REPORT
Security Council
The crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic
and the ways of
resolving it
Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………………..p.3
The
statement of the problem…………………………………………..p.7
The
international legal basis for resolving conflict in the Syrian Arab
Republic……………………………………………………………………..p.12
Conclusion……………………………………………………………..p.18
Sources…………………………………………………………………p.21
Introduction
During more than two years the attention of the world
community is drawn to the situation in the Middle East. The series of
antigovernment demonstrations known as the Arab Spring or the Arab Revolutions
began on 17 December 2010 with a series of street demonstrations that took place
in Tunisia. After that incident, the intensive campaign of civil resistance
occurred in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain. Major protests have broken out in
Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco and Sudan; and minor protests have
occurred in Lebanon, Mauritania, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti and Western
Sahara. Anti-government protests in Libya descended the country into bloody and
terrible civil war which caused the death of thousands people. Nowadays the
situation in the Middle East is alarm due to condition of the Syrian Arab
Republic which is in state of terror and many its citizens are in danger.
The wave of Arab Revolutions reached Syria on March
15, 2011, when residents of a small southern city took to the streets to
protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti. The
government responded with heavy-handed force, and demonstrations quickly spread
across much of the country.
By the late summer of 2012, the country was in a
full-blown civil war. More than 21,000 people, mostly civilians, were thought
to have died and tens of thousands of others had been arrested. By September 21, 2012, over 260,000 Syrian refugees
had registered in neighboring countries — about half of whom left during
August, while tens of thousands more have not registered. In addition, about
2.5 million Syrians needed aid inside the country, with more than 1.2 million
displaced domestically[1].
Active hostilities rage between Government forces and
anti-Government armed groups. Sporadic clashes between the armed actors evolved
into continuous combat, involving more brutal tactics and new military
capabilities on both sides. The level of armed violence varied throughout the
country. The countries all around the world condemn President Assad and his
government for their incapacity to stop the violence and preventing the murder
of civil citizens.
Proceeding collisions between Government forces and
rebels are explained not only by the political and social reasons, but also by
the interconfessional conflicts. The interconfessional conflicts are especially
dangerous due to the fact that they are able to spill over borders and take the
entire region into the religious war. Tensions have also spilled over borders
into Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan, and fears have increased with evidence
that Al Qaeda was behind a rise in suicide bombings in 2012.
The
complication of the situation in Syria consists of many political and military
problems. However, the issue of today is stopping violence and murdering of
innocent people. It is possible to solve all the other problems only after
solving this one.
The
statement of the problem
Today’s conflict in Syria has a double nature: on the one
hand, there are contradictions between Alawites and Sunnis since the beginning
of 1980th, and on the other hand, it is a part of the Arab Spring
when the Syrians were inspirited by the successful revolutions in Tunisia and
Egypt.
Historical background to conflicts between Alawites
and Sunnis
The country’s last serious stirrings of public
discontent had come in 1982, when increasingly violent skirmishes with the
Muslim Brotherhood prompted Hafez al-Assad to move against them, sending troops
to kill at least 10,000 people and smashing the old city of Hama. Hundreds of
fundamentalist leaders were jailed, many never seen alive again.
Syria has a liability not found in the successful
uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt — it is a majority Sunni nation that is ruled by
a religious minority, the Alawite sect of Shiite Islam. Hafez Assad forged his
power base through fear, cooption and sect loyalty. He built an alliance with
an elite Sunni business community, and created multiple security services
staffed primarily by Alawites.[2]
Alawites make up more than 10 percent of the Syrian
population. The roots of the animosity toward the Alawites from members of
Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority, who make up about 75 percent of the population,
run deep into history. During the 19th-century Ottoman Empire, the two groups
lived in separate communities, and the Sunni majority so thoroughly
marginalized Alawites that they were not even allowed to testify in court until
after World War I.
Then French colonialists collaborated with the Alawite
minority to control the conquered Syrian population — as colonialists did with
Christians in Lebanon, Jews in Palestine and Sunni Muslims in Iraq. The French
brought Alawites into the colony’s military to help control the Sunnis. And
after Syria’s independence from France, the military eventually took control of
the country, putting Alawites in top government positions, much to the
resentment of the Sunni majority.[3]
Nowadays
Alawites fear that if Sunnis come to power, they will kill them all. That’s why
they see President Bashar al-Assad as their best protection against sectarian annihilation
especially after the murder of Sunnis who were killed by government forces and
militias.
