Reconciliation, justice and peace in Syria remain elusive and remote. The gulf between the two warring sides is so wide and the Syrian opposition so divided that a consistent position cannot be expected from the opposition.
Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty
A picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency purportedly shows people attending the funeral of civilians killed in the village of Maan, in Hama province. AFP/SANA
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) achieved the almost impossible recently by adopting a unanimous resolution on providing access to humanitarian aid to Syria, breaking a deadlock that pitted Russia and China against the Western powers. Syria has been devastated by civil war, in which upwards of 140,000 people have been killed, 6.8 million displaced and 9.5 million are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
UN special envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi speaks to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (R) during a news conference after the Geneva-2 peace talks in Montreux in January. Reuters
The UNSC displayed such unanimity last when it voted to rid Syria of its chemical weapons capability. Russia and China have vetoed three UNSC resolutions proposed by Western powers to pressurise the Syrian government of President Bashar Al-Assad since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011.
In January, the world's peacemakers met in the Swiss city of Montreux, dubbed as Geneva-2, as a follow up to the earlier Geneva talks. Iran's exclusion from the talks and the pictures leaked by a Syrian government defector showing people being tortured and killed had cast a shadow over the talks. First invited to join by the UN Secretary-General, the invitation to Iran was abruptly withdrawn after objections by Western powers, particularly the USA.
The talks ended inconclusively after 10 days and no one knows if the talks will be reconvened. There was not much optimism for peace to break out and not much hope was pinned on the talks. The deep divide and bitterness generated by the horrific brutality committed by both sides, but mostly by the Syrian opposition fighters are factors contributing to the general and pervasive pessimism dogging the situation in Syria. The Internet is full of posts by the opposition Jihadists, showing grisly public beheadings of Syrian soldiers, pro-government militia members and civilians.
Increasing violence
The Syrian tragedy has unfolded with increasing violence over the last two years and 11 months, ever since the rebellion started in March 2011. The violence shows no sign of abating. The Syrian opposition is backed by the Western powers, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, while President Bashar Assad's government has received the backing of Russia, China, Iran and Iraq. The Syrian civil war has degenerated into a proxy war between these two sides.
The Syrian opposition, led by the Syrian National Coalition has demanded a transitional government and that President Assad should step aside. The latter has not accepted this demand and has even indicated that he may run for President again. The Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al Moallem, leading the government delegation to the Montreux or Geneva-2 talks, stated upon arrival at Montreux that the issue of President Assad and the regime were red lines for the Syrian government and the Syrian people and cannot be under discussion.
Syria facts
Syria's conflict started as largely peaceful protests against Assad’s rule in March 2011. It has gradually turned into a civil war that has taken increasingly sectarian overtones, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad’s government that is dominated by Alawites, a sect in Shiite Islam. The conflict that has torn Syria apart has raged for almost three years, according to activists has left more than 1,40,000 people dead in its wake and driven nine-and-a-half million from their homes. Of the nearly one million (official) Syrian refugees displaced in Lebanon, almost half are children; and around one in five, according to Unicef, are less than five years old. The Syrian Baath party is regarded as the founder of "Arab socialism", an ideological current that merged state-led economy with Pan-Arab nationalism. However, by the year 2000, the Baathist ideology was reduced to an empty shell, discredited by lost wars with Israel and a crippled economy
Disinviting Iran
Foreign Minister Muallem also criticised the move to disinvite Iran and called this action a “mistake”. Russia too has criticised the UN decision disinviting Iran and President Rowhani had hinted that Geneva-2 was doomed to failure because influential players have been excluded. Iran refused to back a communiqué emerging from an international meeting on Syria at Geneva in June 2012 which had called for a Syrian transitional government. The UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon withdrew the invitation after accusing the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif of going back on supporting a transitional government in Damascus.
