IN a war that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, injured many more and devastated most of the country, this week’s three-day humanitarian truce allowing for the evacuation of stranded families in Homs presented a rare sign of hope, largely symbolic, in what has become an intractable conflict.
The UN-mediated truce was a shaky one. Both the Syrian government and the opposition traded accusations when international relief convoys were hit by mortars. But the evacuation effort continued and those weary civilians coming out from the midst of gutted buildings told harrowing stories of their ordeal that lasted for many months. It was another reminder that the humanitarian side of this three-year-old conflict is one that the international community has failed to address adequately.
No one really knows what will happen next. The truce might be extended for few more days. There are still people inside old Homs who are not able to come out. And once the relief operation is concluded fighting will most likely resume. Most of those who remain in the city’s destroyed center are opposition fighters and the regime will not be so forgiving. As the UN tried to salvage the Homs truce, the regime continued to drop tens of explosive barrels on Aleppo, forcing the majority of residents in the rebel held areas to abandon the city. The death toll among civilians there is in the hundreds.
There are also hundreds of thousands of Syrians trapped in rebel-held areas in the two Ghoutas, Yarmouk and in Daraya near Damascus. At least 8 million are displaced inside the country with limited access to aid and relief. The magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in Syria is beyond imagination. Both the regime and the opposition accuse each other of using civilians as human shields. As the second round of Geneva 2 talks opened on Monday, most Syrians were skeptical of the ability of UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to force the two sides to agree on anything. But the Homs operation gave some hope. In the first round last month, Brahimi was quick to bring up the issue of forming a transitional body with full executive powers to run Syria. But the government’s side refused to discuss it — agreeing instead to tackle the points in the Geneva communiqué one by one and focusing on battling terrorism. The opposition refused, citing UN Security Council resolution 2118 which gave priority to forming that contentious body.
It would be encouraging if Brahimi focused instead on confidence building measures, starting from what happened in Homs this week. Can he convince both sides to declare a humanitarian truce in other towns and cities? Even more will he be able to convince the two warring sides to adopt a cease-fire in certain areas? The talks are supposed to go on until Friday. But few believe that a breakthrough on anything is possible. The regime is feeling buoyant at the moment; it still enjoys the backing of Moscow and is making modest headway on the ground especially in Aleppo. If the regime can retake the city it would be an important military and political victory. It would cut off supply lines to the rebels in the north from Turkey. For the regime this can change everything.
The opposition’s stance is not as good. The head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) Ahmad Al-Jarba traveled to Moscow last week. But he came back empty handed. He was told to expand the opposition’s front to include dissenting groups such as the coordination committees and the Kurds.
In reality the two sides can achieve little in Geneva. All what Brahimi can do now is to keep the political process alive and push for an accord on the humanitarian side of the conflict.
The Russians don’t want to involve the UN Security Council at this stage. And efforts to set up a special tribunal on Syria’s war crimes have failed. It is up to the two sides to find ways to salvage the talks. There is one positive angle to all this: Neither side wants to withdraw from the peace talks now so as not to be blamed for their failure!
