UN Security Council To Vote Another Resolution On Syria

UN Security Council

According to diplomats, the United Nations Security Council may vote on Tuesday a resolution drafted by the European countries that would condemn the crackdown in Syria and would threaten with “targeted measures” against Bashar al-Assad’s regime unless he stops the repression in his country.

It is not clear yet whether Russia will abstain from voting or will veto it, since Russia’s position is known to be against any such resolution, which, in Moscow’s eyes, could set the stage for a military intervention in Syria, a move disavowed by Russia and other countries.

On Monday, activists reported that the Syrian government had cracked down on the people of Rastan, a restive city, arresting some 3,000 people in the process. The activists told the Associated Press in a telephone interview that the fight in Rastan was the heaviest one, with the security troops trading fire with the population and the defecting troops that sided with the protestors.

The experts appreciate that this marks the evolution of the conflict from peaceful demonstration against the corruption, as they were in March, when all started, to an action of the people who decided to defend their lives and their families against the violent reaction of the government.

2,700 people were killed in Syria since the unrest began, according to the United Nations. Syrian government continues to say that among the dead there are hundreds of Syrian security troops killed by what they call “armed terrorist groups.”

Amnesty International released a statement by which Syrian embassy officials are harassing opposition leaders abroad. The human rights watchdog announces that it documented 30 cases of protestors harassed by the embassy personnel in countries like the United States, the united Kingdom, France and Chile.

Amnesty says that the Syrian protesters received phone calls, e-mails, and Facebook messages that was warning them to stop protesting against the regime. Some of them report that their families in Syria have been targeted by security forces.

On Tuesday, the Syrian regime has killed four people as they were launching a hunt for the defectors. A London-based organization said that at least one of the people killed was civilian.

The United Nations has attempted to pass a resolution draft at the end of September, but the result was the same as before, because Russia, India, China, and South Africa opposed the draft fearing that it would trigger a military response of the Western world.

Last week, the American ambassador Robert Ford warned the Syrian opposition not to expect an implication in Syria similar to the one in Libya, because the situation and the context were very different.

The ambassador advised the Syrian opposition to regroup and form a serious alternative to the current regime. He told them they needed to make sure Assad did not enjoy any support in the country before they could take him down.

It is said that more than 700 soldiers have already defected from the Syrian army, siding with the protestors and bringing them a certain amount of military preparedness to deal with what the regime throws at them.

Still, it is considered that the number of the defectors is too small and the ranks too low to create a movement that would take away from Assad the military might.

Bashar al-Assad has been killing the citizens of his country for months in plain sight as the international community hasn’t been able to at least bring itself to vote on a UN resolution draft that would at least formally condemn what is going on there. Russia, and China, countries where the observance of human rights has been often criticized, and India and South Africa, where corruption is going through the roof in spite of attempts to curve it, have been having Syrian president’s back so far.

As Syria is not an oil producing major player and the United States have their hands full with the economic situation in their country and with two wars that were an economic catastrophe, Bashar al-Assad seems rather confident that as soon as he can curve the protests one way or another he would be able to take the country into a transitional period of reforms, even though of that is no longer convinced not even the Turkish PM, former supporter of the regime in Damascus.