CHAPTER 5: THE CREATION OF THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT DOCTRINE (R2P)
5.4 Responsibility to Protect Doctrine and Moral Humanitarian Military Intervention
5.4.1 Responsibility to Protect Cases, Ivory Coast, Libya and Syria
5.4.1.3 Syria
87
that the AU was pursuing. The intervention targeted a regime change and assassination of Gadhafi, which is not provided for in the R2P doctrine and lastly countries that undertook the intervention became more concerned with financial gains specifically oil and gas while neglecting the security of the ordinary Libyan (see Borger and Macalister, 2011). The issue of oil and exploration deals remained shrouded in secrecy. However, due to competition between the powers that intervened in Libya, some of the issues have been exposed to the public. For instance, Borger and Macalister (2011) point out that while the dust of the war was still up, France declared that it was “fair and logical” for its companies to benefit from oil resources which triggered a concession rush. As early as April 2011, the USA government had approved trade in oil that came from the rebels (Quinn, 2011) (http,//www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/27/us-libya- usa-opposition-idUSTRE73Q6SI20110427). The Libyan R2P intervention could have therefore been influenced by the desire to get rid of Gadhafi given that he was a longtime foe who was still trying to re- engage the West (Roberts, 2011) and also to acquire oil and reconstruction deals. Gadhafi fell out with the West after he nationalized western oil investments after his 1969 coup, and his alleged sponsoring of terrorism mainly the Lockerbie (Scotland) bombing of American passenger jet in 1988.
88
dominance between Saudi Arabia and its Gulf sister states of Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan against Iran.
In an effort that was argued as in the moral spirit to protect the civilians through the tenets of R2P, the international community initially tried to use diplomatic and international sanctions against the government of Bashar al Assad. The UN and League of Arab States (Arab League – for short) jointly appointed former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, as an envoy to bring the warring side to talks and come up with a peaceful solution to the crisis (UN News Centre, 2012). However, Kofi Annan failed to bring the warring factions in Syrian to the table and the crisis escalated leading to his resignation on 2 August 2012 (UN News Centre, 2012). Annan was succeeded by former Algerian Foreign Affairs Minister and international diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi, who also failed to bring a peaceful solution and on resignation lamented that “how much more death, how much more destruction will occur” (UN News Centre, 2014) before the international community consider its moral duty to protect Syrian civilians ahead of different countries’ interests.
While the international community was pursuing peaceful diplomatic solutions to the crisis, which also included talks in Geneva between representatives of the internationally recognized rebel groups13 and the Syrian government, there were also efforts to use coercive means to protect the civilians. Some EU and Arab countries sponsored three draft Security Council resolutions between 2011 and 2013 that implicated the Syrian government for the crisis.
The three resolutions were vetoed by Russia and China because of what they saw as unfair blaming of the Syrian government for the crisis without condemning the rebels, hence there was a UNSC paralysis on the way forward to put an end to the Syrian civil war. Russia and China argued that while they gave the international community a chance to implement R2P through abstentions in the voting for UNSC resolution 1973 which opened way for a UN authorized intervention in Libya, NATO states showed that they needed UNSC as triggers for regime change (Joya, 2012: 35). Ferdinand (2013: 6-7) states that China and Russia argued that western states led by the USA cannot be trusted with another resolution which they can quickly use for regime change ultimately in pursuit of self-interests.
13 There were a number of rebel groups in Syrians some of which who did not accepted the leadership of the Syrian National Council (SNC) which was the most recognised Syrian opposition groups.
However, there were a number of other militia groups which operated autonomously or failed to get regional or international recognition as they were considered to be ‘terrorist’ groups. These groups included Al Nurse Front.
89
While the UNSC managed to pass resolutions which gave Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) passage to send humanitarian assistance to the civilians in some hard hit areas, it is the failure by the international community to come up with an R2P grounded solution to bring sustainable peace into Syria that has shown the primacy of national self-interest over international morality. Former UN/Arab League Envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan argued that, “his mission failed because of the Syrian government’s intransigence and continuing refusal to implement the six-point plan, and also because of the escalating military campaign of the opposition – all of which is compounded by the disunity of the international community… At a time when we need – when the Syrian people desperately need action - there continues to be finger-pointing and name-calling in the Security Council (Annan quoted in UN News Centre, 2012).”
