Syria used to be one of the top tourism destinations in the Middle East.
As the Syrian crisis enters its third year, it became the humanitarian catastrophe of the twenty-first century according to the United Nations. Many international humanitarian agencies have called on the world leaders to act and stop the disaster, but with little to no results. Life in Syria has become unbearable. Most major metropolitan cities have been destroyed, and some of the towns have been wiped off of the Syrian map. Hundred thousands of civilians left their homes seeking shelters after their towns were targeted by Assad’s bombs and rockets. The previous month is considered to be the most brutal month since the beginning of the crisis in terms of death toll. Assad tried with all of his power and weapons to crack down on the uprising, sacrificing everything just to stay in power. Political analysts suggest that Assad’s chances of surviving are getting slimmer day after day. Other experts believe that it is very hard to get free from Assad regime after it already endured two years of a tough opposition.
Syria is officially known as “The Syrian Arab Republic.” It borders Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey, and is considered to be the gateway to Europe from the Middle East and vice versa. The majority of the Syrian population is Sunni Muslim and the rest is a combination of Alwites, Christens, Druze, and Jews. The total pupation of Syria is 22 million, mostly youth. Damascus is the capital of Syria, and is world’s oldest continually occupied city (Syria).
Syria is a key player in the Middle East and Arab world. It played a significant role in the policies of the region. In early 1920, after four hundred years of Ottoman occupation, France held the control of Syria according to Sykes-Picot Agreement that was between Britain and France after World War I. Even though Syria joined the United Nation in 1945, it did not become fully independent of France until April 17, 1946. In the few years after independence, Syria experienced a series of military coups, which weakened security and caused political instability. This instability continued until 1958 when it was united with Egypt to form United Arab Republic. This union would not survive for long; in 1961 another military coup separated the two countries again.
1970 was the year Hafez Assad, Syria’s prime minister at that time, promoted himself to become the Secretary General of the National Command of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party. The following year he was elected president by general referendum and become Syria’s first Alwite president. Hafez Assad worked on building up the Syrian army with assistance of Soviets. He added more articles to the constitution which resulted in limited freedom of the people. Assad held five terms for thirty years. During those years, Assad ruled the country with iron fist which infuriated the “Muslim Brotherhood” group against him. In 1982 Assad ordered the Syrian Armed Forces to bomb Hama after the Muslim Brotherhood group took over the old city, the attack lasted for 27 days. “The consensus is that at least 10,000 died, though some estimates are twice that. It has been hard to know the truth on the ground in Syria even in good times; in bad times it is impossible – and dangerous,” (Walt).
In the summer of 2000, Bashar Assad became the president of Syria after he succeeded his father. The Syrian people were optimistic that the young president would transform Syria toward political reform and transparency; nevertheless he followed his father footsteps, cracking down pro-reform activists, enforcing state of emergency law, and detaining human rights advocates. Favoring Alwite candidates over Sunnis to hold top government and army positions, caused a widening of the ethnic divisions, the pressure of injustice was unbearable.
Syrians started protesting, demanding a true reform in the government. Motivated by the Arab Spring, dozen teenagers from a city called “Dara,” located in southern Syria, wrote on a wall of their school anti-government graffiti. They got arrested and tortured for days. This action by the government caused hundreds of people in Dara to protest demanding the release of the boys later that week. Security forces responded brutally, firing live ammunition and tear gas on the crowd, killing several protesters. “They calculated that zero tolerance would head off an escalation, they were wrong,” (Amman). The nonviolent demonstrations start spreading across the country like a wild fire popping up in major cities. Even though the government denied giving orders to fire at the protesters, the regime continually escalated its brutality. By May 2011 there were 1400 people killed and thousands people detained and tortured, many of them are still missing. “The most egregious reports concern the use of live ammunition against unarmed civilians, including from snipers positioned on rooftops of public buildings, and the deployment of tanks in areas densely populated by civilians. As of mid-June, the number of those killed during such incidents is believed to have exceeded 1,100 persons, many of them unarmed civilians; among them were women and children,” (United Nations Human Rights Council).
The regime’s cruel response brought back horrible memories of the Hama massacre. A large percentage of Syrians were not confident that protesting would bring reforms. “The opening episodes of the Arab uprisings are growing more distant, the memories of them clouded by fears about what the revolutions have brought. In Egypt’s chaos, activists talk of a second revolution, and in Tunisia a political assassination this week has imperiled one of the region’s more hopeful transitions. Then there is Syria, where tens of thousands of people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have fled the country and the idea of the nation itself is disappearing amid cycles of sectarian bloodshed,” (Amman).
In July of 2011 a group of defected Syrian Armed Forces personnel, and volunteers founded the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The main objective of the army is to protect the protesters and work with them to get rid of the regime and win them their freedom. In the same year the Syrian National Council was formed to represent the Syrian opposition. Many countries welcomed the new council as legitimate representative of the Syrian people, but failed to issue a resolution strong enough to condemn Assad regime and hold him responsible for blatant violations of the Geneva Convention in Syria. “It called for a new political process to be conducted in an environment free from violence, fear, intimidation and extremism.” It encouraged the opposition to take part (MacFarquhar). The death tall by the end of 2011 according to United Nation reports was 6000, 400 of them were children.
The legitimacy of any government comes from acquiring people basics life necessities, one of which is providing its citizens with food and security. The air forces had been given orders to drop down bombs and blast bakeries. Depriving people from electricity, fuel, and water was another way of collective punishment. The regime escalated its forces to crack down on the people protesting. They went from firing live ammunition and tear gas to, launching rockets, and seizing towns.
In early 2012 the European Union announced a new round of sanctions targeted to pressure Assad’s regime, in the hopes that he would comply with the demands of the majority members of United Nations, and accept the Arab League plan. The plan’s main clause calls for Assad to step down as president of Syria. The leaders of the free world did not want to directly intervene in Syria since it will affect the stability of other counties in the Middle East, so instead they decided to provide weapons to free Syrian army. The idea was not supported by many regional players because thousands of foreigner fighters flooded in to Syria to fight on both fronts, which raised concerns about armed militia and Islamist insurgents and their motives.
United States and its allies have high expectation of the Syrian National Council, but the impact and the authority of the council on the Free Syrian Army is still questionable. The lack of leadership and differences among the opposition is being reflected poorly on the opposition’s image, and made Assad look like a strong leader of Syria. Assad’s the father established totalitarian rule, where the Ba’ath Party controls the entire country. The loyalty of its member is to the president, and the army is based on ideological thinking that their devotion will forever be for Assad and his family.
Assad will not be able to bring back Syria to the way it was before the uprising. He hoped to end the crisis through negotiation and to find a political solution not a military to the crisis, but ended up not sticking to his hopes. After more than two years since the being of the Syrian revolution, there are 70,000 people killed, a number which represents 0.031% of Syria’s population, yet Assad is still refusing to give up and the Syrian people will not give up on their freedom until their very last breath of life.
