Dozens of people were killed in an air raid on July 3, 2019 on a detention center holding migrants in a camp at Tajoura, a suburb of Tripoli according to the United Nations (UN) Support Mission in Libya. Most of those killed and wounded were Africans from Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia who had hoped to reach Europe but were blocked in Libya. Others held in the detention center had been returned to Libya, arrested trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
In 2018, some 15,000 persons were intercepted on boats at sea and returned to Libya, placed in detention centers without charge and with no date set for release. The detention centers are officially under the control of the Government of National Accord’s Department for Combating Illegal Migration. In practice, most of the detention centers are controlled by militias. The former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described the conditions in these detention centers as “an outrage to the conscience of humanity.”
Since the outbreak of armed conflict on the outskirts of Tripoli on April 3, 2019, many persons have been killed or wounded in what General Khalifa Haftar hoped would be a blitzkrieg advance. He badly underestimated the degree of military response that he would meet from the militias loyal to the Government of National Accord led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. Since the blitzkrieg bogged down, in the absence of a ceasefire, the humanitarian situation is dramatically degenerating.
General Khalifa Haftar
The dramatic conditions in Libya have a double aspect. One is the need to create a stable administrative structure of government taking into consideration the geographic and ethnic diversity of the country. The second aspect is the humane treatment of refugees and migrants from other countries who have tried to cross Libya or have been returned from failed crossings of the Mediterranean.
Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj
Therefore, the Association of World Citizens (AWC), as an immediate step, calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and the resumption of UN-led negotiations in good faith among a broad spectrum of Libyan political parties and tribal representatives.
Secondly, the AWC calls for an end of returning refugees and migrants to Libya. Other countries must welcome migrants while longer-range cooperative structures are put into place. Migration issues will continue to challenge the world society.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
L’ASSOCIATION OF WORLD CITIZENS APPELLE A UN CESSEZ-LE-FEU EN LIBYE, AU RESPECT DU DROIT HUMANITAIRE INTERNATIONAL ET A L’OUVERTURE DE NÉGOCIATIONS DE BONNE FOI SUR LA FUTURE STRUCTURE CONSTITUTIONNELLE DE L’ÉTAT
L’Association of World
Citizens, réagissant aux appels à l’aide de personnes déplacées et menacées par
les bombardements dans les combats aux alentours et au cœur même de Tripoli,
appelle à un cessez-le-feu immédiat qui permît de distribuer de l’aide humanitaire,
ainsi que de sauver des vies.
Les affrontements ne donnant
pas signe de fin entre, d’un côté, le Général Khalifa Haftar à la tête de son
Armée nationale libyenne et, de l’autre, les milices locales contrôlées par le
Gouvernement, créent toutes les conditions d’une intensification des atteintes
aux lois de la guerre, en particulier d’attaques contre les civils et les
installations médicales.
L’Association of World Citizens
appelle instamment à ce que des négociations aient lieu sous l’égide de
médiateurs des Nations Unies, comme il était prévu qu’elles aient lieu du 14 au
16 avril, et à ce que ces négociations soient ouvertes à un éventail de
participants qui soit aussi large que possible. Il faut des structures
constitutionnelles nouvelles et adéquates pour assurer l’administration d’un
Etat par nature complexe et diversifié. Depuis un certain temps, notre
association met en avant l’éventualité de structures administratives de type
confédéral au sein de l’Etat.
L’Association of World
Citizens, qui s’était préoccupée de la situation des Droits Humains et de la
liberté d’expression en Libye du temps où Mu’ammar Kadhafi dirigeait le pays, demeure
préoccupée par le sort du peuple libyen depuis la mort de l’ancien leader en
2011. A présent, le temps est venu pour toutes les parties d’agir de manière
responsable pour mettre fin aux combats et entamer des négociations de bonne
foi.
