Syrian Peace Process

Syrian Peace Process

               Syria's current president Bashar al-Assad took over the country in July of 2000, following the death of his father Hafez al-Assad who ruled from March 1971 to June 2000. Following the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, in early 2011 pro-democracy demonstrations took place in several cities in Syria calling for president Assad to end emergency law and step down, so that free elections could take place.

               At first Assad tried to give the citizens some of what they wanted, but not everything.  Assad ended emergency law which had given Syrian police broad powers to arrest and detain citizens and he released many political prisoners. But when this did not satisfy the peoples' demands Assad turned back to violence against his people to retain power. Police fired guns at peaceful protesters, and cities which rose up against the government were bombed, and Assad is thought to have ordered chemical gas attacks against his own people to show that he rules with an "Iron Fist".  Unfortunately some of the prisoners that he released went on to become the founding members of the terrorist organization ISIS, opening an additional conflict within his country as ISIS took over cities in the north of Syria.

               Following the chemical attacks in 2013 and 2014, the United States joined the conflict and has been backing rebel fighters within Syria to fight against ISIS since September of 2014, and has also tried to protect civilians from the Assad government. Russia came to the defense of Assad in September 2015, and has helped the Syrian military forces in their conflicts with both ISIS and anti-government rebels. Turkish and Iranian forces are also involved to protect their interests in the region along with Hezbollah forces from Lebanon, and Kurdish forces along the border with Turkey.

               More recently, eastern Ghouta (a suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus) has come under intense fighting as Syrian government forces, with the assistance of Russian warplanes, tried to take back control of the city from 20,000 anti-government rebel forces. Unfortunately 380,000 civilians also found themselves in the war zone. The stakes are high for both sides of the conflict because Ghouta is believed to be one of the last large pro-democracy rebel strongholds. 


                 In the seven years of violent conflict, over 300,000 people have died in the Syrian civil war, over 5,000,000 refugees have fled the country (mostly to Turkey and Lebanon and over 6,000,000 have been displaced within the country due to fighting and destruction). The United Nation Human Rights Commission confirmed the use of deadly sarin gas and chlorine bombs by government forces against the Syrian people. Assad will likely face a war crimes trial after the Syrian civil war has ended to answer for these crimes against humanity. All of this could have been avoided if Assad had accepted the will of his citizens in 2011.

The Syrian Peace Process began is Syria in 2011, and was moderated by Saudi Arabia, the UN, Russia, and countries in the West. The goal of the peace process was to find a solution to the conflict in Syria, and to bring stability to the Middle East. In November of 2011 and December of 2012, the Arab League tried to get rid of conflict in Syria by trying to convince both parties to talk instead of fight. On November 7, 2013  Russia tried to organize talks in the Syrian government, however, Russia and America could not agree on weather Assad should be forced out of office, or if he should be allowed to stay. In August of 2012, Iran intended to create a peace resolution to resolve the Syrian Civil War, however, an agreement was never made between the leaders.
        
      
        Works Cited:

        O'Connor, Tom. “What's Happening in Syria? The U.S., Russia, Iran and Turkey Conflict Explained.” Newsweek, 5 Mar. 2018, www.newsweek.com/whats-happening-syria-everything-you-need-know-proxy-war-us-russia-iran-turkey-829412?yptr=yahoo. 

         www.apnews.com/4c8ce5cb6234419c9a05fe9ee5645a9f/Thousands-of-well-armed-rebel-fighters-are-in-Syria's-Ghouta.

“Russian Military Intervention in the Syrian Civil War.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Mar. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War. 

“American-Led Intervention in the Syrian Civil War.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Mar. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-led_intervention_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_peace_process





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Emily Routbort Mr. Roddy GPHC R 20 September 2018 Social Sustainability Addressing social sustainability is a challenge for many places in the world. Social sustainability works to reduce factors that negatively affect human social well being (p. 61 in the reading). Some examples of social sustainability issues are corruption, unfit healthcare and education, disempowerment of women, and social inequality. These problems should be dealt with after fulfilling basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and rest. From another standpoint, you might find to achieve economic and environmental sustainability, you must achieve social sustainability before other proceeding to solve economic and environmental issues. My reasoning for this is because you should have a strong established base that you can work off of (where everyone is working in harmony) so we can then proceed to work on other issues. In most of the world though, this is not the case (considering that you place s...
Read more

Domestic Violence Survivors Access to Shelter - Social Sustainability

Anna Kaplan Mr. Roddy GPHC Domestic Violence Survivors Access to Shelter - Social Sustainability Many people in the country suffer from and escape dangerous domestic violence situations in their own homes. These people often bring their children with them to escape the threat, but once they have left their home they are faced with a new problem: homelessness. Many of these people have no where to go so they try to go to a type of shelter or living facility, but many places discriminate against domestic violence survivors. In Rhode Island, 64.8% of domestic violence shelter requests were unmet. This being the highest amount in the country in 2013. Many states don't even have enough fair laws protecting people from being discriminated while trying to obtain shelter. As president, I would propose that all states must have at least three shelters that cater to particularly this need. These shelters would also have an emergency shelter service to help survivors in immediate need. ...
Read more

State of the Dis-Union?

Image
Donald Trump will be getting his State of the Union Speech after all, after Nancy Pelosi threatened him with the removal of that possibility during the longest ever government shutdown. Many are wondering what exactly Mr. Trump could be planning to address at the speech, and whether or not he will continue to pursue his harsh rhetoric on immigration, which was the primary cause for gridlock during the shutdown where he refused to sign spending bills without a $5.7 billion dollar allocation for a "southern border wall." . Although there is some hope that perhaps the President has come to his senses about the issue, and is willing to compromise and work with the new Democratic majority in the House, the likelihood of that is doubtful, as there are also speculations that he will declare a National Emergency tonight to bypass Congress for his funds. This will certainly die a slow death in the court system, ultimately costing the government a fortune and accomplishing nothing. ...
Read more