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UN Internal Model 2017 Coursework

English Version

Syria: “The government’s repressive measures are the main cause

of the Syrian civil war” How far do you agree with this
statement?
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INDEX:
Cover……………………………………………………………………………………….1
Index………………………………………………………………………………………..2
Coursework………………………………………………………………………………....3
ANNEX A…………………………………………………………………………………..5
ANNEX B…………………………………………………………………………………..6
ANNEX C…………………………………………………………………………………...6
References…………………………………………………………………………………...7
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Coursework:
The Syrian Civil War is a conflict still going on today, with the interference of both
regional and foreign powers aiding one side or the others, even sometimes aiding more than
one side and therefore creating a lot of geopolitical confusion, and this has led some theorists
to call it a proxy war, in which the interests of not only the Syrian factions, but those of
outside influencers are on stake. The conflict has been very controversial, and of worldwide
condemnation, because of the amount of death, injured, and human rights violations from
Bashar Al-Assad's regime, the president of Syria. Also, it has led to terrorist groups such as
the Islamic State (Daesh) surging in the area, and also the rebel organizations such as the Free
Syrian Army (FSA), the Syrian National Coalition and Kurdish Forces backed by the United
States (USA) adopted extremist warfare involving terrorist attacks and suicide bombings.
However, there aren’t any “good guys” or “bad guys” as UN reports have found that all sides
have committed war crimes such as murder, rape, torture and forced disappearances; and the
causes for the outbreak of the Civil War are several and very complex.
There are reasons to believe that government repression and its abuse of violence has
played a major role reason for Syria's internal conflict today. Historically, Syria has been
ruled by the Al-Assad family for over 30 years when in March 1971 Hafez al-Assad from the
Syrian Ba’ath Party came to power and declared himself president of the Republic, creating a
one-party-state under his authoritarian rule. Some of his reforms such as the Constitution of
1973 which changed the course of the country into a more “secular” country gained him the
opposition of some Muslim groups, and their public demonstrations were violently crushed
down by the army and official forces in order to keep order, and this sort of disputes went on
until 1982. And this marked the beginning of a dictatorship ruled with an iron fist, where
opposition was suppressed and persecuted, "Syria under Hafez al-Assad became the region's
most watertight police state" ("Like dictator, like son: how the Assad's maintain a tight grip
on power", 2012) and totalitarian power went on until Hafez's death in 2000. Then his son
Bashar al-Assad replaced him with promises of open debate and more political freedom such
as freedom of speech and of expression. However, when the first critiques toward his
administration and the first calls for social unrest started, censorship and repression resurged
as the governments key instrument to maintain order.
Another factor to take in consideration is the Arab Spring throughout 2011 and the
early 2012, that started in the Magreb and spread fast to other countries of the Middle East,
by which millions of people started protesting in the Arab world's streets, demanding more
democracy, freedom, and an end to dictatorships, "the Arab Spring galvanized an entire
region that was for centuries accustomed to dictatorship, kingship and a perennial form of
government" (Odias, 2017). The wave rapidly expanded from Tunisia to Egypt, Yemen and
finally to Syria, where demonstrations began as an expression of society's intolerance of the
al-Assad clan and their extreme use of violence. But in most other cases, the demonstrations
ended in quick victory for the protesters, and dictatorial regimes were put to and end; now in
Syria's case it evolved into an all scale civil war, with foreign intervention, that has been
going on for over six years now.
The key event that triggered the conflict was violent government repression of
protesters in the southern city of Daraa in 2011 after some 10 children were arrested for anti
government graffiti in a school in the city of Daraa. When the children were taken away by
government officials, people took to the streets protesting against the regime's extremely
violent torture and detention measures. With the use of modern technology and the internet,
the news circulated fast through the whole nation, and protests spread to Damascus, the
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Syrian capital, to Aleppo in the northern part of the country, to Al- Raqqa in the east, and
even international protests of Syrian citizens abroad demanding the end of the tyranny of
Bashar Al-Assad. Tear gas, barricades and snipers where some of the ways official forces
used to spread the mass, but they weren't successful. Soon some protesters and some Syrians
living abroad that had returned home after the horrible news, they formed the Syrian Free
Army as a rebel armed group with the objective of fighting al-Assad's forces, the Syrian
Army. (The conflict escalated into a bloody proxy war in which no side has any respect for
human rights, but that will be discussed further in Annex A and B.)
On the other hand, other factors may have also influenced in the development of the
conflict in Syria; such as the bad division and administration that both France and the United
Kingdom did of the region at the end of the First World War. The Middle East was part of the
Ottoman Empire, and when this dissolved, the powers decided to divide the territory among
them without taking into any consideration ethic or even religious borders, therefore
enclosing people of different national or religious identity inside the same borders, and
therefore conflict was bound to break out. Syria became a mandate under the control of
France, who was supposed to give them tools and prepare them for future independence, but
however the French didn't do so, and instead held the area close under their domain, to have
easy access to its resources and strategic territory. From the Babylonians, to the Persians, to
the Romans, to the Arabs and the Turks and finally the French, Syria never saw its land free
from an empire in thousands of years, until they finally got their independence in 1961, and
only enjoyed a decade of freedom until they fell into the dictatorship of Al-Assad, angry with
their own history, demands for democracy and a true national identity made a conflict like
this one unavoidable; the people of Syria are fighting for their homeland, for their freedom,
for their nation (The Boy who started the Syrian War, 33:50).

