The enveloped the country. The government maintained
The government routinely violated the humanrights of its citizens as major conflict enveloped the country. The government maintained controlover its uniformed military, police, and state security forces but did notmaintain effective control over foreign and local paramilitary organizations.
These included Hizballah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; nouniformed progovernment militias, such as the National Defense Forces; theBustan Charitable Association; or “shabiha,” which often acted autonomouslywithout oversight or direction from the government. The government’s use oflethal force to quell peaceful civil protests calling for reform and democracyin 2011 precipitated a civil war in 2012. The civil war continued during theyear. TheSyrian war broke out in March 2011 as a prodemocracy protest in bid to releasesome teenagers who had been arrested and tortured after they paintedvoluntarily slogans in the walls of the school. After the police opened fireand killed the demonstrators, to what was termed as peaceful protest, morepeople took to the streets.
Inspired by the success of the Arab spring inTunisia and Egypt the citizens took to the streets to demonstrate against theoppressive government of president Bashar-al-Assad. The acts of governmenttowards the demonstrators inflamed the resentment towards Syria government whichwas fueled by consisted mostly of soldiers who had defected from army with anaim of overthrowing the government. Accordingto various human rights to human rights group s and organizations, there hasbeen a great deal of human rights violation cases committed by both thegovernment and the rebel group, with the largest part being done by thegovernment these are the crimes against humanity where we had use of fireagainst unharmed civilians .door to door arrest campaigns, shooting the medicalpersonnel’s wh9o were trying to help the wounded and raids in hospital. Therewere war crimes where civilians were tortured and raped enforced disappearanceand civilians suffering where they blocked accesses to international monitor’shumanitarian groups and human rights groups. The governments attack on thecivilians shifted from sporadic violence to targeting large scale killing usingcluster bombs and chemical weapons.
The UN commission of inquiry bon Syria reported the number of forced disappearanceremained high .the majority of disappearances reported by activists, humanrights observers, and international NGOs appeared to be politically motivated.According to the United Nations activist groups, an estimated 470000 peoplewere killed over with 1.
9 million wounded in this war .investigators from theorganizations of prohibition of chemical weapon found that chlorine was usedseverally in attacking rebel areas. There is also an influx of refugees inneighboring countries of Lebanon and Jordan. All these happenings in Syria begsfor the famous doctrine of the responsibility to protect .
this being thedoctrine that permits the international community to intervene when the statelacks or is unable to protect i6tscitizens when there is gross violation of human rights.Treatiesused in Syria during the violation of human rightsThere were a number of treaties atplay in Syria, sub-regional, national, regional and global level.in globallevel Syria is a member of the United Nations this means some treaties arebinding to it and some are not. Syria has not yet signed the Rome statute thatmakes the use of poisoners gas during the war to be considered as a war crime.Syria signed but has yet to ratify the convention on biological weapon.in 1925Syria signed the Geneva Convention which established the general rule for thetreatment of the civilians in wars specifically that noncombatants are not tobe subjected to murder, torture, rape or other cruel treatment.in 1925 Syriasigned the Geneva gas protocol which regulates the use of poisoners gas betweenstates incas4e of civil war. Issues of implementationViolence in Syria has confirmedongoing international efforts to implement a cease fire in talks brokered byRussia, turkey, and Iran by the United Nations.
Government forces and theirallies deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians .The Syrian government should immediatelyrelease human rights defenders, Mazen Darwish, HusseinGhareer and Hani Al-Zitani, members of the Syrian Centre for Mediaand Freedom of Expression (SCM), and drop all the charges against them. Anotherhearing of their trial held on 18 November 2013 at the Anti-Terrorism Court inDamascus on alleged terrorism charges brought against them by the SyrianGovernment’s Air Force Intelligence. Reports confirmed that once again thetrial was postponed to 27 January 2014, at the request of the prosecution whichhas failed to prove the charges against them. Outcomesof the international treatiesVarious factorscontributed to the non-application of responsibility to protect in SyriaResponsibility to protect was not applied in Syria because of the ties betweenRussia and the government. Russia was said to be committed to Assad regime.
Finally the use of the responsibility to protect is hard because of tri-levelproxy war, these refers to war that is instigated by major powers but it itselfdoes not become involved. Also the existence of a military strong regime thatwould prove futile for western world because they had no enough budget toinvest in.syria also has strong armed forces with credible air defense forcesan invention would prove to be difficult. There was issue on geopoliticalenvironment where the Arab league could not reach a consensus in favor of toughaction. The responsibility to protect was not applied none the less we cannotignore the initiative and efforts of our states and regional organizations totry help civil war in Syria. Likelyend-game scenarios for Syria’s three-year-long civil war are coming into view,even if the actual end of the conflict appears as hopelessly far-off as ever.
The collapse of Assad would be a drawn-out affair involving theslow loss of a substantial number of regime soldiers over a period of months.This outcome would only come about through the rebels acquiring more advancedweaponry like portable anti-aircraft missiles.
