peacefare.net

Wishing doesn’t make it so

Yesterday’s report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syria to the UN Human Rights Commission is an extraordinary piece of work, even if I find myself balking at its treacly opposition to arms supplies.  Do they really think blocking the availability of weapons to the opposition would limit the violence?

But that is a quibble.  The report in many other respects is a paragon of international community virtue.  It catalogues the horrors of the war with precision and restraint:

This report documents for the first time the systematic imposition of sieges, the use of chemical agents and forcible displacement.  War crimes, crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations continue apace.  Referral to justice remains paramount.

While documenting abuses on both sides, the report is clear about proportions:

The violations and abuses committed by anti-Government armed groups did not, however, reach the intensity and scale of those committed by Government forces and militia.

It is also appropriately dead pan about the use of chemical weapons, which in the overall scheme of what is going on is relatively minor.  It does not identify who has used them, pro-government or anti-government forces.

Civilians are the main concern.  The list of what they are subjected to is grim:

• massacres
• other unlawful killing
• arbitrary arrest and detention
• hostage taking
• enforced disappearance
• torture and other forms of ill-treatment
• sexual violence
• violations of children’s rights

The way the hostilities are being conducted is also problematic:

• unlawful attacks
• specifically protected persons and objects (historic, religious and hospitals and medical personnel)
• pillaging and destruction of property
• illegal weapons
• sieges
• forced displacement

It can get uglier than this and probably will, but mainly in degree rather than kind.  We are already at what the report terms “new levels of brutality.”

It is too bad then that the report ends with conclusions that I don’t share:

While the nature of the conflict is constantly changing, there remains no military solution.  The conflict will end only through a comprehensive, inclusive political process.  The international community must prioritise a deescalation of the war and work within the framework of the 2012 Geneva Communique.

This just isn’t true, much as I might wish it were.  There are military solutions:  neither a rebel nor a regime victory can be ruled out as yet.  The warring parties believe this, or they would not keep on fighting.  We may also see degeneration into a failed state, sectarian and ethnic fighting and soft partition, with all that implies for havens provided to both Shia and Sunni extremists.  A political settlement in the foreseeable future is only one of a number of possible outcomes.  It is not by any means the most likely.

Of course it is correct for the commission to hope for a political settlement and to remind that

All parties are are obliged to respect human rights and international humanitarian law.  Both they and their supporters share the responsibility to commit to a peaceful solution.  Accountability must be emphasised at all levels.  Humanitarian access should be sustained and enlarged, with full commitment from all parties.

But wishing doesn’t make it so.