Time and again, the Syrian regime has shocked the world. But those
hoping the international community would be spurred into action have been just
as frequently disappointed.
BY URI FRIEDMAN
The
Syrian government's crackdown on protesters and armed rebels has produced a
seemingly endless stream of grim and grisly days, with more than 9,000
civilians perishing in the violence since March 2011, according to U.N.
estimates. Yet some incidents have garnered more international attention than
others, either due to the scale of the bloodshed or the savagery of the attack.
The
slaughter of more than 100 people on Friday in Houla, a series of villages near
the Syrian city of Homs, is proving to be one of these incidents. The U.N.
Security Council unanimously condemned the killings, U.N. envoy Kofi Annan
hurriedly organized a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an
effort to salvage his peace plan, and governments around the world expelled
Syrian ambassadors and diplomats. Der Spiegel is calling the massacre
"Syria's My Lai," while Reuters has described it as "an atrocity
that shook world opinion out of growing indifference." But a look at the
incidents that have played this role most prominently during the 14-month-old
uprising suggests that the outrage will fade away once the headlines do.
MURDER OF HAMZA AL-KHATIB
Last
May, gruesome images of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib's mutilated body stunned
the international community. Here's how the New York Times described the
footage at the time:
Video
posted online shows his battered, purple face. His skin is scrawled with cuts,
gashes, deep burns and bullet wounds that would probably have injured but not
killed. His jaw and kneecaps are shattered, according to an unidentified
narrator, and his penis chopped off.
"These
are the reforms of the treacherous Bashar," the narrator says. "Where
are human rights? Where are the international criminal tribunals?"
Human
rights activists claimed that the boy had been arrested at a protest in
southern Syria, tortured to death, and handed over to his family in return for
their silence. Syria's state-run media, for its part, contended that Hamza died
from gunshot wounds during an attack by armed groups on Syrian forces, and that
Bashar al-Assad met with the boy's family to express his condolences as soon as
authorities were able to identify the corpse.
Hamza's
death inspired a popular Facebook page and mass anti-government demonstrations
across Syria. "Arab revolutions -- and associated social and international
media -- seem to thrive on icons," the BBC's Jim Muir wrote at the time,
"and the Syrian revolt appears to have found one."
RAMADAN MASSACRE
As
Ramadan approached last July, activists wondered whether the Muslim holy month
would breathe new life into their movement, since people would have an easier
time organizing protests while gathering in mosques for evening prayers after
each day's fast. But on the eve of Ramadan, the Syrian military stormed Hama,
which had become a protest hub as soon as government forces withdrew from the
area in late June (the flashpoint city had previously been the scene of a
chilling massacre in 1982 under Bashar al-Assad's father). Activists feverishly
uploaded videos of the violence, which left as many as 300 people dead in six
days, according to opposition activists.
In
response, U.S. President Barack Obama and the Russian Foreign Ministry issued
their strongest critiques of the Assad regime yet, and regional powers such as
Turkey and Saudi Arabia turned heads by sharply escalating their criticism.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul called the bloodshed "unacceptable"
while Saudi King Abdullah urged Damascus to "stop the killing machine"
and recalled his ambassador to Syria. Nevertheless, a U.N. Security Council
resolution condemning the violence never got off the ground.
ASSAULT ON JABAL AL-ZAWIYA
In
December 2011, as Arab League officials prepared to travel to Syria to monitor
a peace plan, activists reported that Syrian forces had surrounded villagers in
a valley in the northern Jabal al-Zawiya region of Idlib province, killing more
than 100 people with an onslaught of rockets, tank shells, and bombs in an
effort to root out army defectors -- particularly ahead of the Arab League
mission. Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights called
the attack "an organized massacre" and the "bloodiest day of the
Syrian revolution" up to that point,
while the Syrian government did not comment on the claims.
In
the aftermath of the assault, the opposition Syrian National Council called for
the U.N. Security Council and Arab League to hold emergency meetings and
develop plans to protect Syrian civilians. But the incident mainly elicited
tough words from Western leaders and the Arab League peace initiative
ultimately failed.
ASSAULT ON BAB AMR
In
early February, Syrian forces began a month-long siege of the Baba Amr district
of Homs that eventually forced the rebel Free Syrian Army to withdraw from its
stronghold. As photos and video attest, the relentless bombardment reduced the
neighborhood to rubble. While there has not been an overall estimate of the
death toll in Baba Amr, Reuters noted at the time that residents who fled to
Lebanon spoke of "a martyr if not more" in every house and "the
smell of decomposed bodies, sewage, and destruction" hanging in the air.
The American reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were
among those who died in the shelling.
While
China and Russia blocked aggressive action against Syria at the U.N. Security
Council, they did join other world powers in demanding that U.N. humanitarian
chief Valerie Amos be granted access to Baba Amr. When Syrian officials eventually
acquiesced, Amos was devastated by what she saw. "That part of Homs is
completely destroyed," she explained, "and I am concerned to know
what has happened to the people who live in that part of the city."
HOULA MASSACRE
On
May 25, 2012, 108 people -- including 49 children and 34 women -- were murdered
in Houla, according to the United Nations, with entire families gunned down in
their homes and most of the victims summarily executed. The Syrian regime
blamed the violence in the largely Sunni area, which the Syrian military had
been shelling in possible retaliation for a rebel assault on an Alawite
village, on "armed terrorist groups," while witnesses and survivors
told U.N. investigators that pro-government militias were responsible for the
bloodshed. A couple days later, opposition activists reported a bloody
government assault on nearby Hama.
Repeated
violations of Kofi Annan's peace plan had made a mockery of the ceasefire for
some time before the slaughter in Houla. But the news threw the international
community's failure to resolve the crisis in Syria into sharp relief. The U.N.
Security Council condemned the Syrian government's use of heavy weapons in
Houla in a rare display of solidarity, though the non-binding statement did not
assign blame for the executions and Russia, which has long vetoed more robust
Security Council action on Syria, later argued that Syrian rebels -- and
perhaps a mysterious "third force" -- were partly to blame for the
massacre. Still, the New York Times claims that the Security Council's move
armed Annan with a "new mandate" for his peace plan as he met with
Assad in Damascus, and the coordinated decision by Western countries to expel
Syrian diplomats has left the Assad regime more isolated than ever before.
To
be sure, the Syrian government isn't the only party that has been accused of
atrocities. Last June, for example, the Syrian authorities blamed armed gangs
for killing more than 120 security forces in the northwestern town of Jisr
al-Shughour, though opposition activists denied the allegations. And U.N.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon suggested earlier this month that al Qaeda
militants orchestrated twin suicide car bombings in Damascus that killed 55
people.
But
beyond the confusion about who is behind the atrocities is the question of
whether these high-profile massacres have meaningfully altered the trajectory
of the Syrian conflict. Even in the wake of the Houla killings, there's little
appetite among world powers for military intervention, and engineering a
Yemen-style transfer of power in Syria at this juncture could be incredibly
difficult. As Reuters noted on Tuesday, Russia does not appear to see Houla as
a "game-changer" when it comes to supporting tougher action against
Syria at the Security Council.
When
this week's frenzied but largely symbolic diplomatic activity subsides, in
other words, the international community may be no closer to devising a
solution to the intractable crisis in Syria than it was before this weekend's
horrific violence.
-This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 29/05/2012
-Uri Friedman is an associate editor at Foreign Policy
-Uri Friedman is an associate editor at Foreign Policy
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