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SYRIA
SYRIA
SYRIA
emerged in Syria, who is still the president of Syria and inherited the power of his
father, Hafez Al-Assad, when he died in June 2000.
Hafez Al-Assad who in turn had come to power in 1970 with a coup taking the
leadership of the Baath party (Arab Socialist Party) and harshly eliminating all
political rivals, putting in positions of responsibility to close relatives and people of
your entire confidence.
President Hafez Al-Assad did not allow any kind of political opposition during his
regime. That caused that in the 70s, the population of people led by Muslim
brothers who wanted to overthrow the regime and establish an Islamic State, which
ended in an annihilation known as the hama massacre 1 in February 1982,
increased between 20,0002 and 30,0003 people. they were mostly civilians.
Since Hafez Al-assad's coup d'état, the Baath party and the security forces
remained in the Al-Assad family and its trusted people, all belonging to the Alu
minority which is a branch of Islam that corresponds to 12% of the total population
in a mostly Sunni country.
With the death Hafez Al-assad, his son Bashar Al-assad succeeds all the charges
of his father, when this begins his term promises political and economic reforms
"the damask spring", but the few reforms that were made were revoked A short
time later, the Syrian model of the autocratic model of years ago that had promised
to change.
The current armed conflict in Syria begins on March 6 of 2011, that day a group of
teenagers was arrested in Dara, in the south of the country, for drawing on a wall a
graffiti against the regime at that time, this arrest unleashed large demonstrations
in the city that were repressed by the police bodies which opened fire on the
civilian population in such a way that the annoying population spread the protests
throughout the country in a matter of months.
1 https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-43791849
2 “A guide to the syrian conflict: ten key words” CIDOB, p.1,
https://www.cidob.org , pp.1-9 dossiers.
3 Riestra laura: “eight points to understand the conflict in sirya ” , in
http://www.abc.es/20120610/internacional/abci-siria-evolucion-conflicto-
201206061519.html
1
unit of the army sent to the area joins the armed civilians in their fight against the
regime, in a short time the conflict spreads throughout the country with an
opposition full of arms and ammunition.
In June 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross describes the situation
in Syria as an internal armed conflict that branches off on an internal level.
One conclusion may be that in Syria there is an internal armed conflict (civil war)
that has gradually become internationalized since the other countries have
supported the parties to the conflict, this conflict for the actors involved, the strong
violations of the law international humanitarian law and the use of chemical
weapons constitutes a threat to international peace and security
When the first alerts and denunciations appeared, an investigation mission of the
United Nations high commissioner of human rights was agreed upon to determine
the violations that were committed within the conflict in Syria 4, on the other hand
the human rights council of the United Nations (UN) organization asked the
government of Syria to end the acts of violence5, however the monitoring reports of
compliance with this petition showed that the crimes against humanity and the war
crimes committed by the government and the opposition had not decreased, on the
contrary they continued to increase6.
The responses given by the international community have been very limited7, some
regional organizations that were active during the crisis in Libya (March-October
2011) are skeptical that there is no decision that includes measures coercive
enough to mitigate what is happening. effects of war on the civilian population.
In the meeting held by the council on April 27, 2011 to prepare the first assessment
of the situation 8 , a clear division was found among its members as the British
representative pressed to act while the Russian claimed that it was a internal
conflict and how the two parties to the conflict had used violence could not be
considered a threat to international peace and security. On April 29, 2011, the
human rights council approved resolution S-16/1 expressly condemning the use of
violence against opponents of the regime.
2
On May 25, 2011, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Portugal again tried
to get the Security Council to become involved in the conflict in Syria, presenting a
draft resolution condemning the situation and in which they were clearly and
obviously the obligation of the State of Syria to protect all its citizens, on the
contrary China, South Africa, India, Brazil and Russia argued that the resolution
should not determine the nature of the reform program of the Syrian government
because it was an internal matter in the which could not interfere by virtue of
sovereignty.
The letter of peacekeeping in its Art.24 establishes that the Security Council is the
main responsible so that it must declare the situation of the country before
adopting coercive measures that end the conflict or reduce it in less burdensome
measures
According to current international law, the Security Council can apply chapter VII in
the presence of a conflict that is a threat to international peace and security if it
considers it appropriate but is not in the legal obligation to do so, so that if the If the
council had authorized an armed intervention with the aim of ending the
confrontations and protecting the population, this use of force in Syria would have
been legal in accordance with the charter of the United Nations and international
law.
3
The responsibility to protect has been accepted by the international community12,
the final document of the Millennium Summit13.
This concept accepted in the final document includes three elements that are worth
highlighting: the duty to react (with coercive measures that can reach an armed
intervention), the duty to prevent and the duty to rebuild.
The duty to prevent is the first to emerge from the concept of the responsibility to
protect, the idea of prevention in conflicts and humanitarian crises is not something
recent or of little importance, this responsibility has generated awareness of its
importance and need at the same time serve to create an adequate environment
that defends the community.
Conclusions
The humanitarian catastrophe in Syria fulfills the requirements for the effective
realization of the responsibility to protect, in addition to being a threat to
international security and peace.
138-139
14 The responsibility to protect: timely and decisive response. Report of the Secretary
4
The Security Council had to stop the conflict to protect the civilian population from
the constant attacks of the regime, which it did not since the vote against China
and Russia have prevented it to the point that the Secretary General of the United
Nations has declared it in its 2013 report on the application of the responsibility to
protect, recognizing the damage caused by this institutional insensitivity to the
population:
"Our collective inaction to prevent the atrocious crimes in the Syrian Arab Republic
during the last two and a half years will continue to be a heavy moral burden for the
prestige of the united nations and their members, particularly those who have the
primary responsibility for peace and international security "15
eve of a new century. General course on public inernational law” 1999, pag 224.