Syria violence accelerates, UN responds with go-slow approach

A UN official says the Syrian government has ramped up attacks on protesters since Arab League monitors arrived. But the UN Security Council will wait at least a week to consider action. 

|
SANA/AP
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad delivers a speech at Damascus University, Syria, Tuesday.

Despite estimates that Syrian government attacks against protesters have become more deadly since Arab League monitors arrived late last year – with at least 400 Syrians killed – prospects for United Nations Security Council action remains dim. 

The Security Council appears set to wait until the Arab League assesses its monitoring mission later this month before it considers any action. And with veto-wielding member Russia repeating its opposition to any steps targeting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the chances of anything meaningful coming out of the Security Council even after the Arab League meets again on Jan. 19 may be remote.

The suggestion of an accelerated rate of killings in Syria came as part of a briefing that Lynn Pascoe, the UN under secretary for political affairs, presented to the 15-member council Tuesday. In all, the UN puts the death toll in Syria’s 10-month-old antiregime uprising at more than 5,000.

The Security Council met just hours after President Assad delivered a no-regrets speech in Damascus – his first since June – in which he blamed a “foreign conspiracy” for inciting the revolt and promised an “iron hand” to eradicate the “terrorists” he claimed are causing the violence.

“Our priority now is to regain the security we basked in for decades, and this can only be achieved by hitting the terrorists with an iron hand,” he said. “We will declare victory soon.”

Assad made few conciliatory gestures in the speech, though he did say his government would hold a referendum in March on a new constitution. But he insisted that opposition figures operating from outside the country, whom he called “traitors,” would never be accepted by Syrians.

After the Security Council session, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice called the UN’s report of 400 deaths since the monitors arrived “alarming” and said the bloodshed was evidence of increased government violence.

The rising death toll “is a clear indication that the government of Syria, rather than using the opportunity of its commitment to the Arab League to end the violence … is instead stepping up the violence despite the presence of monitors and carrying out further acts of brutality against its population, even often in the presence of those monitors,” Ambassador Rice said.

The US diplomat, who has had particularly caustic words for Russia as the council has deliberated on Syria, hinted at the rising frustration the US and other Western powers are feeling. Russia did forward a resolution on Syria last month, but it was seen by many as being too pro-Assad.

“After [making] a bit of a show last month of tabling a resolution, the Russians inexplicably have been more or less AWOL in terms of leading negotiations on the text of that resolution,” Rice said.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said any council action before the Arab League’s Jan. 19 meeting is unlikely, adding that in any case the council would probably take its cue from the Arab League and is conclusions from its Syria mission.

Some European countries are pressing for action before the Arab League meeting. But the US and other Western powers are hardly in a position to move ahead without the region’s support, some regional experts note. In Libya last year, the West touted that it was acting with the Arab League’s blessings as it imposed a no-fly zone against the forces of deceased leader Muammar Qaddafi.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Syria violence accelerates, UN responds with go-slow approach
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/0110/Syria-violence-accelerates-UN-responds-with-go-slow-approach
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe