Syrians stranded between ruthless regime and indifferent world

Syria under Bashar Assad is a failing state in the full sense of the word. Few are still the countries that have not trespassed its sovereignty. Planes from all over the world under the pretext of fighting ISIS occupy its skies; militias from over a hundred countries are all over the place; and above all, there are thousands of documents attesting to the fact that the regime of B. Assad is killing its people even with chemical weapons that have been used more than once (even after his government signed the chemical weapons treaty).

In 2009, Ban Ki-moon, then the secretary general of the UN, talked about three issues that constitute the responsibility of a state towards its peoples’ safety; otherwise, it is considered a failing state; and there is a necessity for rescuing the population of such a country. Here are the main points he said.

A state has an undisputed and permanent responsibility to protect its citizens from war crimes, exterminations, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity; and also from those who instigate such crimes. Second, the international community shoulders the responsibility of extending all possible aid to such a country to carry out the duties mentioned above. Third, if a state is proven to have failed in meeting such responsibilities of protecting its own people, the international community has to respond to that immediately and urgently in accordance with articles 6, 7 and 8 of the UN charter and take the appropriate measures peacefully and through other means. 

In addition to that, the UN secretary general added that in cases of emergency, the international community is called upon to formulate alliances to stop the breaches of international law even without the consent of the UN Security Council.

It has become evidently obvious that the Assad regime that has been taking the Syrian state hostage and perpetrating all the crimes documented over the past six years is the killing Syrians and even inviting other powers and militias to do the same for the sole purpose of remaining in power. Second, no country and no international community have come to the rescue of Syrian civilians. And third, no alliance has been formulated to come to Syrians’ rescue; rather, there was an alliance formed to fight ISIS which was originally founded as a pretext to balance Assad’s crimes.

There have been UN resolutions concerning the Syrian case; but no one yet seems to be interested in implementing them despite the Geneva meetings and the piles of media statements about finding a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis.

What remains to be seen is the stance of the US President Donald Trump towards putting an end to this tragedy. All those involved are waiting for the new man in the White House. Could he succeed in what his predecessor purposefully failed to achieve?  This is the question Syrians and the world need an answer for. What is happening these days in northern Syria is indicative of a clash of agenda of five powers. What that would lead to no one yet knows. Everybody is there in the Syrian arena. The only missing party is the Syrian people who should not be looked at as subhumans as it is the case so far.