The forgotten Syria

With the war in Ukraine, it looks like the press has no attention any more to another country, located on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea in southwestern Asia, where Russia also provided a lot of atrocities.

Syria has become oblivious.

In 1970 Syria came under the authoritarian rule of Alawite Pres. Hafez al-Assad, whose foremost goals included achieving national security and domestic stability and recovering the Syrian territory lost to Israel in 1967.

Assad and other military officers had formed a committee to resurrect the fortunes of the Syrian Baʿath Party. The Iraqi branch of the party was toppled in 2003 as a result of the Iraq War. Beginning in 2010 and 2011 there was a wave by the population of those countries in the Middle East and North Africa which resulted in the Arab Spring protests.

In March 2011pro-democracy protests erupted throughout Syria. But the dictator was not willing to give up his cut and had his armies suppress the people to silence them. The protests escalated into civil war.

Strangely enough, the industrialised countries did not do much against the indiscriminate violence against protesters, the torture of children and adults, chemical weapons attacks a.o.. The threat of Western military intervention was averted in September 2013 when Russia, Syria, and the United States came to an agreement to place all of Syria’s chemical weapons under international control.

Russia, which had long provided weapons and political support to Assad, launched its own military action in Syria in 2015, bombarding rebel positions and deploying Russian ground troops in support of government forces.

As in many wars, a lot of war crimes took place while the West let Assad sit on his throne, while they had made short shrift with the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the past. It was probably the cooperation with the West in the war against Iraq (1980–88) and the U.S.-led alliance against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91, that resulted in more cordial relations with Western governments, which previously had condemned his sponsoring of terrorism. But after Bashar al-Assad had denounced the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, those relations were damaged, though many countries had taken the fear to come to see a second Iraq and as such were not so happy to interfere with Syria’s intern matters.

Though Assad’s crimes cannot and may not be ignored. Al-Assad ’s brutality has led to almost half a million deaths. The families and loved ones of at least 120,000 missing people continue to suffer their unresolved loss – and al-Assad added thousands to that number in 2022.

There is enough proof that Russia used prohibited weaponry. Now we also can imagine how Putin used the Syrian war as a preparation field or a ghastly dress rehearsal for his atrocities in Ukraine. Putin has used suffering Syrians as pawns in his power games at the UN, tested his weapons and trained his military, and dominated Syria’s security structures as a lever against Syria’s neighbourhood.

Turkey is also playing a double game, along one side allowing refugees, but the other side controlling Kurdish areas and oppressing Kurds.

After so many years of civil war, we must not think it is over. There are over 15 million Syrians who need humanitarian assistance, a shocking increase of almost two million men, women and children from 2021.

It may be true that the territories conquered by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) or Daesh have largely been regained, and that those religious phantoms’ power has been reduced, but if we are not careful and do not support people adequately, the danger of flare-up lurks behind the corner.
The threat of Daesh is literally growing and will do until a solution is found for the 30,000 Daesh detained in Syria and Iraq and the 60,000 people in Al Hol (Al-Hawl) and other camps, mainly women and children exposed to Daesh brutality and influence.

Two days ago Richard Mills told the UN Security Council.

“The regime, in fact, continues to behave as it long has – behaviour that rightly caused the international community to recoil in horror and reject any dealings with Assad.”

That things are not looking too good for Syria confirms UN aid agency OCHA’s Director of Operations, Ghada Eltahir Mudawi. She painted a bleak picture of the crisis in Syria.

“As 2023 begins, they face the worst year, yet – 15.3 million people, nearly 70 per cent of Syria’s population, need humanitarian assistance. It is hard to imagine such levels of distress,”

she said.

Mudawi said the acute fuel crisis is also affecting humanitarian operations, leading to fewer field missions and more project delays.

“I sincerely hope that 2023 will not be another bleak year for people in Syria,”

she added.

Preceding

Additional reading

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Published by Marcus Ampe

Retired dancer, choreographer, choreologist Founder of the Dance impresario office and archive: Danscontact-Dansarchief plus the Association for Bible scholars, the Lifestyle magazines "Stepping Toes" and "From Guestwriters" and creator of the site "Messiah for all". - Gepensioneerd danser, choreograaf, choreoloog. Stichter van Danscontact-Dansarchief plus van de Vereniging voor Bijbelvorsers, de Lifestyle magazines "Stepping Toes" en "From Guestwriters" en maker van de site "Messiah for all". View more posts