THE ASSOCIATION OF WORLD CITIZENS CALLS FOR A CEASEFIRE IN LIBYA, THE RESPECT OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND THE START OF NEGOTIATIONS IN GOOD FAITH ON THE FUTURE CONSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE STATE
The Association of World Citizens, responding to calls for assistance
from persons displaced and in danger of bomb attacks by the fighting in and
around Tripoli, calls for an immediate ceasefire so that humanitarian aid can
be provided, and lives saved.
Continued fighting by the forces of General Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan
National Army opposed by local militias under the control of the Government is
likely to lead to increased violations of the laws of war, especially attacks
upon civilians and medical facilities.
The Association of World Citizens urges that negotiations under the
leadership of United Nations mediators, originally to be held April 14-16, be
undertaken with a range of participants as wide as possible. New and
appropriate constitutional structures are needed for the administration of a
complex and diversified State. This association has proposed the possibility of
con-federal administrative structures for the State.
The Association of World Citizens had been concerned with human rights
and freedom of expression in Libya during the time of the leadership of Mu’ammar
Gaddafi and has continued to be concerned with the fate of the people of Libya
since his death in 2011. Now is the time for responsible action by all parties
for an end to the fighting and the start of negotiations in good faith.
April 28, 1919 can be
considered as the birth of the League of Nations. The creation of the League
had been on the agenda of the Peace Conference at Versailles, just outside of
Paris, from its start in January 1919. The United States (U. S.) President, Woodrow
Wilson, was the chief champion of the League. The creation of such an
organization was discussed from the start in January, along with discussions as
to where the headquarters of the League would be set. On April 28, there was a
unanimous decision to create a League of Nations and at the same time Geneva
was chosen for its headquarters.
Woodrow Wilson
Some of the later
failings of the League were visible from the start. Defeated Germany and
revolutionary USSR were not invited to join, and the U. S. Senate turned down
the invitation. Nevertheless, the first decade of the League’s life saw a good
deal in international cooperation, especially in the fields of labor
conditions, health, social welfare, intellectual cooperation, and agriculture –
all areas that would later be continued and developed within the United Nations
(UN) system.
The first decade saw
the settlement of a number of conflicts that could have led to war. There was a
wide-spread feeling that a new era in international relations had been born.
However, the 1930s began with the conflicts which led to the end of the League.
On September 18, 1931,
Japan accused China of blowing up a Manchurian railway line over which Japan
had treaty rights. This “Mukden Incident” as it became known was
followed by the Japanese seizure of the city of Mukden and the invasion of
Manchuria. Military occupation of the region followed, and on February 18, 1932,
Japan established the puppet “State of Manchuria” (Manchukuo).
Further hostilities
between Japan and China were a real possibility. The League tried to mediate the
conflict under the leadership of Salvador De Madariaga, the Ambassador of
Republican Spain to the League. In practice, none of the Western governments
wanted to get involved in Asian conflicts, especially not at a time when they
were facing an economic depression.
Salvador De Madariaga
Nongovernmental
organization cooperation with the League of Nations was not as structured as it
would be by the UN Charter. There were a few peace groups in Geneva which did interact
informally with the League delegations – the Women’s International League for
Peace and Freedom, the International Peace Bureau, and the British Quakers were
active but were unable to speak directly in League meetings. They could only
send written appeals to the League secretariat and contact informally certain
delegations.
In reaction to the Japan-China tensions, Dr. Maude Revden, a former suffragist, one of England’s first women pastors, influenced by Mahatma Gandhi whom she had visited in India proposed “shock troops of peace” who would volunteer to place themselves between the Japanese and Chinese combatants. The proposal for the interposition of an unarmed body of civilians of both sexes between the opposing armies was brought to the Secretary General of the League of Nations, Sir Eric Drummond. Drummond replied that it was not in his constitutional power to bring the proposal before the League’s Assembly. Only governments could bring agenda items to the Assembly. Nevertheless, he released the letter to the many journalists then in Geneva as the Assembly was in session. The letter was widely reported.
An unarmed shock troop
of the League never developed, and China and much of Asia became the scene of a
Japanese-led war.
