The Syrian Civil War, a conflict between the Assad government and its rebels, has been ongoing since 2011. On Tuesday Feb. 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a five hour "humanitarian pause" in the Civil War in order to create a corridor at the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta to let trapped civilians leave the enclave. However, within a few minutes of when the ceasefire was supposed to start, there was reported artillery fire and shelling from the pro-Assad positions which led to many injuries and the death of a few people and children. After hearing this, the Syrian regime and their ally Russia continued to accuse the rebels for shelling of the humanitarian corridor. But Putin's original order wasn't clear about when the ceasefire would start, or how it would be enforced, which therefore may have led to confusion about his proposal. Previously, an attempt to have a 30 day ceasefire had also failed, as the UN did not support the idea.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/syria-war-eastern-ghouta-ceasefire-violations-kill-180227081259783.html
Questions:
1. Why is the shelling of the humanitarian corridor immoral?
2. Should people have trusted Putin that there would be a peaceful exit of civilians?
3. What potential conflicts could arise from the disregard of presidential order?
Putin said the ceasefire would be from 9am to 2pm, but did not provide protection for the civilians leaving, so people shouldn't have trusted his ceasefire. The shelling of the humanitarian corridor was immoral because it was made for civilians to leave, so they targeted civilians. It is understandable that Assad's forces wouldn't want rebel forces or terrorists leaving, but bombing everyone put lives of civilians in danger.
ReplyDeleteI find the idea of a ceasefire to be ridiculous. The point of a war is to show power and get what is desired. Using firepower in a country is not a game and causes an extreme number of casualties to both sides. If the goal is to keep the people safe they are 7 years too late to start caring. There needs to be some intervention to get other continues involved to support civilians who are being killing. Negotiations need to take place so there is a permanent stop to the violence. After this long conflict its finally time for it to be resolved and I think every solution needs to be explored so a decision is made.
ReplyDeleteThe shelling of the humanitarian corridor is immoral because it is targeting innocent people that want nothing to do with the conflict and aren’t really involved; they just happen to be in the area where the fighting is happening and want to get out. Also, people shouldn’t really trust Putin because Russia is allied with the Syrian government and doesn’t necessarily have people’s best interests in mind. However, the ceasefire was an agreement between multiple parties, and Russia wasn’t the one who had launched the attacks, so Russia really isn’t at that much fault, and according to ABC News, the truce was only supposed to last from 9 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon, and while there were shellings that happened during the supposed truce, no civilians were killed during the ceasefire period, just before and after when the attacks intensified. Looking at the situation from the perspective of one of the innocent people living in the conflict, it is hard to make a decision on what to do. They can’t trust anyone because ceasefires can be broken and promises can be broken, and trying to escape the conflict is extremely dangerous, but so is staying put. These people just don’t have any good options.
ReplyDeleteI think that the shelling of the humanitarian corridor was immoral because the Pro-Assad basically fired on innocent people. They were leaving Ghouta for a reason, they didn't want to have any part in the war that has been an issue in the country for many years. Ghouta wasn't safe for the people, so they decided to leave in a peaceful manner. However, that wasn't the case, it affected many of the civilians and there were some casualties in the result. During the Syrian Civil War, there have been so many casualties and they increase everyday. The rebels and Assad's government need to come to a conclusion where both sides will benefit. It has been 7 years since the beginning and nothing has changed. The fighting and killing must be put to an end, and they need to negotiate with fair terms for both sides.
ReplyDeleteI think that the idea of listening to the presidential order of another country, even a major power like Russia, is actually very stupid. In the first place, he has virtually no direct authority in the country, and he did not provide the means to accomplish this ceasefire at all. Thinking that without trying to do anything to help accomplish something, unrelated to Russia country Syria would listen and help out, especially if Putin isn't very specific about this order.
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ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, Putin should not have been a trustable figure for anybody to begin with, especially civilians trapped by the civil war. Russia has not had a particularly positive relationship with the Assad regime despite being its lone supporter. This has been seen just in 2017 as a suspected chemical attack ended up killing 80 Syrians, and the Russians have been seen as involved in those attacks due to its connection to the Assad regime. In this situation, Putin lacks reliability due to his lack of communication with the Syrian government as well as not providing any sort of trustable supporting third party to make his plans more legitimate. This is what led Assad to view the escape of civilians suspiciously and launch further attack on them. What Russia should have done in the first place would be to drop out of support for Assad’s government and hopefully get Assad to resign. Putin has had no rationale in attempting to keep Assad as president while all other countries want him resigned. Through the many violent acts Assad has committed, staying on Assad’s side would only harm, not help, Russia’s reputation as a country. That could lead to potentially bigger conflict between Russia and Syria.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/39554171/why-does-russia-support-syria-and-president-assad
This attack was immoral because innocent people and children died. According to the Geneva Conventions, civilians are to be afforded protections in times of war. This attack did not respect this. The people of Syria should not have trusted Putin because he supports Bashar al-Assad, who uses chemical warfare against his own civilians. Normally, the disregard of presidential orders result in chaos and the breakdown of government, which has already been happening in Syria for a total of seven years. Putin is not the president of Syria. It is not really disrespecting presidential orders if he is not the president.
ReplyDeletePeople should not have trusted Putin's ceasefire; in general, Putin is not a trustworthy person/leader, considering how much the public knows about hi and his actions. Russia is allied with the Syria government and therefore has a strong bias that could affect his judgement. The shelling of the humanitarian corridor was immoral, but also slightly expected due to lack of enforcement. However, this is just another example of the kind of destruction and lack of humanity in Syria at the moment. Syria needs bigger changes and plausible ways to end their civil war after seven years.
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