Humanitarian Support for Syria

International community has the overall responsibility to protect the stability of countries and its citizens. Each individual state must protect its citizens. However, when need arises the UN will intervene. Humanitarian violation is experienced in the Middle East in countries like Syria and Iraq. Masses of people are been killed by their own government that is supposed to protect them. With the creation of united council, world leaders are now accountable for their actions thus restraining them from indulging into acts that will propagate or violate international laws. The international community may or may not require governments permission of the unstable country to be involved in resolving war crisis in its country. Therefore, opening with Bill Clintons remorseful remarks when he said that there were multiple people who were in office and could not make any interventions during the wake of genocide that was experienced in Rwanda. It is from this point of view that the United Nations saw the need of instituting a body that would be looking deeply into the crises and insecurity threats within a given territorial influence (Klose, 2015). Similarly, the idea gained impetus after the nations decided to do a thorough analysis of the situation during the holocaust period. It was evident that the Holocaust period was characterized by atrocious activities. Many Zionist were butchered and ruthlessly murdered by the Nazis. These are the reasons that led the united nation to come up with a solution regarding humanitarian crisis such as mass atrocities in sovereign countries in the future. Ideally, during Holocaust period it was difficult for any nation to intercede as there were clearly defined policies regarding humanitarian (Banks, Walker & Practising Law Institute, 2015). In the recent times, there have been a number of crises that have been evident in the Middle East region and most importantly Syria. The aforementioned country has experienced great crises that need humanitarian support so as to reinstate the situation to normalcy.

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Ideally, the government led by President Bashar Al- Assad has faced multiple challenges as the rebels have emerged and have even gone a notch higher to overpower the government. This was prompted by the way the government mishandled the high school student when they wrote on the walls of schools the message on revolution. From that time the situation has never been the same in Syria. There are many uprisings that emerged against the government of Bashar. The notable group that was formed to revolt the government is the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). Therefore, Humanitarian Support is very vital to conflicting nations as it is aimed at reinstating sanity and normalcy to the state (Merle, 2013). This chapter will majorly look at the Humanitarian aid as instituted by the United Nations Security Council.

5.2 Security Council Prerogative

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the sole body mandated to intercede in times of war and crises facing a given nation. Its aims and mission are well stated and most importantly all the nations that are its members. However, it is not only confined to the nations that are its signatories. It assesses the situation at hand and may intercede without the nations asking for their support because it is the overall body mandated to bring peace to nations. The former United Nations Secretary General Koffi Annan talked about taking the full responsibility to protect lives of citizens in a given nation experiencing crises or civil war (Dube, Van der Poll & Nkosi, Mfundo. 2015). He further emphasizes the need for retribution, reconciliation, and healing as the only means that the past wound maybe obliterated from peoples hearts and minds. There are different approaches that the UNSC employ to curb insecurity threat and civil war globally working in tandem with other agencies such as UHNCR. In as much as most of the nations view that military intervention might be the best approach, UNSC feels that using it to a given nation would be undermining the sovereignty of a state. They opt for other possible means which would reinstate normalcy to the state. However, it was noted that some situations are technical and therefore employing diplomacy would not materialize anything. It is here that the Security Council may be compelled to use some military support to curtail all the atrocious activities. This implies that the Sovereignty of the state has to be put asunder as a result of the matter at hand. For instance, Syria crises started as a result of differences that existed between the government and its citizen. It was noted that the government uses some hostile measurements against its citizens by using chemical weapons to attack those opposing the leadership of al Assad.

