The UN General Assembly’s massive vote in favour of a resolution condemning human rights violations in Syria, calling for an end to the violence and for President Bashar al-Assad to resign further isolates the Syrian regime, shows the international community is truly concerned about the situation in that country and puts Russia and China to shame for vetoing last week’s UN Security Council resolution on Syria.
Plans must also be made for the creation of safe havens in northern Syria- Anthony Manduca
The Arab-backed initiative was approved by 137 votes to 12 against, with 17 abstentions. Vetoes are not allowed in the General Assembly, so the resolution, which unfortunately has no legal basis, was easily adopted.
It is interesting, however, to see which countries voted, along with Syria, against the resolution. These were: Belarus, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Most of these countries have abysmal human rights records, while others voted no simply to spite the US, which of course makes no sense at all, and is a reflection of an outdated Cold War mentality.
The non-binding resolution adopted supports an Arab League plan aimed at stopping the killings and was modelled on the previous resolution presented to the Security Council that was vetoed by Russia and China. The adoption, on such a large scale, of the resolution is a massive endorsement of the Arab League’s efforts to find a solution to the crisis in Syria and gives their initiative a moral and political boost.
Such encouragement, however, is not enough to stop the state-sponsored violence and killings in Syria, and sooner or later the international community will have to take concrete measures, if necessary outside the UN framework, to protect the Syrian people.
As predicted, the violence in Syria has got worse and the Assad regime – encouraged by the Russian and Chinese veto at the Security Council – has increased its brutal crackdown on its own people.
In fact a day after the UN General Assembly called for an end to violence Syrian troops intensified their shelling of the city of Homs. One opposition group said the bombardment was the heaviest since troops launched attacks on anti-government strongholds two week ago.
Hadi Abdullah of the Syrian Revolution General Commission told the AFP news agency: “It’s unbelievable, extreme violence the like of which we have never seen before, with an average of four rockets every minute”.
It is absolutely clear that there can be no negotiated settlement with President Assad – he discarded that possibility a long time ago when he began slaughtering his people simply because they were calling for political reform.
Unfortunately, however, the Syrian situation is a complicated one and it will be more difficult to get rid of Assad than it was to oust Libya’s Gaddafi, for example. The difference between the two conflicts is quite clear: Gaddafi had no friends, at least no friends with any real clout, his army consisted mainly of poorly trained militias, the small population of Libya is concentrated principally in a few coastal cities, Libyans are almost entirely Sunni Muslims, and the unrest in Libya did not have any regional implications.
In contrast, Syria has a large, well-equipped and well-trained army. It has a population of 22 million spread throughout the country; it is divided along religious lines: 74 per cent Sunni Muslim, 13 per cent Alawite (an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam which Assad and the ruling establishment belong to), 10 per cent Christian and three per cent Druze, and also along ethnic lines – 90 per cent Arab and 10 per cent Kurds.
Furthermore Syria is strongly allied to Iran and to the Lebanese Shi’ite movement Hizbollah, is a close ally of Russia, and is strategically located between Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, so the possibility of regional instability is very real.
In spite of these complications, however, the international community cannot ignore the plight of the Syrian people and absolutely scandalous situation in that country.
First of all, the main powers involved in wanting to help Syria – the Arab League, Turkey, the EU and the US – must help the Syrian opposition and encourage it to unite and to offer a credible alternative to the Assad regime where the rights of all minorities – Christians, Alawites and Kurds – would be fully respected in a post-Assad Syria.
Plans must also be made for the creation of safe havens in northern Syria, supported by Nato and the Arab League, and protected by air power. This is similar to what was done for the Kurds in Iraq in the 1990s. Any attack by Syria on these safe havens would be met by military force.
If these safe havens are sanctioned by a UN Security Council resolution, all the better; if not, so be it. In Kosovo, after all, Nato stopped genocide taking place without the support of the UN and without sending in ground troops. It simply used air power, and the same thing can be done in Syria.
At the same, efforts must continue to be made to persuade the Russians and Chinese that it is no longer in their long term interest to continue blindly support-ing the Assad regime, which is doomed to collapse.
It is simply a matter of time before his happens and the sooner Russia and China realise this the better.
Russia has a lot of influence over the regime in Damascus and its should use its close ties to Syria to persuade Assad to step down. Moscow should offer Assad an exit route by allowing him and his family asylum in Russia.
Now that would be an important contribution by Russia to international peace and stability.