Friday, March 15 marked the second anniversary of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people and created at least one million refugees — a U.N. report also estimates that more than 2 million have been internally displaced. The turbulence began peacefully on March 15, 2011, with nationwide protests following arrests in the southern city of Deraa.
A new report also warns that Syria’s children are perhaps the greatest victims of their country’s civil war. The group Save the Children says more than two million Syrian children are facing disease, malnutrition, severe trauma and child marriages from two years of unrelenting conflict.
Studies of Syrian children in refugee camps found high incidences of physical abuse and of experiencing the death of a family member. At the United Nations, Patrick McCormick of the children’s agency UNICEF warned that a generation of Syrian youths is at risk.
Save the Children also stated that increasing numbers of children are being recruited by armed groups on both sides. Child recruits have been used as porters, guards, informers, fighters and even human shields.
The present Syrian conflict timeline looks something like this:
- March 2011 — Protests erupt in Deraa after youths are arrested for painting revolutionary slogans. Security forces shoot a number of people in Deraa, triggering more unrest
- May — Tanks enter Deraa, Homs and suburbs of Damascus
- July — Hundreds of thousands of people across the country protest
- October — Opposition Syrian National Council formed
- December — Damascus agrees to allow Arab League observers into the country
- May 2012 — Some 108 killed in Houla, near Homs — U.N. later blames Syrian troops and militia
- August — Hundreds killed as troops storm Damascus suburb of Darayya
- November — Opposition groups unite in National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces
- December — United States recognizes coalition as “legitimate representative” of Syrian people
- January 2013 — At least 100 people killed and burned in their homes in Haswiya, near Homs
- February — U.N. estimates up to 70,000 have been killed
Peaceful beginnings transforms into murky picture
What is now a civil war, originally, had all the earmarks of being part of the Arab Spring revolutions that swept across the region. The movement started as protests calling for more freedom and dignity. In the beginning, there were no calls for regime change. Many people had hopes that Assad would answer their cries with a willingness to listen and by ceasing the bloodshed inflicted by his security forces.
Instead, the Syrian president responded with a series of blistering attacks on civilians, sending tanks into cities of unrest, as government forces opened fire on demonstrators. Many postulate that the attacks appeared to be a cruel calculation to turn peaceful protests violent, which would then justify an escalation of force by the government.
Although the Syrian government’s hypothesis that it would appear to be justified in its use of force is sketchy at best, they have, successfully, turned a peaceful uprising into a bloody conflict. In a statement that seems to bear out the effectiveness of that strategy, Danny Makki, the co-founder of the Syrian Youth in Britain, said that “I think when you discuss the Syrian crisis now … in terms of violence, there is a balanced playing field. The violence which is being perpetrated by the opposition groups, the rebels, is almost on the same scale. There is an element of strategic parity on the ground.”
Now the veracity of this view may be in question, however, but the fact that it is a perspective, does diminish, somewhat, the sympathies that initially lied with the protesters. This perspective is helped, in part, by some of the questionable tactics incorporated by some anti-government forces.
An Amnesty International report describes the problems as such:
“Armed opposition groups have increasingly resorted to hostage taking, and to the torture and summary killing of soldiers, pro-government militias and civilians they have captured or abducted.
“While the vast majority of war crimes and other gross violations continue to be committed by government forces, our research also points to an escalation in abuses by armed opposition groups.”
So, although the report does affirm that the Syrian government is the greater of the two transgressors in human rights violations, it still names opposition groups as a violator as well. And in any conflict, optics and perceptions do matter, especially if one is trying to establish what they believe is a better alternative than the present government.
Civil war with foreign influence
Civil wars in other countries have always garnered and interest and even support from foreign governments, so the fact that this is taking place in Syria should not be a tremendous shock to anyone. Nevertheless, it is important to know the various actors and their motivations as well.
It is no secret regarding Iran’s embrace of Syria — Syria being Iran’s lone Arab ally. Much has been made recently, however, about Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian conflict — essentially their stance is being described as being pro-Assad. Hezbollah, however, denies any direct fighting on the side of Syrian security forces.
As recently as February this year, leader Hassan Nasrallah had said: “Until the moment, we have not fought alongside the Syrian regime. It has not asked us to do so.” But he also went on to say that “if there ever comes a day when our responsibility demands that we fight in Syria, we will not conceal that, but there is no such thing at the moment.”
What Hezbollah has alleged is that Syrian opposition forces had forced villagers from their homes, which were then burned along with their crops.” And in response to the attacks on the border villages between Lebanon and Syria, “those who remained have armed and defended themselves, their houses and their fields.”
The United States has challenged Hezbollah’s stated relative neutrality, by asserting, through the Treasury Department, that they had “provided training, advice and extensive logistical support to the government of Syria’s increasingly ruthless efforts to fight against the opposition.”
As a result, Hezbollah has received a great deal of criticism from others in the region because of their perceived interference.
Yet, the more convoluted scenario in this conflict would have to be on the opposition side. The fact that foreign fighters have been fighting on the side of the rebel opposition is well known, but the knowledge of the extent and level of foreign support, may be, by comparison, uncharted territory.
In a report for NPR, journalist Reese Erlich outlined this outside support of opposition forces. He outlines that “with the tacit approval from the House of Saud and financial support from wealthy Saudi elites, the young men take up arms in what Saudi clerics have called a ‘jihad,’ or ‘holy war,’ against the Assad regime.”
This Saudi support of the Syrian anti-Assad forces has also been inculcated into the social and legal life of the country. Erlich details one case where a Saudi judge encouraged anti-Saudi government protesters to put their considerable energies to better use by fighting against the Syrian government.
After giving 19 young men suspended sentences, the judge called the defendants into his private chambers and gave them a long lecture about the need to fight Shiite Muslims in Syria (this was according to one the young men’s father, Abdurrahman al-Talq).
So what happened in the aftermath of this call to action?
Within weeks, 11 of the 19 protesters left to join the rebels. In December 2012, Mohammed al-Talq, Adurrahman’s son, was killed in Syria.
Saudis are part of a list of Sunni foreign fighters, soldiering for the Syrian opposition. That list also includes Libya, Tunisia and Jordan. This boots-on-the-ground support does not include the $60 million in non-military aid that Secretary Kerry announced he would petition Congress for last month; it does not include the Britain’s military chiefs plans to provide Syrian rebels with maritime and possibly air power (only in the case of intervention by their BFF, the United States).
Conclusion
We can’t lose sight of the fact that, at the outset, this was a populist uprising to challenge a dictatorial regime — Assad’s bloody and repressive response to the peaceful protests bears this out. Nevertheless, forgetting this peaceful, populist beginning becomes very easy to do in light of the crimes, indiscretions and duplicitous actions and allegiances of the Syrian opposition.
Yes, the Syrian government has agreed to talks with the armed opposition groups, but Assad’s stepping down won’t be a part of the negotiations. So where does that leave us?
Here is where we can start. There are still voices within Syria that have been marginalized. Rim Turkmani, an astrophysicist and member of the Syrian Civil Democratic Alliance, had this to say (and this writer could say it no better):
“There’s a systematic effort to marginalize people like us inside Syria and focus only on the armed rebels. And they are the ones now who are stealing all the headlines.”
“Why? Because, yes, there are certain actors, regional and international, who see this as proxy wars and it’s an opportunity to fight their international opponents. It’s a struggle over Syria, over power, and the Syrians are falling victims to that.”