Syrian Revolution 2011 Picture
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Syrian analyst despairs that world is green lighting Syrian carnage
Eleanor Hall reported this story on Monday, March 12, 2012 12:26:00
ABC
ELEANOR HALL: Let's go to Syria now, where the former head of the UN remains upbeat about a possible resolution of the country's civil conflict.
At the end of his two-day mission, Kofi Annan says he presented president Bashar al-Assad with "concrete proposals" to halt the unrest, which according to some estimates has claimed more than 8,500 lives since March last year.
But Syrian analyst Rime Allaf, who is an associate fellow at Chatham House in London, is not optimistic.
She spoke to me earlier from London.
Rima Allaf, the former UN chief Kofi Annan says he's optimistic about his talks with Bashar al-Assad over the weekend. Do you think there is a chance he can achieve anything?
RIME ALLAF: Well it's- we don't know the details of what he's optimistic about but I think that there's very little optimism to be had, given that the killings are continuing on a massive scale and that the Syrian Army is just basically moving from city to city.
Only last week we were watching the situation in Hamas and for the past few days most of the tanks have moved towards the northern town of Idlib, where the exact same scenario is repeating itself- basically indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas.
ELEANOR HALL: Rime Allaf, when we spoke this time last year, you said that you didn't think that it was possible that there could be a repetition of the massacre in Hama of 1982. Are we now seeing exactly that?
RIME ALLAF: I think all of us who gave those predictions about a year ago made them because it would be hard to believe that we could be one day in a situation like this one today, where the entire world is watching not only Syrian evidence, which is given, uploaded by the dozens everyday on YouTube, but also we've had journalists who've slipped into Syria and were able to tell us for weeks now what has been going on in Syria.
A year ago we never expected that the death toll would be allowed to be so drastic - and it's not just the number of victims but the way in which these victims have been killed. A lot of them have died under torture. A lot of them are dying because they are simply left to die because the regime has been killing the doctors who are there to come to the aid of wounded people.
And the international community is basically stuck in a corner, saying that it will not consider military intervention but it doesn't know what else to do.
So I guess we were all wrong. Massacres have been happening. We probably didn't expect that so much impotence would be shown by the powers who could probably do something. I think none of us could have foreseen that.
ELEANOR HALL: You seem to be suggesting that the international community is, as you put it, "allowing" these deaths to happen.
RIME ALLAF: Yes, I think there's no doubt that after a certain point it became clear that the Syrian regime was on a massive repression that included not only the shooting of civilians, which is what happened in the first couple of months when people would go out on the streets and be gunned down, and we've seen many videos of that.
And that escalated then to the Army going into Syrian cities and the international community refused to do anything. It really is a refusal. I don't recall another situation where people just stood by and allowed a ruling government to do that to its own people.
ELEANOR HALL: Well at least one US Senator is now calling for military intervention and the US military chief has called a Senate hearing last week that president Obama had asked them for military options on Syria. Should the international community be taking some form of military action?
RIME ALLAF: I think there are many steps to be taken before one considers military action. It's not nothing or everything.
The mixture of sanctions and condemnations has been very weak and has been very reticent. There hasn't been a combined stance from the international club, if you like to call it, which tells the Syrian regime that they will not be allowed to go on. So I think before we jump to the concept of military intervention, we have a lot of ground to cover before that.
And this is the crux, I think, the knowledge that nobody will stop the regime, especially while Russia and China continue to put these vetoes.
ELEANOR HALL: You mentioned the Russians and the Chinese have vetoed UN attempts to put that combined approach. What do you think would convince the regime that there is an international move to condemn this?
RIME ALLAF: For one thing to stop all these statements, which come from practically every leader and every government which says, you know, we want a political solution and we will not intervene and military option is not an option.
ELEANOR HALL: So it's the Russians and the Chinese which vetoed the last international push to do something. Those opposed to an intervention in Syria say it would only make the situation worse - a horrific civil war. Is that a legitimate concern?
RIME ALLAF: Not at all. I think the whole concept of civil war and of sectarian strife has been one which has been marketed by the regime. There's absolutely no basis - that doesn't mean it's not going to happen - but there's no basis at this point in time to believe that such a thing would happen.
ELEANOR HALL: The Syrian government, though, is accusing the Free Syrian Army of also committing atrocities. Is that not happening?
RIME ALLAF: Not that we know of. The Free Syrian Army, overwhelmingly, is made up of soldiers who have defected from the Syrian Army, so had there been atrocities I think we would have seen a lot more footage from the Syrian regime itself.
ELEANOR HALL: Now you mention that the Free Syrian Army is made up of people who have defected. What about the defection of the deputy oil minister last week? Is that significant? Could it mark a turning point?
RIME ALLAF: I personally do not think that we should make too much out of that one defection. The Syrian regime must be differentiated from the Syrian state. This deputy oil minister was a government employee and he's not part of the higher echelons of the regime. Such defections have been very rare because it's very difficult. Anybody who goes against the regime has to bear in mind that not only he or she will be paying the price but that the families - the immediate family and even the extended family - will pay a heavy price.
The people at the top levels of the regime, should they begin to defect then we could really see that something big is happening and that the Assad clan itself might be worried, that you know, there's been discussions about having a coup within the regime to save the country.
I personally tend to see government officials defecting. I don't believe that they will be triggering a massive domino effect, if we can call it that.
ELEANOR HALL: You say that you don't think that this defection will inspire others, but you say that the Assad regime is to an extent taking notice of it. Why are you so pessimistic that there could be some sort of coup?
RIME ALLAF: Because it hasn't happened until now. But again, the threat of big action from the international community could move some of these people to decide it's time to save the country. It has not happened because Assad and his immediate clan believe that they are able to do what they like and that nobody will come and stop them.
ELEANOR HALL: Rime Allaf, thanks very much for joining us.
RIME ALLAF: Thanks for having me.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Syrian analyst Rime Allaf from Chatham House. She was speaking to me from London.
ABC
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