By Joe Johnson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 11, 2012
There is still no relief for the people of Syria. Their plight is one of life and death and it seems that providing serious help is always just out of reach. It doesn’t have to be this way. I was willing to give time to watch a resolution come from the international community, but now I’ve become scathingly critical of it. It has now proved itself to be utterly inadequate in preventing President Bashar Al-Assad from viciously hammering down on his people.
The Arab Spring uprising has made its way to Syria. The people want a better country – a more democratic and free place to live. Assad, however, is not willing to see his regime fall, and as a result the death toll has reached in excess of 5000 in nine months. This should be enough for any international body to act in protection of human rights.
In all fairness, this is not a simple issue. Syria is a very contentious country to deal with. The problems are much more serious than in they were in Libya, and it’s not so simple for NATO to provide military aid. Syria is a regional fault line in keeping stability, and repercussions could lead to a bloody civil war – but more still needs to be done for safety of the people.
My criticism of the international community in Syria’s case stems from both inaction and incompetence. The two major players in trying to bring resolution to Syria are the United Nations and the Arab League.
The UN is staggeringly cumbersome in action because of the politics involved: Western countries currently don’t have the desire to bring military forces to either remove Assad, or provide protection for the people. The preferred course of action is to increase economic sanctions, a method which can be effective, and we will most likely see more of this going forward. However, this is just too slow as tens of people are killed daily.
Things are further complicated when, at the 15 member Security Council, Eastern countries can’t agree with the Western countries in placing blame. Russia and China, in particular, are the two biggest culprits in continuing UN stagnation. There was hope last month that this may be resolving itself, as Russia announced that it was putting together a draft proposal which would see it moving closer to upping the pressure. Unfortunately, that proposal has now proved to lack any real teeth, and unsurprisingly, China has backed it.
The cynic in me wants to put this on Russian business interests. The Moscow Times reports there is nearly $20 billion invested in Syrian infrastructure, energy and tourism.
With the inaction of the UN, this leaves the Arab League to provide the needed measures. The league, composed of 22 nations, is an organization of North African and the Middle Eastern states, and is designed to provide stability between the countries. Syria, one of the nations in the league, was suspended last November as part of increased pressure on the Assad regime.
The league, to its credit, has made some progress as they actually managed to get Assad to sign onto a peace plan. This plan would have Syrian military leave the city centres, allow citizens to demonstrate, and see the release of protestors. To make sure that this actually happens, 100 Arab League monitors were dispatched to the state a couple of weeks ago. But this is where the incompetence comes in.
Assad has been trying to control what the monitors see. Their routes are pre-planned, and they’re shielded from what’s going on. It seems the monitors may be aware of and trying to circumvent this, and they’ve begun redirecting their routes. However, hypocrisy continues to pour from their mouths. While noting snipers are still visible, the Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi complimenting the monitors’ work by seeing the release of prisoners. But the bloodshed has not stopped. It’s reported that since the monitors arrived, there has still been hundreds of deaths. An advisory panel to the league has actually suggested the monitors leave if the violence continues. Finally, the monitors have now admitted that they’ve made mistakes. This type of overseeing of a peace plan is a first for the league, and now they are in talks with the UN for assistance. The monitors’ report should be released near the end of the month.
The UN’s sanctions and the Arab League’s peace plan both need to be enforced, as well as given time, to be effective. But there are people’s lives at stake every single day – and in Syria, time is life.
