As peace talks flounder, a growing number of Syrians have been dying at the hands of Syrian government forces and rebel groups. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 230 people have been killed every day in Syria since international mediators attempted to bring together the Assad government and the Syrian opposition in Geneva last month. This totals at least 4,959 dead, with a third being civilians and 515 being women and children.
This, combined with a growing tally of atrocities from rebels on the ground on civilians and relief workers, continues to inflate one of the greatest humanitarian crises of modern time.
With the Syrian government regaining ground, the West is flummoxed about what to do next. With impatience flaring over missed deadlines for the evacuation of Syria’s chemical weapons from the country — which Syrian authorities have blamed on instability due to the civil war — and with the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East growing, pressure is mounting for the United Nation’s Security Council to act.
On Monday, the ambassadors to the Security Council from Russia and China both indicated that they will oppose a proposed humanitarian resolution that would force all parties in the Syrian conflict to allow access to humanitarian organizations. The nations’ rejection came as aid convoys came under heavy fire during a three-day humanitarian cease-fire in Homs. Eleven people were killed.
Some suspect that the true reason China and Russia are not willing to agree to a humanitarian resolution may be because such resolutions have been used before to force regime changes.
In 2011, for example, the Security Council passed Resolution 1973, which, in response to reports of civilians being killed by Gaddafi forces, demanded an immediate ceasefire and a complete end to violence and abuse to citizens. The resolution authorized all necessary means toward protecting civilians.
Even though the Gaddafi administration welcomed the resolution and initially agreed to the ceasefire, French, British and American forces intervened against Libya’s air defense capability, which strengthened the anti-Gaddafi forces and ultimately led to the dictator’s defeat. Many feel that NATO’s actions violated — if not the actual terms — the spirit of the resolution.
“Almost immediately, the NATO powers (France and Britain in the lead and the United States following) violated the resolution, radically, and became the air force of the rebels,” said Noam Chomsky, an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an interview with the Asian Human Rights Commission. “Nothing in the resolution justified that. It did call for ‘all necessary steps’ to protect civilians, but there’s a big difference between protecting civilians and being the air force for the rebels.”
The U.N. feels that a third of all Syrians that are currently in need are in hard-to reach areas in which access has been intentionally blocked.
“We have entire areas of the country where the ability to transport food and other materials is severely hampered because of deliberate blockades and constraints on trucks and convoys,” said Matthew Hollingworth, the director of the World Food Program’s Syria program, by telephone from Homs on Sunday. “It is a tactic that everybody is using, and it has a massive impact.”
Russia — which is a long-standing arms supplier to the Syrian government and which vetoed three Security Council resolutions that would have placed pressure on the Assad regime — finds the resolution attempt to be misguided.
“Our Western partners in the Security Council … proposed that we cooperate in working out a resolution. The ideas they shared with us were absolutely one-sided and detached from reality,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to Interfax.
Russia, instead, called on the Security Council to condemn “terrorism” in Syria.
China feels that any forced humanitarian concession will scuttle the Geneva peace talks.