Syria's population is divided into different religious demographics (See Annex C):
74% are Sunni, 12% are Shiites, from which 10% are Allawites (a sect of Shia Islam of
which Dr. Al-Assad is part) and another 10% Christians, the remaining are divided between
the Druzes 3% and other minority groups (Izady, 2010). The Kurdish people are also fighting
in the Syrian civil war, trying to win their independence as they are a separate ethnic group, a
whole nation, living across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The fact that such rival groups are to
live in the same country made conflict inevitable, as discrimination against the minority
groups, especially those non-Islamic, in increasing substantially and has led to violent
protests against each other. Also, Assad's regime, an Allawite, is seen as non-representative
of the population as the great majority of Syrians are Sunni, and Allawites are a minority
within the already minor group of Shia Syrians. This made hatred towards his government
increased, as it was seen not only as not representing the population, but also the religious
and historic differences make this conflict not just about a call for democracy and liberation
from the regime, but also about a historical religious dispute that has been going on for
centuries.

Syria’s poor economic conditions also played a role in developing the conflict. From
its mostly dessert territory of 185 thousand kilometers, only about a quarter is land that can
be used for agriculture, this land is known as “economic Syria” (Polk, 2013). The harsh
climate conditions, high temperatures, lack of access to water, and exposition to continuous
droughts make it even more difficult for the Syrian economy to grow. In addition, a series of
droughts in the period 2006 to 2010 devastated Syrian lands, the worst drought recorded in
their history left the little amount of arable land available for farming completely useless with
harsh effects for the Syrian economy. According to a research done by the World Bank, in
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2012 agricultural production was responsible for 20% of Syrian GDP and it employed 17% of
the population; another important sector of Syria’s economy is oil production which also
amounted to over 20% of the GDP, however Syrian oil is very expensive to refine and of
really bad quality. Before the war, a plan to build pipelines all across the Peninsula to supply
with oil and gas to Europe, and now those projects are on pause, and these pipelines are one
of the main reasons for Russian involvement in the conflict as it would threaten their own
supply of Gas to Europe. The worst part is the overpopulation: there are more people than
resources to maintain those people, although some improvements were made on the quality of
the land with chemicals, and transgenic seeds were used to plant more productive crops,
increase in production didn’t keep with increase in population.

All the economic chaos, added to the neo-liberal and state capitalist policies applied
from the times of Hafez Al-assad, and then with more depth with his son Bashar, these
measures of privatization of state companies especially of the tertiary sector, favoring an elite
of businessmen with close ties to the government and leaving aside the needs of the lower
classes and the chance to progress economically for normal people, made unemployment and
rural poverty rise, and rural- urban migration was triggered; lack of sufficient jobs in the
cities and the overpopulation created social problems, with increasing numbers in the amount
of Syrians living under the poverty line. Inflation, unemployment, poor living conditions and
rise in criminality rates created an atmosphere that would give place to the decreasing public
support of the government and finally to social unrest that would later develop into the riots
and protests of March 2011.

All in all, the causes of this very complex civil war are several and all are still open
for debate and very discussed among experts. Amounting from historical conflicts of foreign
powers not understanding the ethnic and religious divisions already established in the area,
and the rivalries this divisions triggered; to the long established Al-assad dynasty in Syria’s
rule, to the deep economic crisis the country was suffering, and even so, the conflict may
have been avoided if the official forces wouldn’t abuse their monopoly of violence, if they
had understood that those people protesting were fighting for their rights, for their freedom.
All of the above mentioned reasoned played a key role in causing the outbreak of the War,
however the key factor that triggered the conflict, the one action that started the bloodshed
that is today Syria, it all started when the state’s repressive measures got out of hand, taking
children who had not thought the consequences of painting a school wall, captive and
torturing them for one whole week. If the Al-Assad regime wouldn’t be so violent against its
own citizens, maybe the whole crisis would have been averted, or at least it would have taken
a more civilized, humane, and peaceful direction.

