In his briefing to the UN Security Council on Tuesday April 24, Kofi Annan noted the important impact that the UN Observer Mission was having on the ground even though there had only been a few UN observers deployed thus far. (1) He reported that there had been a marked decrease in the level of violence since the April 12 cease fire in Syria. “Without comprehensive monitoring of the situation,” he said, “it is difficult to assess the level of violence, but the available reports suggest that, taken as a whole the level of violence has decreased across the period since 12 April….” (Kofi Annan Briefing, Para 7 )

He noted that the importance of having observers was not only to “see what is going on.” More significantly, he pointed out that “their presence has the potential to change the political dynamics.” (Kofi Annan Briefing, Para 21)

His goal is… weiter lesen

Up until the Arab League Observer Mission had been sent to Syria on December 24, 2011, there had been two main narratives describing what was happening in Syria. One was that the violence in Syria was by the government against its people. The other was that the violence was also perpetrated by armed groups attempting to destabilize Syria. There had been no independent way to judge between these two narratives. The Observer Mission Report of January 22 provided such an independent judgment. (1)

The Observer Mission determined that there were armed opposition elements in Syria. (Paragraph 71) The original protocol setting up the Observer Mission did not take into account this aspect of the situation. By detailed observations in the Report, the Observer Mission documented that there were armed opposition elements attacking civilians and government officials, blowing up trains and pipelines, civilian buses and killing not only Syrian civilians but… weiter lesen

The Arab League Observer Mission succeeded in providing a different perspective from that of the mainstream western media about what has been happening on the ground in Syria. After a resolution by the Arab League which was worked out in an agreement with the Syrian government, Observers from the League went to Syria and provided a means of investigating what was happening.

The report of the Observers mission that was concluded on January 19, noted several important observations.(1)

1. The mission noted that there were false reports being made of explosions or violence and when the observers went to the location, they found that the reports were unfounded.

2. The mission found that media accounts were exaggerated about the nature of incidents or numbers of people killed in incidents and protests.

3. There were discrepancies in the lists the Mission received of people in detention. Names were repeated, or information… weiter lesen

I – Introduction

On Tuesday, October 4, the UN Security Council announced it would take up a draft resolution on Syria. This meeting was to be an instance, when the lessons some Security Council members had drawn from the experience with the resolutions on Libya could be reflected in their action on a draft resolution against Syria.

Several weeks earlier, journalists had been told that there were two different draft resolutions about Syria tabled at the Security Council.

One draft resolution on Syria had been proposed by Russia and China. Russia and China said their resolution had been designed to encourage a peaceful process to help the Syrian government deal both with its stated desire for reforms and with the extremist violence against the Syrian government that was making such reform difficult.

The other draft resolution was tabled by four of the European members of the Security Council –… weiter lesen