Last week’s resignation of Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations and Arab League Special Representative for Syria is very bad news. Rightly so, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon described Brahimi’s departure as a “tragedy for the Syrian people” and a “failure” for the United Nations.
Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister considered as one of the world’s most brilliant diplomats, is greatly respected in the Middle East, and was appointed Syrian envoy in August 2012.
He is well-known for his patience and pragmatism, as well as his sense of humour which he applied to the many impossible missions he embarked on.
He reportedly told the Syrian delegates at one of the meetings of the Geneva conference: “At this rate, we’ll need 20 years. You’d better hurry up, as I won’t be around in 20 years.”
Brahimi had an impressive background with the UN: he helped broker the Arab League deal that ended Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1989 and also served as UN envoy to South Africa during the country’s first free elections in 1994, to Yemen, to Afghanistan following September 11, 2001, and to Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion.
However, the hopeless nature of the Syrian conflict, the strong divisions within the international community, the intransigent positions of the various sides involved in the conflict, as well as the ridiculous decision by President Bashar al-Assad to seek ‘re-election’ proved too much for Brahimi, who said he was “very, very sad to leave Syria in such a bad state”.
“I’m sure the crisis will end, but all should consider how much more death and how much more destruction will occur before Syria can become a new Syria,” he said as he announced his resignation.
Mr Brahimi did manage to organise the Geneva Conference on Syria, where two rounds of talks were held in January and February and where representatives of the government and Opposition (the moderate rebel groups) sat in the same room.
However, the two sides did not budge from their positions and the only thing achieved was very modest humanitarian cooperation in Homs, which last week saw the evacuation of rebel forces from the city.
The main stumbling block to making any type of progress is the Syrian government’s refusal to implement the Geneva Communiqué of June 2012, adopted at the first international conference on the conflict, which calls for the establishment of a transitional government followed by free and fair elections. The rise of Islamist jihadists linked to al-Qaeda in this conflict has of course made everything much more complicated.
The 2012 conference was attended by the secretary general of the UN, the secretary general of the Arab League, the foreign ministers of China, France, Russia, UK, US, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar and the EU foreign policy chief. So although Russia and China were signatories to the Geneva Communiqué, they soon backed down and continue to support the Assad regime.
I have said this many times and will repeat it once again: Moscow and Beijing (but especially Moscow) bear particular responsibility for the horrendous situation in Syria. Russia, a close ally of Syria, could have used its strong influence over President Assad to stop the escalation of violence and to usher in real political reforms at the beginning of the conflict.
Sadly, Russian President Vladimir Putin chose to unconditionally support Assad, whose philosophy was simple: destroy the Opposition, kill anyone who opposed him, use chemical weapons whenever he feels this is necessary, starve entire populations, destroy entire cities and make no distinction between combatants and civilians, including women and children.
The result has been horrific; the Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011, has led to over 150,000 deaths, more than 680,000 injured, three million refugees abroad, a further 6.5 million displaced people inside Syria, three million people having minimal access to essential services and more than 9.3 million people in need of assistance inside Syria.
This conflict is, without doubt, the worst humanitarian disaster in modern times and, sadly, it seems that there is no end in sight to this war. Furthermore, the conflict has led to various al-Qaeda jihadist groups fighting in the conflict, who are as bad, if not worse, than Assad’s thugs, and who have often overshadowed the moderate rebel groups.
This conflict is without doubt the worst humanitarian disaster in modern times
In three years, Syria has gone from being the world’s second largest refugee-hosting country to replacing Afghanistan as the biggest refugee population worldwide. Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said refugee numbers had not risen “at such a frightening rate” since Rwanda’s genocide in 1994.
This mass exodus of refugees from Syria has obviously had its toll on a number of neighbouring countries. Jordan and Turkey host over half a million refugees each, while Lebanon is sheltering almost a million refugees, a staggering figure. The number of refugees in Lebanon as a ratio of its population is equivalent to 15 million in France, 32 million in Russia or 71 million in the US.
The resignation of Brahimi as UN envoy really points to a sense of hopelessness in this very tragic conflict, but this does not mean that the world should abandon Syria, which looks as if it is heading towards a long-drawn-out conflict along the lines of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war. However, Lebanon’s conflict claimed 200,000 lives over a decade-and-a- half, while the death toll in Syria’s three-year war has already reached 150,000. Much of Syria, furthermore, has been destroyed, so this conflict is worse than Lebanon’s.
The time has come for some new ideas to prevent this conflict from deteriorating even further, including the previously unthinkable possibility of some sort of deal with Assad, in which he could be allowed to stay in power for a short while longer.
This will be very difficult to achieve, but does anyone have any better ideas? In the meantime, the suffering of the Syrian people continues, and the world looks the other way.