ANNEX A: Why is the conflict a Proxy War?

A proxy war is an armed conflict where foreign powers or external influencers “fight”
indirectly with each other by means of supporting the different sides actually fighting the war
in order to safeguard their interests and ensure their control and dominance over the area. In
this specific conflict the world powers fighting and supporting the different sides are the USA
aiding the rebels and the Kurds, and in a position of not knowing who to fight the most, if
Bashar al-Assad’s forces or if the Daesh. The other external country aiding the official
government, and therefore “fighting the USA” is Russia, they aid official forces with air
strikes against the rebels and by providing arms and economic support. But that is not all, the
Syrian civil war is part of a littler Cold War, the one raging between Saudi Arabia and Iran;
in almost every conflict in the Middle East in the last times, these two regional powers have
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aided opposing factions in order to try to expand or maintain their influence over certain
areas. Iran is helping Bashar al-Assad as his regime, although secular, is a Shia oriented
Islamic government, and the Saudi are helping the self-declared Sunni rebels and Daesh by
selling weapons and sending monetary aid. All in all, the Syrian Civil War, if looked upon a
broader picture, is really more of a Conflict in which Russia and the USA are fighting for the
dominance of oil producing countries; and Iranians and Saudis fight themselves because of
the political influence their opposing views (Shiites and Sunnis respectively) would gain
them more power over the Levant.

ANNEX B: Human Rights violations in the War.

The Daesh and the former Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, have committed
systematic violations to human rights since they broke away from the rebels in 2012 to become a
separate actor in the War. Some of their violations include targeting civilians, using artillery and tanks
against them, kidnapping people and public executions. The Rebel groups have also carried out
serious offenses like attacks against civilians, the recruitment of child soldiers, kidnappings torturing
their hostages and even unlawfully blocking humanitarian aid to people in need. However, the most
serious abuses were committed by the al-Assad regime, and could even be classified as state
terrorism. These measures meant a turning point in the escalation of the war, as it is from here that the
US under the Obama Administration decided to intervene directly in Syria. The worst offenses
include forced disappearances, torture methods, targeting of civilians, and even the use of chemical
weapons in March 2015 indiscriminately against their own population.

ANNEX C: Syrian Religious Composition in 2010 (Izady, 2010)

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References:
Al Jazeera News. (2017). The Boy who started the Syrian War - Featured Documentary.
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njKuK3tw8PQ
Al-Assad, B. (2017). INTERVIEW Al-Assad: If Europe wants to protect itself at this stage, it
should first stop supporting terrorists in Syria. Retrieved from
https://www.vecernji.hr/vijesti/al-assad-if-europe-wants-to-protect-itself-at-this-stage-it-
should-first-stop-supporting-terrorists-in-syria-1161491
Polk, W. (2013). Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad. The Atlantic.
Retrieved 11 November 2017, from
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/understanding-syria-from-
pre-civil-war-to-post-assad/281989/
Rodgers, L., Gritten, D., Offer, J., & Assare, P. (2016). Syria: The story of the conflict. BBC
News. Retrieved 11 November 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-
26116868
Syria's civil war explained from the beginning. (2017). Al Jazeera News. Retrieved 11
November 2017, from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/syria-civil-war-
explained-160505084119966.html
Thompson, K. (2016). Causes and Consequences of The Civil War in Syria. ReviseSociology.
Retrieved 11 November 2017, from https://revisesociology.com/2016/12/14/causes-and-
consequences-of-the-civil-war-in-syria/
War Statistics / Syrian War Statistics. Syrian Civil War Map. Retrieved 11 November 2017,
from https://syriancivilwarmap.com/war-statistics/
Why is there a war in Syria?. (2017). BBC News. Retrieved 11 November 2017, from
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35806229
Like dictator, like son: how the Assads maintain a tight grip on power. (2012). the Guardian.
Retrieved 12 November 2017, from
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/dictator-son-assad-grip-power
Odias, H. (2017). The Arab Spring And Its unintended Effects In Syria.. The Odyssey Online.
Retrieved 12 November 2017, from https://www.theodysseyonline.com/the-arab-spring-
and-its-unintended-effects-in-syria-civil-war-assad-2017-usa-russia
Fountain, H. (2015). Researchers Link Syrian Conflict to a Drought Made Worse by Climate
Change. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 12 November 2017, from
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/earth/study-links-syria-conflict-to-
drought-caused-by-climate-change.html
Human Rights Watch. (2017). World Report 2017 - Syria. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved
12 November 2017, from https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/syria
Izady, M. (2010). Syria: Religious Composition in 2010. Retrieved from
http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/Syria_Religion_Detailed_lg.png