Sir Eric Drummond
The idea of an unarmed interposition force was again presented this time to the UN by world citizens shortly after the UN’s creation at the time of the 1947-48 creation of the State of Israel and the resulting armed conflict. The proposal was presented by Henry Usborne, a British MP, active in the world federalist and world citizen movement. Usborne was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha (a soul force) and proposed that a volunteer corps of some 10,000 unarmed people hold a two-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Jayaprakash Narayan
Somewhat later, in 1960, Salvador De Madariaga, who had ceased being the Spanish Ambassador to the League when General Franco came to power, created in 1938 the World Citizens Association from his exile in England. He developed a proposal with the Gandhian Indian Socialist Party leader Jayaprakash Narayan for UN Peace Guards, an unarmed international peace force that would be an alternative to the armed UN forces. (1) De Madariaga and Narayan held that a body of regular Peace Guards intervening with no weapons whatever, between two forces in combat or about to fight might have considerable effect.
The Peace Guards would
be authorized by the UN Member States to intervene in any conflict of any
nature when asked by one of the parties or by the Secretary-General.
Dag Hammarskjold who
was having enough problems with armed UN troops in the former Belgium Congo and
understanding the realpolitik of the UN did not act on the proposal. Thus, for
the moment, there are only armed UN troops drawn from national armies and able
to act only on a resolution of the Security Council.
Note
1) A good portrait of
Jayaprakash Narayan, a world citizen, is set out in Bimal Prasad, Gandhi, Nehru and J.P. Studies in Leadership
(Delhi, Chamakya Publications, 1985)
Narayan was also one
of the Indian leaders met by the student world federalist leaders in their 1949
stay in India. See Clare and Harris Wofford, Jr., India Afire (New York: John Day Company, 1951)
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
On
Tuesday, April 23, 2019, the United Nations (UN) Security Council voted Resolution
2467 concerning the use of rape as a weapon in times of armed conflict. This
resolution builds on an earlier resolution of June 24, 2013 which called for
the complete and immediate cessation of all acts of sexual violation by all
parties in armed conflicts. The new resolution introduced by Germany contained
two new elements, both of which were eliminated in the intense negotiations in
the four days prior to the vote of 13 in favor and two abstentions, those of
Russia and China.
The
first new element in the German proposed text concerned help to the victims of
rape. The proposed paragraph was “urges United Nations entities and donors to
provide non-discriminatory and comprehensive health services including sexual
and reproductive health, psychosocial, legal and livelihood support and other
multi-sectoral services for survivors of sexual violence, taking into account
the special needs of persons with disabilities.”
French Ambassador François Delattre
The United States (U. S). delegation objected to this paragraph claiming that “sexual and reproductive health” were code words that opened a door to abortion. Since a U. S. veto would prevent the resolution as a whole, the paragraph was eliminated. There had been four days of intense discussions among the Security Council members concerning this paragraph, with only the U. S. opposed to any form of planned parenthood action. After the resolution was passed with the health paragraph eliminated, the Permanent Representative of France, Ambassador François Delattre, spoke for many of the members saying “It is intolerable and incomprehensible that the Security Council is incapable of acknowledging that women and girls who suffered from sexual violence in conflict and who obviously didn’t choose to become pregnant should have the right to terminate their pregnancy.”
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzya
The second concept of the German draft that was eliminated was the proposal to create a working group to monitor and to review progress on ending sexual violence in armed conflict. Such a working group was opposed by the diplomats of Russia and China, both of which have the veto power. Thus, for the same reason as with the U. S. opposition, the idea of a monitoring working group was dropped. Both China and Russia are opposed to any form of UN monitoring, fearing that their actions on one topic or another would be noted by a monitoring group. The Russian diplomat had to add that he was against the added administrative burden that a monitoring group would present but that Russia was against sexual violence in conflict situations.
