the Sahel Boko Haram is still active,” explains Laurence Thieux, professor of international relations at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Un vehículo militar de combate de infantería (IFV) turco seguido de un tanque de combate M60T se ven a lo largo de la autopista M4, que une las provincias sirias septentrionales de Alepo y Latakia
Crisis of global diplomacy

Unlike in other crises, the global health emergency has also undermined the capacity for action of international diplomacy and interrupted ongoing processes of dialogue and negotiation, whether through the UN or the mediation of third parties, thereby also favouring the continuation of violence. One of the most significant cases is that of the dialogue between the USA and the Taliban, which should have progressed throughout the month of March and which is currently in an uncertain and dangerous parenthesis. 

“All leaders face pressure to focus on national priorities and ignore the risks of conflict in weak states that may seem difficult to resolve or simply not important enough”, explains the Crisis Group analysis laboratory. “But there will be a day after that, and if not treated with caution, the next period could be marked by major disruptions in already conflicted areas, the eruption of new violence and a much more fragile multilateral system”, in which China emerges against Europe and the U.S., he added.

El secretario general de la ONU, António Guterres, renovó su llamamiento a un alto el fuego global

This apparent weakness of the multilateral system can also be seen in the different ways in which the various contenders have responded to the request of UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierres, who on 23 March called for "a global ceasefire" to fight the pandemic.

While guerrillas such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia have joined the call, in places like Yemen the daily bombings don't stop, despite the presence of the virus. In Libya, the fighting hasn't stopped in the last ten days, but has spread to other areas of the country, such as the cities of Sirte or Bani Walid, until a few weeks ago, when it was calm. In the absence of international vigilance, the flow of arms has also increased - despite the UN embargo - and above all the landing of Russian and Syrian mercenaries - the latter sent by Turkey - in a civil war that is already the most privatised multinational conflict in contemporary history.

Combatientes leales al Gobierno de Acuerdo Nacional (GNA) abren fuego desde su posición en la zona de Al-Sawani al sur de la capital libia, Trípoli
Refugees and migrants at risk

The global health alert has restricted travel, suspended bilateral face-to-face meetings and also reduced the maneuverability of UN agencies, conditions that also condition the management of another of the great global crises, that of refugees and migrants. 

“We mustn’t forget the devastating impact this disease will have on the tens of millions of people already living in extreme humanitarian situations,” explains the Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), António Vitorino.

The IOM is one of the agencies that have joined the COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan, which has asked states for nearly $2 billion in extra funding to assist more than 100 million refugees and migrants trapped in countries such as Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Niger and Myanmar.

In this context, the organization insists on the need to include migrants in each State's overall response to the pandemic and warns of the risk that resource constraints will increase xenophobia and discrimination against migrants and foreigners. “This is the time for the international community to unite to combat this terrible virus. In doing so, we must not turn our backs on the world's most marginalized, but seek solutions that protect our entire global community,” says Vitorino.

Soldados del Ejército Nacional Afgano (ANA) hacen guardia en un punto de control en la carretera Jalalabad-Kabul, al este de Kabul, Afganistán, el 4 de abril de 2020
Multilateralism in the face of China's rise

The calls for unity and solidarity among nations coincide with the experts' warnings about the predominant role being played by China in world geopolitics, a regime that is not so inclined to multilateralism, the origin of the global pandemic, which has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the fight against it.

Not only by providing material and experts to nations with fewer resources, such as in Africa, where it has definitively displaced Europe and the United States -the first providers of aid in previous crises- but also in the “old continent” itself and in the main democracy of America, with which it also wages a trade war. 

“When the financial collapse caused a global economic recession in 2008, the U.S. still had enough influence to shape the international response through the G20, though Washington was careful to involve Beijing in the process”, Crisis Group recalls.

Un soldado iraquí en la base aérea de Qayyarah

The lab adds that Washington also assumed a late multilateral response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa but that “today, with its international influence already considerably weakened and a poor domestic response to the COVID-19, it has failed to bring other nations together and awakened international resentment”.

Beijing “has accelerated its diplomatic machinery to position itself as a leader in the international response to possible widespread outbreaks”, especially in Africa, Crisis Group insists before warning that the current pandemic “threatens to be long and grueling”. “It will make diplomacy, and especially crisis diplomacy, more difficult. But it is crucial to keep communication channels intact, and a spirit of cooperation, in a period when the international system seems as ready as ever to fragment,” he concludes.

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