India's External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid attended these talks as India's representative. This was the first time that India was included in deliberations on Syria. India's position on Syria is unenviable. India has maintained friendly relations with all countries embroiled in the Syrian conflict and has deftly avoided taking sides. Last month at the Munich Security Conference on Global Power and Regional Stability, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon had warned against indirect unilateral military interventions like in Libya and Syria stressing the importance of multilateral consultations to manage conflicts and reduce regional tensions. India has also firmly opposed external military intervention with the objective of regime change and has consistently asserted the right of the Syrian people to decide their own destiny without external intervention and pressure.
Islamic jihadists
Meanwhile, the President Assad-led Syrian government has received a morale booster from military successes in recent months and has pointedly reminded the Western countries and others supporting the Syrian opposition, the growing role of Islamic militants, Al-Qaida elements and jihadists from many countries who have been sucked into this war. In addition to the Pakistan-based Taliban and sundry jihadists waging war against Afghanistan, home-grown Pakistani jihadists and terrorists and terrorists in southern Russia, the Syrian civil war has become the favourite hunting ground for jihadists from all over the world. There have been reports that jihadists from European countries, including some of Indian origin, have joined the war in Syria. Their motivation is jihad against the non-Sunni Muslims, giving the Syrian civil war a distinctly sectarian colour — Sunni jihadists against non-Sunni Muslims. The global islamist dimension and the sectarian nature of the conflict have dampened enthusiasm among Western powers for the Syrian opposition.
Elusive reconciliation
Reconciliation, justice and peace in Syria remain elusive and remote. The gulf between the two warring sides is so wide and the Syrian opposition so divided that a consistent position cannot be expected from the opposition. But for some arm-twisting by their Western backers, the fragmented opposition groups and their leaders would have boycotted the peace talks. The cache of 55,000 digital images smuggled out by a Syrian government defector, showing the torture and killings of more than 11,000 Syrians detained by the Syrian government, came at a bad time, vitiating the atmosphere for the talks.
Typically, Western human rights groups seized upon this to lobby with their countries to bring more pressure on the Assad government and accused Russia and China of ignoring human rights abuses committed by the Syrian government. These same Western human rights groups tend to gloss over or downplay the rash of beheadings, mass killings of prisoners and floggings, unleashed by the opposition fighters, pandering thereby, to the geo-political positions of their respective countries on the Syrian civil war and the push towards change of regime.
Transitional government
While the Western powers, the UN and the Syrian opposition have coalesced around the issue of a transitional government in Damascus, as the first step to peace, the Syrian government has categorically rejected this proposition and wants to focus on the war against terrorism. With such diverging and intransigent posturing, it was not at all surprising that the peace conference at Montreux ended in failure. While the latest UNSC resolution provides a much-needed breakthrough for infusion of humanitarian aid into Syria, Western powers have criticised the lack of any sanctions in the resolution as rendering it toothless. The dropping of all references to sanctions, demanded by Russia and China, was the price paid for unanimity on the resolution.
Misguided policy
The worst is not yet over and there is disturbing chatter among the external backers of regime change that the next step should be targeted bombing of Syrian government assets and arming of moderate opposition rebel groups with sophisticated weaponry. This, they argue, would put additional pressure on the Bashar Al-Assad government and soften it up for future concessions. This would be a dangerous escalation and further underline the confused meddling by the coalition of Western powers and its Gulf allies in Syria that has so far been a failure. This will inevitably lead to more military escalation and further empowerment of extremist Salafist rebels who have a track record of seizing weapons from other moderate rebel groups. The end result of this misguided policy will leave Syria divided along sectarian lines with extreme Islamic rebel groups, allied with Al-Qaida elements, in control of chunks of Syrian territory, leaving Syria as another pre-Talibanised Afghanistan from where Islamist groups will inevitably turn on their Western and Gulf backers. The sense of déjà vu will then be complete.
— The writer, a former Secretary in MEA, former Ambassador and High Commissioner to Thailand and Bangladesh, has also has served in Indian embassies in West Asia
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