Thus,
the new UN Security Council Resolution 2467 is weaker than it should have been
but is nevertheless a step forward in building awareness. The Association of
World Citizens (AWC) first raised the issue in the UN Commission on Human
Rights in March 2001, citing the judgment of the International Criminal
Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia which maintained that there can be no time
limitations on bringing an accused to trial. The Tribunal also reinforced the
possibility of universal jurisdiction that a person can be tried not only by
his national court but by any court claiming universal jurisdiction and where
the accused is present.
Nadia Murad, the Iraqi women’s rights activist who was raped as an ISIS/Daesh slave
The AWC again stressed the use of rape as a weapon of war in the Special Session of the Commission on Human Rights Violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo citing the findings of Meredeth Turshen and Clotilde Twagiramariya in their book What Women Do in Wartime: Gender and Conflict in Africa (London: Zed Press, 1998). They write “There are numerous types of rape. Rape is committed to boast the soldiers’ morale, to feed soldiers’ hatred of the enemy, their sense of superiority, and to keep them fighting: rape is one kind of war booty; women are raped because war intensifies men’s sense of entitlement, superiority, avidity, and social license to rape: rape is a weapon of war used to spread political terror; rape can destabilize a society and break its resistance; rape is a form of torture; gang rapes in public terrorize and silence women because they keep the civilian population functioning and are essential to its social and physical continuity; rape is used in ethnic cleansing; it is designed to drive women from their homes or destroy their possibility of reproduction within or “for” their community; genocidal rape treats women as “reproductive vessels”; to make them bear babies of the rapists’ nationality, ethnicity, race or religion, and genocidal rape aggravates women’s terror and future stigma, producing a class of outcast mothers and children – this is rape committed with consciousness of how unacceptable a raped woman is to the patriarchal community and to herself. This list combines individual and group motives with obedience to military command; in doing so, it gives a political context to violence against women, and it is this political context that needs to be incorporated in the social response to rape.”
The
Security Council resolution opens the door to civil society organizations to
build on the concepts eliminated from the governmental resolution itself. Nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) must play an ever-more active role in providing services
to rape victims with medical, psychological and socio-cultural services. In
addition, if the UN is unable to create a monitoring and review of information
working group, then such a monitoring group will have to be the task of
cooperative efforts among NGOs. It is always to be hoped that government acting
together would provide the institutions necessary to promote human dignity. But
with the failure of governments to act, our task as nongovernmental
representatives is set out for us.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of
the Association of World Citizens.
With the
administrative-political situation in Libya badly stalemated and a meeting for
negotiations to be held April 14-16 unlikely to make progress, on Thursday, April
4, 2019, General Khalifa Haftar, one of the key players in the drama decided to
start a “March on Tripoli” and to take overall power by force.
Most of the
significant buildings in Libyan cities were built by Italians during the
Fascist period, when Libya was an Italian colony. Thus, General Haftar has
patterned himself on Mussolini’s 1922 “March on Rome”. In 1922, the diplomats
of most States looked away when Mussolini marched or the diplomats took it as a
domestic affair.
In 2019, the “March
on Tripoli” has drawn more international attention and concern. The United Nations
(UN) Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, met with Haftar a few hours before
the March began. Guterres was in Libya to facilitate the April 14-16 meeting on
which his Special Representative, Ghassan Salamé, has been working for some
time in the hope of drawing a road map for long-delayed elections. On Friday,
April 5, the UN Security Council held a closed-door emergency meeting. The
Security Council called for a halt to the March on Tripoli and the de-escalation
of the growing armed conflict.
The Security
Council recognized the real possibilities of broader armed conflict and its
consequences on the civilian population. In the recent past, the Libyan armed
factions have violated the laws of war and have a sad record of abuses against
civilians.
We will now have
to see if Khalifa Haftar is more open to international appeals than was Benito
Mussolini. My impression is that the goal of holding overall power is stronger
than the respect of international law. However, even a successful “March on
Tripoli” will not create the conditions for an administration of a culturally
and geographically-diverse country. New and appropriate constitutional
structures must be developed.