These failures can be seen as representative of the bigger picture of the pursuit of interests by different international and regional players in the Syrian civil war.
The response of different players in the Syrian crisis showed signs of the negations of ethical principles of R2P and pursuit of geo-strategic interests. Middle East countries that intervened took the crisis as a proxy war for regional dominance predominantly between the Shia and Sunni blocs (Gresh, 2013) (http,//mondediplo.com/2013/07/05syria). Sunni dominated countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar backed the predominantly Sunni Syrian rebels, while Shia dominated Iran and a Lebanese based Shia militia group, Hezbollah, supported the government of Assad which is dominated by the minority Alawite sect which is an offshoot of the Twelver Shia sect (Encyclopedia Britannica;
Undated,http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/12399/Alawite).
In a global context, the Syrian war became a tussle for domination of the Middle East between USA and Europe on one side and Russia and Iran on the other (Manyuan, 2014). The USA and its European allies partnered the Sunni bloc and sponsored the rebelling groups in Syria with lethal and non-lethal assistance to depose the Assad led Syrian government (Wezeman, 2013: 271). In countering USA and European actions to depose the Assad government, Russia and Iran assisted Syria with arms (Wezeman, 2013: 269) and military strategists while Hezbollah provided manpower to beef-up the Syrian army (Manyuan, 2014).
Scholars have come up with different answers on the moral relationship between R2P and the international community’s role in Syria. Due to the Libyan backlash, there is now a breakdown in great
90
power consensus, hence R2P failed to be implemented in Syria (Nuruzzaman, 2013: 65). The Syrian crisis became a playground for geo-political and strategic interests of regional and Major Powers. Given that the crisis has resulted in a civil war and rise of terrorism which has led to the death of more than 190 000 according to 2014 UN estimates, (Cumming-Bruce, 2014) and more than 210 000 according to the 2015 report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (Al-Khalidi, 2015) the failure by the international community to come up with an effective mitigation measure symbolizes how far the international community is still to go on being a moral community.
The crisis divided the main parties in the conflict into mainly two distinct camps with competing blocs in the crisis sponsoring the fighting sides with weapons. The provision of weapons to warring factions with full knowledge that there was a greater possibility of the weapons being used to kill innocent civilians is in itself immoral and unethical. It is because of this unethical nature that in a number of civil wars in which the international community has intervened, like the Kosovo crisis, the international community through the UNSC authorised arms embargoes on belligerent sides (Allain, 2004: 252).
However, some analysts like Evans (2014: 21-22) argue that Syria does not signify the death or end of R2P but a simple hitch which will serve as an experience to develop the doctrine and suit the practical problem in implementing the doctrine. Weiss (2014, 35) is of the notion that R2P is a concept and a policy and has not been killed by failure to intervene for civilians in Syria. The argument by the two scholars entails that while there was practically inaction for the protection of civilians the doctrine of R2P which is still in its formative stages given the dynamics of international politics cannot be judged by the Syrian event alone. Even the argument of international great power paralysis is countered by the fact that other resolutions have been agreed upon during and after Syria, with the one on the need to rid Syria of chemical weapons being a case in point (Evans, 2014: 21). Weiss (2014: 35) goes on to argue that if weighed against international silence on the 1982 massacre of 40 000 people in Hama by Hafiz al Assad (the father of Bashar al Assad), R2P succeeded in condemning the current crisis, notwithstanding the high death records and displacement of civilians in the current conflict.
Evans (2014: 19-20) lays the blame on the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) for their argument that Western powers exceeded the mandate given by them in Resolution 1973 on Libya by pursuing a regime change, hence Russia and Chinese vetoes against any resolution that condemned Syrian authorities. The Syrian case was also complicated as it was a crisis that was created over a long time. Weiss (2014: 36) concurs with Juzdan ((2015) that the rebels in Syria have
91
complex identities and some of them have committed crimes against humanity such that an intervention will not be easy from anyone. The failure in Syria, therefore, cannot be attributed to a single reason, but a number of reasons including the purported abuse of Resolution 1973 which created mistrust among the veto power states in the UNSC, complex nature of the Syrian crisis and geo-political considerations by international and regional powers which transformed the crisis into a proxy war.