When a state is found to be using some hostile approaches to its citizens, it means that the Security Council would not relax and witness a great number of people being butchered before interventions. It ought to take the immediate action and this is evident in the case of Syria when the government started using poisonous chemicals to its citizens (Kegley & Blanton, 2015). The United Nations Security Agency had to evacuate a large number of Syrians to other nations that were safe and bordering Syria. However, most of the refugees have fled to European countries such as Germany. The crises experienced in Syria have been the worst of its kind in the recent time or in the 21st century because it is estimated that in 2009, almost 250 000 Syrians lost their lives. Under the directives of President Bashar, the military used rockets which had been filled with nerve agent sarin and diffused to its citizens. This is the worst case to have been heard of the government using chemicals to its citizen to make them to be subservient to the leadership. This is a chemical arsenal that kills instantaneously and once one is exposed to those chemicals there is no way that person is going to survive. The UNSC intervened and talked to the Syrian government to relent on their stand so as to avoid losing a large population of its citizens. Nonetheless, the reports from the Organizations for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) indicate that there are high cases of chemical weapons used in Syria. The report further states that nothing much has been done to curb those situations as a good number of citizens are dying on daily basis due to being exposed to such kind of chemicals containing some poisonous substances resulting to fatality. The current UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has reiterated the need of finding a resolution to the situation at Syria which seems to be worsening day in day out. This made other agencies to come up with some clear framework duped Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

5.3 UNSC Response to SyriaPrimarily, it was noted that UNSC was at first reluctant to intercede at the matter in Syria. It is due to this reluctance and dilly dallying that resulted to the heightened situation experienced in Syria at the current moment. Due to multiple failures of UNSC in the past, it decides to change the causes for humanitarian intervention so as to be seen to be more accommodative than before. They introduced the new term Responsibility to Protect (R2P) which was basically aimed at restoring the situation back in the conflicting state (Hoffmann, Nollkaemper, Swerissen & Amsterdam Center for International Law, 2012). Moreover, this new term was aimed at obliterating the aforesaid belief that the Security Council has gone to the country to interfere with the internal affairs. Under the R2P, the humanitarian support was majorly focused on the lives of the citizens rather than the affair of the country. This would be carried out effectively if the member states decide to accommodate the displaced and refuges from the said state undergoing civil war or crises. They were to allow refugees to settle in the peaceful countries bordering the nation experiencing the crises James, 2010). The new twist in term was also aimed at making different parties view the humanitarian support as of primary importance but not aimed at taking any sides for that matter. In the past, some humanitarian agencies such as NATO in Kosovo took sides and later on ceased to act as agent of peace but rather the propagator of enmity that existed between the rivaling groups within the North Atlantic Region.

5.4 UNHCR tabling failure of Humanitarian support on Syrian MatterSince there were a lot of cases that were raised concerning the support offered by the humanitarian agencies, UNHCR wanted to ascertain the claim and identified some of the pitfalls that were surrounding the agencies so as to improve on their performance in future. The notable shortcoming was the delayed response by the League of Arabs (LAS) which Syria is a member state. It was commonsensical for LAS to intercede before the matter escalates to that point (Tulkens, 2013). However, it became clear that LAS waited for almost 9 months for them to decide on the action to be undertaken. The situation could have been brought back to normalcy at the initial stages of the crises but the Union failed on the assistance to Syria for restoration of peace. It was when the mater had gone beyond control that the league saw the need for interceding.

Nevertheless, it did not make much progress as none of the rival groups or rebels of the government had fully amalgamated, and were now strong. This implied that trying to convince any party would be difficult. Government of Bashar was inhumane to its citizens and therefore would not have relented on its stand which is a clear indicator of perpetual war in the said region (ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE FORT LEVENWORTH KS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED MILITARY STUDIES & Landrum, 2013). The domineering rebels were two Islamist groups namely ISIL and Free Syrian Army (FSA) who took charge of everything in Syria. They were totally against the government. This included even its supporters. Any person who would have been seen having supported the government would be instantaneously butchered. Crimes were also perpetrated by the government; as such it made it difficult for the humanitarian interventions as there was no likelihood of near resolutions for that course of action. To make the matter worse, the government retaliated by using chemical weapons to its citizens as a matter and that idea was strongly condemned by the United Nations. Nevertheless, the rebellious groups seemed to be working towards reinstating sanity to its fellow citizens against military forces of the government. However, as it came to turn later that the rebels came to be very atrocious and decided to change their mission of saving people but rather individualizing their mission and intentions.

5.5 Europeans Unions interventionsThough European Union too delayed to respond on the matter, it was at later a stage that it was seen imposing some sanctions on Syria to curtail its activities. This was aimed at paralyzing t...