There cannot be a
return to the earlier Italian colonial structures, nor to the forms of
government at independence developed by King Idris al Sanussi which depended
largely on his role as a religious leader using religious orders, nor the
complicated pattern of “direct democracy” developed by Muammar al-Qadhafi.
The Association of World Citizens has proposed the possibility of con-federal
structures.
The post 2011
Libyan society faces large and complex issues. Resolving the institutional,
economic and political issues is urgent and cannot be settled by elections
alone. There are three distinct regions which must have some degree of
autonomy: Tripolitania and Cyrenaica both bordering the Mediterranean and
Fezzan in the southern Sahara. Within each of the three regions there are
differing and often rival tribal societies which are in practice more kinship
lines than organized tribes. (1) There are differing economic interests and
there are differing ideologies ranging from “Arab Socialism” to the
Islamist ideology of the Islamic State which has spread from its Syrian-Iraqi
base.
The situation is
critical, and the next few days may be crucial for the future of the country.
Note
1) See J. Davis. Libyan Politics, Tribes and Revolution (London: I. B. Tauris, 1987)
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Navroz, usually
celebrated on March 21 in Iran and Central Asia, is the “New Day”, the end of
the old year with its hardships and deceptions and the start of the New Year to
be filled with hope and optimism. With each periodical festival, the
participants find the same sacred time – the same that had been manifested in
the festival of the previous year or the festival of a century earlier. It is a
day for spiritual renewal and physical rejuvenation and is usually a time for
reciting devotional poetry, presenting food with symbolic meaning to guests,
and visits among family and close friends.
Navroz, which
coincides with the Spring Equinox, is related to myths focused on the sun and
thus symbolizes the connections of humans to Nature. In some of the myths, Navroz
is considered as symbolizing the first day of creation − thus a time when all
can be newly created. It is a day between times − old time has died; new time
will start the day after Navroz. In this one-day period without time, all is
possible. The seeds are planted for a new birth. Among some who celebrate
Navroz, real seeds are planted, usually in seven pots with symbolic meanings of
virtues. Their growth is an indication of how these virtues will manifest
themselves in the coming year. Among those influenced by Islam and
Christianity, Navroz is the day when God will raise the dead for the final
judgment and the start of eternal life.
Navroz has an
ancient Persian origin, related to Abura Mazda, the high god who was symbolized
by the sun and manifested by fire. Navroz is also related to the opposite of
fire, that is, water. However, water can also be considered not as opposite but
as complementary, and thus fire-water can become symbols of harmony. Fire – as
light, as an agent of purification, as a manifestation of the basic energy of
life − played a large role in Zoroastrian thought and in the teachings of
Zarathoustra. Thus, we find fire as a central symbol and incorporated into
rituals among the Parsis in India, originally of Iranian origin.
From what is today
Iran, Zoroastrian beliefs and ritual spread along the “Silk Road” through
Central Asia to China, and in the other direction to the Arab world. As much of
this area later came under the influence of Islam, elements of Navroz were
given Islamic meanings to the extent that some today consider Navroz an
“Islamic holiday”. Navroz is also celebrated among the Alawites in Syria, the
Baha’i, the Yezidis, and the Kurds, each group adapting Navroz to its spiritual
framework.
In Turkey, for
many years, Navroz was officially banned as being too related to the Kurds and
thus to Kurdish demands for autonomy or an independent Kurdistan. I recall a
number of years ago being invited to participate in a non-violent Kurdish
protest in Turkey on Navroz to protest the ban. I declined as the idea of going
from Geneva to be put in a Turkish jail was not on top of my list of
priorities. Fortunately, for the last few years, the ban has been lifted.
Navroz was marked
in 2018 in the Syrian Kurdish area of Afrin by the arrival of Turkish troops
and their Syrian allies. One of the first acts of the Turkish troops was to
pull down and destroy a statue of Kawa, a mythological founder of the Kurdish
people. In the myth, Kawa is a blacksmith who melted iron to make swords and
liberate the people from an evil ruler who had been helped by spirits.
