Following The UN Plan
Ah, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed that he will, in the best interests of his country, accede to the UN plan. Warning, however, that the plan's chances of success can only be met if the "terrorist acts" behind which lurk foreign powers, cease. He himself plans to "spare no effort" to make the plan work. Not making an "unsparing effort"; rather he will "spare no effort". And that fairly well sums up the situation.The terrorists behind the ongoing protests, the very same Muslim Brotherhood-inspired protests that his father before him settled expeditiously, feel somewhat the same way. Unless and until the regime ceases its acts of institutionalized terrorizing against that portion of the Syrian demographic that is not Shia, and not Christian, there will be no opportunity for the peace plan representing the Arab League/UN, presented by their envoy Kofi Annan, to succeed.
A halt to violence, daily two hour humanitarian truce, media access to areas of fighting, political dialogue, the right to demonstrate, and the release of detainees. Likely. Each side has already invested too much of their blood, sweat and tears to pull back now. And never will the Alawites trust the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, nor will the Sunnis trust the Alawites; why would they? Their common history has taught them otherwise.
Eight UN experts and three from the Organization of Islamic Co-operation took part in a Syrian government-sponsored assessment tour. The result of which is the understanding that one million Syrians are in dire need of humanitarian aid, according to the deputy UN spokesman. A rare agreement.
There is none within the Arab League, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar (with Turkey) feeling it appropriate to help arm the rebels, while others, led by Iraq resists that move. The divisions are split, accountably, along sectarian lines. "Based on our experience in Iraq, the option to arm either side of the conflict will lead to a regional and international proxy war in Syria."
Iraq knows of what it speaks. Its Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in fact just recently gave Iraqi Sunnis good reason to return to hostilities with the ruling Shia. The one thing that all outside influences appear to be agreed on, is to rule out exterior intervention, military action by those outside the country.
And as the stalemate and the violent aggression and counter-aggression continues, Homs has been leaking its Christian population, driven out by fear and apprehension of their fate once the protection that the al-Assad regime has given them is removed, and the Islamists step in, as seems somewhat predictable in the long run.
Ancient Homs hosted 50,000 Iraqi Christians; that population has now been reduced below 1,000. "Some Christians who tried to escape a week ago were stopped from leaving by the rebels and were instead forced to go to a mosque to act as shields. They thought that, because Christians support Assad, the government would not attack them", explained a priest who had fled to Lebanon.
"The people we are helping are very afraid. The Christians don't know what their future will hold. They are afraid they will not get their homes back", explained Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo. "There were rumours of extremists coming to Homs from other Muslim countries to fight with the rebels. We don't know if it was true, but it frightened many people."
Labels: Arab League, Conflict, Islamism, Syria, United Nations
posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 30, 2012
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