Day: June 23, 2016
Dear Russian friends,
Moscow is apparently again using incendiary weapons against civilian areas, according to the Syrian opposition delegation to the UN talks:
HNC Letter to Ban Ki-Moon
UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION
H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon
United Nations Secretary-General
New York
23 June 2016
Your Excellency,
It is with great concern that I report to you, in your capacity as the depositary for the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), regarding a dangerous escalation in the illegal use of air-delivered incendiary weapons by Russian forces against civilian objects and in areas with a strong concentration of civilians across Syria, including most recently in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.
Article 2 of Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons prohibits parties in all circumstances from “making the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.” Protocol III of the CCW also prohibits parties from making a “military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.” Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014) and 2254 (2015) prohibit parties from deploying indiscriminate weapons in populated areas or engaging in methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.
Since the start of its intervention in Syria, Russian air forces have repeatedly deployed incendiary weapons and cluster munitions to kill, main and terrorize Syrian civilians, including in at least 10 documented incidents as described in Annex I. Recent incendiary aerial attacks by Russian forces have been documented in Aleppo, including in DaratAzza, Anadan, Ein Jara, Kafr Hamrah and Haritan. Recent video footage taken in Aleppo shows incendiary weapons likely to be thermite mounted in a Russian Su-34 fighter-ground attack aircraft. Thermite, which ignites while falling, has been likened to ‘mini nuclear bombs’ and was deployed repeatedly by Russian forces in residential areas.
Incendiary weapons rank among the world’s most powerful explosives and are known to have devastating effects on civilians. They cause immensely painful burns and prompt fires that are hard to extinguish. Yet Russian forces have systematically and deliberately used such weapons to kill innocent civilians, including women and children. In so doing, they have violated the CCW and breached international humanitarian law.
Your Excellency, as the depositary for the Convention on Conventional Weapons, we urge you to:
(i) Launch an investigation into the use of incendiary aerial weapons by Russia in Syria;
(ii) Demand the protection of Syrian civilians from the use incendiary aerial weapons in Syria;
(iii) Call on Member States to impose consequences for repeated breaches on international humanitarian law by Russian and Syrian forces.
Your Excellency, the failure to impose consequences for the Syrian regime and Russia’s repeated breaches of international humanitarian law has allowed the Syrian crisis to worsen—costing Syrian lives, encouraging a global refugee crisis, and giving new life to extremist terrorist groups. The whole world is less safe because the world has failed to act on our people’s behalf. Syrian civilians need protection. We rely on you to demand it.
Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Dr. Riyad Hijab
General Coordinator, High Negotiations Committee
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Rebuilding Syria
Launching the American Security Project’s new white paper Syrian stabilization and Reconstruction, ASP hosted a panel to discuss the prospects for rebuilding Syria after the end of its tragic civil war. Mathew Wallin, Fellow for Public Diplomacy at the American Security Project, presented a summary of the white paper, highlighting the need to go into Syria with defined goals and a clear understanding of how to achieve them. In order to learn from our mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wallin emphasized an approach to reconstruction that focuses on the local level to establish security and create a new unified vision for Syria’s future.
Hani Masri, a member of the ASP Board of Directors and Founder of Tomorrow’s Youth Foundation, stressed the role that women and children play in post-war reconstruction. Masri noted that if we do not invest in Syria’s youth today, in twenty or thirty years the new generation of Syrians will not be ready to take on the challenges of governance in the new Middle East. Betty Bernstein-Zabza, Senior Advisor and Director of Operations for Global Women’s Issues in the Office of the Secretary of State, then addressed the reconstruction efforts undertaken in Iraq. Tragically, many women have become heads of households in Iraq and Syria, and because of that, any effort to provide security and economic prosperity in liberated areas must take women and children into account.
Kaufman Fellow and Director of Project Fikra at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy David Pollock proposed a bold plan for future engagement in Syria. He argued that given that Assad and his partners—Iran and Russia—are not seeking a political solution any time soon, the international community must start rebuilding Syria today. He claimed that reconstruction could commence in Opposition-controlled areas in Idlib, Deraa, and al-Hasakah, and stressed how the immediate needs of places such as Kobane and Manbij underline the urgency of acting now. An audience member questioned this proposal on grounds that Idlib, in particular, is under constant aerial bombardment. Any infrastructure rebuilt would be instantly destroyed. Among his other proposals,
Pollack responded emphasizing the need for a no-fly zone. He added that while this and other proposed measures will not solve the whole of the Syrian crisis, we have to start somewhere. The United States and international community have an opportunity to do the right thing, backed by moral and strategic reasoning.
Wallin commented that in the policy community many people advocate that we need to “do something” without sufficient thought to what comes after. We can provide humanitarian aid now, but that policy has no foreseeable end. A no-fly zone in Syria might have to be maintained for twenty years.
Wallin’s strategic concerns noted, it’s hard to argue against doing something to help the 6.6 million internally displaced Syrians that have fled their homes and the remaining millions that are living in constant peril.
RSS - Posts