2018 Navroz was also the end of a seven-year cycle begun in March 2011, the uprising and then war in Syria. Seven years in many traditions is a significant number.
Thus, Navroz as a day outside of time can be a moment of reflection on the armed conflict in Syria, and on our inability as peace makers to facilitate negotiations in good faith. Now, a new cycle of secular time has begun, made even more complex by the arrival of Turkish troops.
The armed conflict
in Syria is complex with outside official players: Iran, Russia, USA, Turkey,
the United Nations, the Arab League and more shadowy characters: the Islamic
State, a host of intelligence agencies, money and fighters from a variety of
sources. We find some of the same players in the war in Yemen. There is,
however, agreement among all that killing those who disagree is the only
realistic policy. It is a very old and wide-spread idea found in most cultures.
The techniques of killing have become more sophisticated – drones and car bombs
– but the idea has remained the same and is easily understood.
In contrast, ideas
of conflict reduction through changes in structure are more complex: broadening
the base of the Syrian government by bringing in individuals from groups
largely excluded, creating con-federal forms of association among the Kurds
without necessarily creating a separate State, creating a cosmopolitan,
humanist society which meets the basic needs of all. Moreover, we on the
outside can suggest approaches, but the effort will have to be made by local
people.
Those who advocate (and carry out) killing have funds and staff which conflict resolution nongovernmental organizations lack. Yet conflict resolution efforts must continue and grow stronger. A new, even more complex cycle of time has started. The old approach of killing those who disagree remains strong. Yet, I believe that there are possibilities of renewal and cooperative action for a more peaceful and just wider Middle East.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of
World Citizens.
World law, as World Citizens use the term, is more
than current international law. World law has, as its base, universally-recognized
international law but also the human rights declarations and standards, the
oft-repeated declarations of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly as well
as the international legal bodies such as the World Court and the International
Criminal Court (ICC). The International Criminal Court is the most recent of
the world courts, and its Rome Status has not been ratified by all UN Member
States, the United States (U. S.) being a significant holdout.
ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda
Some States have withdrawn from the ICC and other
States do not cooperate with it, such as the Sudan. The ICC can act only after
the relevant national courts have acted or when national courts are unable to
act (the case of some ‘failed States’) or when there is an unjustified
unwillingness of national courts to act when crimes against humanity have been
committed.
The Association of World Citizens (AWC) has repeatedly
stressed that humanitarian law (international law in times of war, primarily
the Geneva Conventions) are being systematically violated and that there should
be a UN-led World Conference for the Re-affirmation of Humanitarian Law.
In the armed conflicts in Afghanistan, there have been
repeated violations of humanitarian law by all sides: violations in the
treatment of prisoners of war, violation of the prohibition of torture,
prohibition of attacking medical facilities and medical personnel. The ICC has
undertaken preliminary investigations to collect evidence. Among those who have
violated humanitarian law are U. S. troops, and thus evidence should be
collected.
Although most evidence could be collected within
Afghanistan itself, it would be useful to interview persons who had served in
Afghanistan but now have returned to the U. S. and to see written reports no
longer stored in Afghanistan. Thus, the ICC plans to send investigators to the
U. S. to interview and collect documentation.
However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on
March 15, 2019 that the U. S. will revoke or deny visas to ICC personnel
investigating allegations of torture or other war crimes committed in the
conflicts in Afghanistan. Pompeo also announced that the U. S. will consider
imposing financial sanctions and restrictions on “persons who take or have
taken action to request or further such ICC investigation”. He could have
added imprisonment if we recall those who provided evidence of war crimes in
Iraq.
Unfortunately, Pompeo sends the wrong message to all
other parties that torture, rape, attacks on medical facilities will not be
tried. Pompeo helps to undermine further international humanitarian law.
We have to think back to 1947-1948 and the leadership
of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt as chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights to
recall any U.S. leadership on world law. Unfortunately, law has never been part
of U. S. culture. The lone cowboy taking the law into his own hands by shooting
it out on a dusty street seen in many films remains the U. S. ideal.
