The ongoing tragedy of the Syrian people
I hope the world will finally see the tragedy that is unfolding in Syria and finally act. What is happening to these people is an absolute horror.
It makes me wonder at the kind of lack of a fundamental *something* which various politicians must have (i.e. a part essential to making up a worthwhile human being), in order to be able to vote *against* doing anything to help people in a situation like this, for purely political reasons. (In the case of Russia's government, this includes commercial ties with the Assad regime: see for example this link.)
-------------------
(From the New York Times)
The wave of Arab unrest that started with the Tunisian revolution reached Syria in mid-March 2011, when residents of a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti. The government responded with heavy-handed force, and demonstrations quickly spread across much of the country. President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad, at first wavered between force and hints of reform. But in April, just days after lifting the country’s decades-old state of emergency, he set off the first of what became a series of withering crackdowns, sending tanks into restive cities as security forces opened fire on demonstrators.
Neither the violence nor Mr. Assad’s offers of political reform - rejected as shams by protest leaders - brought an end to the unrest. Similarly, the protesters have not been able to withstand direct assault by the military’s armored forces.
(...)
On Feb. 16, 2012, in a powerful rebuke to Syria’s government, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution condemning President Assad’s unbridled crackdown on the uprising and called for adoption of an Arab League proposal to resolve the conflict.
The resolution called for Mr. Assad to relinquish powers to a vice president; negotiations among the antagonists; and the formation of a new government.
The 137-12 vote, with 17 abstentions, was a nonbinding action with no power of enforcement at the world body, but it represented a significant humiliation for Mr. Assad, whose government had sought to block the vote on procedural grounds and severely criticized the sponsors, including Syria’s brethren in the Arab League. Bashar Jafari, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, called it a “biased resolution that has nothing to do with events in Syria.”
(...)
A previous effort to pass a resolution collapsed in acrimony in early February with a double veto by Russia and China, despite having been watered down to omit a call for Mr. Assad to step down. After the vetoes, Mr. Assad’s government brazenly carried out a violent assault on the city of Homs on the day that the Security Council had planned to vote. It came, too, around the anniversary of its crackdown in 1982 on another Syrian city, Hama, by Mr. Assad’s father, Hafez, in which at least 10,000 people were killed in one of the bloodiest episodes in modern Arab history.
Protest Timeline
Feb. 20 Activist groups reported intensified attacks in the central city of Homs. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was trying to negotiate a pause in the violence to deliver aid to Homs and other devastated areas. Also, two Iranian warships docked in a Syrian port as a senior Iranian lawmaker denounced the possibility that the Americans might arm the Syrian opposition.
---------------------------
More at the Source.
It makes me wonder at the kind of lack of a fundamental *something* which various politicians must have (i.e. a part essential to making up a worthwhile human being), in order to be able to vote *against* doing anything to help people in a situation like this, for purely political reasons. (In the case of Russia's government, this includes commercial ties with the Assad regime: see for example this link.)
-------------------
(From the New York Times)
The wave of Arab unrest that started with the Tunisian revolution reached Syria in mid-March 2011, when residents of a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti. The government responded with heavy-handed force, and demonstrations quickly spread across much of the country. President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad, at first wavered between force and hints of reform. But in April, just days after lifting the country’s decades-old state of emergency, he set off the first of what became a series of withering crackdowns, sending tanks into restive cities as security forces opened fire on demonstrators.
Neither the violence nor Mr. Assad’s offers of political reform - rejected as shams by protest leaders - brought an end to the unrest. Similarly, the protesters have not been able to withstand direct assault by the military’s armored forces.
(...)
On Feb. 16, 2012, in a powerful rebuke to Syria’s government, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution condemning President Assad’s unbridled crackdown on the uprising and called for adoption of an Arab League proposal to resolve the conflict.
The resolution called for Mr. Assad to relinquish powers to a vice president; negotiations among the antagonists; and the formation of a new government.
The 137-12 vote, with 17 abstentions, was a nonbinding action with no power of enforcement at the world body, but it represented a significant humiliation for Mr. Assad, whose government had sought to block the vote on procedural grounds and severely criticized the sponsors, including Syria’s brethren in the Arab League. Bashar Jafari, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, called it a “biased resolution that has nothing to do with events in Syria.”
(...)
A previous effort to pass a resolution collapsed in acrimony in early February with a double veto by Russia and China, despite having been watered down to omit a call for Mr. Assad to step down. After the vetoes, Mr. Assad’s government brazenly carried out a violent assault on the city of Homs on the day that the Security Council had planned to vote. It came, too, around the anniversary of its crackdown in 1982 on another Syrian city, Hama, by Mr. Assad’s father, Hafez, in which at least 10,000 people were killed in one of the bloodiest episodes in modern Arab history.
Protest Timeline
Feb. 20 Activist groups reported intensified attacks in the central city of Homs. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was trying to negotiate a pause in the violence to deliver aid to Homs and other devastated areas. Also, two Iranian warships docked in a Syrian port as a senior Iranian lawmaker denounced the possibility that the Americans might arm the Syrian opposition.
---------------------------
More at the Source.