As mentioned, most of the necessary evidence can be
found in Afghanistan itself. Bringing anyone from any party to trial for crimes
in Afghanistan seems to me unlikely. Nevertheless, as world citizens, we need
to keep the standards of world law in mind. These standards should be clear. Thus,
our repeated call for a UN-led conference on the re-affirmation of
international humanitarian law.
Prof. René Wadlow is
President of the Association of World Citizens.
March 15 is widely used as the date on which the conflict in Syria began. March 15, 2011 was the first “Day of Rage” held in a good number of localities to mark opposition to the repression of youth in the southern city of Daraa, where a month earlier young people had painted anti-government graffiti on some of the walls, followed by massive arrests.
I think that it is important for us to look at why organizations that promote nonviolent action and conflict resolution in the US and Western Europe were not able to do more to aid those in Syria who tried to use nonviolence during the first months of 2011. By June 2011, the conflict had largely become one of armed groups against the government forces, but there were at least four months when there were nonviolent efforts before many started to think that a military “solution” was the only way forward. There were some parts of the country where nonviolent actions continued for a longer period.
There had been early on an effort on the part of some Syrians to develop support among nonviolent and conflict resolution groups. As one Syrian activist wrote concerning the ‘Left’ in the US and Europe but would also be true for nonviolent activists “I am afraid that it is too late for the leftists in the West to express any solidarity with the Syrians in their extremely hard struggle. What I always found astonishing in this regard is that mainstream Western leftists know almost nothing about Syria, its society, its regime, its people, its political economy, its contemporary history. Rarely have I found a useful piece of information or a genuinely creative idea in their analyses “(1)
A Syrian opposition rally in Paris (C) Bernard J. Henry/AWC
In December 2011, there was the start of a short-lived Observer Mission of the League of Arab States. In a February 9, 2012 message to the Secretary General of the League of Arab States, Ambassador Nabil el-Araby, the Association of World Citizens (AWC) proposed a renewal of the Arab League Observer Mission with the inclusion of a greater number of non-governmental organization observers and a broadened mandate to go beyond fact-finding and thus to play an active conflict resolution role at the local level in the hope to halt the downward spiral of violence and killing. In response, members from two Arab human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGO) were added for the first time. However, opposition to the conditions of the Arab League Observers from Saudi Arabia let to the end of the Observer Mission.
On many occasions since, the AWC has indicated to the United Nations (UN), the Government of Syria and opposition movements the potentially important role of NGOs, both Syrian and international, in facilitating armed conflict resolution measures.
In these years of war, the AWC, along with others, has highlighted six concerns:
1) The widespread violation of humanitarian law (international law in time of war) and thus the need for a UN-led conference for the re-affirmation of humanitarian law.
2) The widespread violations of human rights standards.
3) The deliberate destruction of monuments and sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
4) The use of chemical weapons in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol signed by Syria at the time, as well as in violation of the more recent treaty banning chemical weapons.
5) The situation of the large number of persons displaced within the country as well as the large number of refugees and their conditions in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. In addition, there is the dramatic fate of those trying to reach Europe.
6) The specific conditions of the Kurds and the possibility of the creation of a trans-frontier Kurdistan without dividing the current States of Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran.
These issues have been raised with diplomats and others participating in negotiations in Geneva as well as with the UN-appointed mediators. In addition, there have been articles published and then distributed to NGOs and others of potential influence.
The Syrian situation has grown increasingly complex since 2011 with more death and destruction as well as more actors involved and with a larger number of refugees and displaced persons. Efforts have been made to create an atmosphere in which negotiations in good faith could be carried out. Good faith is, alas, in short supply. Efforts must continue. An anniversary is a reminder of the long road still ahead.
Notes:
(1) Yassin al-Haj Saleh in Robin Yassin-Kassal and Leila Al-Shami, Burning Country, Syrians in Revolution and War (London: Pluto Press, 2015, p. 210)
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Association of World Citizens 