UNSMIS SUSPENDS OPERATIONS: DEAFENING SILENCE ON THE SYRIAN QUESTION

These are some of the Syria-specific headlines of the last 24 hours as appeared in the international media:

Syria regime tightens grip as UN halts operations‎ - AFP

Syria: troops pound flashpoint city of Homs‎ - Telegraph.co.uk

Syrian activists warn of dire conditions in Homs‎ - Houston Chronicle

UN retreat raises Syrians' fears‎ - The Australian

Syria crisis: West seeks 'next steps'‎ - BBC News

UN observer team suspends work in Syria‎ - Los Angeles Times

UK's task to prevent lethal cargo reaching Syria‎ - Sydney Morning Herald

'A high-risk game' in Syria‎ - Al-Arabiya

Putin, Obama to Talk Missile Defense, Syria Settlement in Mexico‎ - RIA Novosti

Syria rebels more organised as insurgency grows‎ - AFP

Syria close to spinning out of control‎ - India Today

Syrian Opposition Slams Suspension Of UN Observer Mission‎ - CNN

It had to be. The peace initiative was just yet another escapist attempt by the international community to keep its eyes comfortably closed while trying to deliver the message that it was serious about the Syrian Question.

Yes, Syria has become a big question; desperately looking for the elusive answer on when would the aid come. It is questioning like every such genocide has done in the past. And unfortunately, is being ignored like them only.

Ironically, the United Nations Supervision Mission In Syria (UNSMIS) suspended its operations today, attributing it to the intensifying violence. The 300-member strong group that was mandated for three months in April this year under the UN-Arab League Peace Envoy Kofi Annan mediated plan to monitor the ceasefire (that was never there), found the violence too extreme and was not ready to risk the lives of the members of the UNSMIS.

The UNSMIS was supposed to work on the peace plan and promote the ceasefire leading to a political transition in the country. But halting the operation midway calls the international community’s bluff.

Why and what for the international community is trying to buy the time, when, in effect, the Syrian government never followed the ceasefire agreement. Tens of thousands are already killed by the Syrian forces and Assad promoted militias. Massacres like Houla are rapidly becoming a commonplace thing.

The UNSMIS cannot risk the lives of its 300 members. That simply tells the scale of Assads’ horror. They worked for two months under consistent shelling but Syria is now spinning out of control. Why the common Syrians are left to face bullets and bombs then?

It is logical for the UNSMIS members to stop work till they get complete security blanket. In fact, the members working in hostile conditions there are true heroes like the common Syrians, being pounded every moment yet standing against the Assad's butchery. Unlike the international community, they, at least, have the guts to go there and work.

But shouldn’t this step by the UNSMIS act as a desperate warning signal for the international community to intervene in Syria as soon as possible?

Why are we waiting for some large scale genocide to happen?

The Syrian Questions with no direct answers to explain.

In place of acting to stop Syria, countries like Russia are arming the Assads. Recently, Hillary Clinton disclosed that Moscow was arming Syria and a consignment carrying Russian attack helicopters was on way to Damascus. The US has requested the UK to stop the consignment but there is no final word on it yet.

Already, there are reports that the Syrian forces can force enter the besieged and battered districts of Homs any day. If that happens, it will be akin to complete annihilation. Assads have been working on this strategy. They regularly pounded Baba Amr earlier this year, devastating the district killing scores of Syrians, and successfully retaken it.

If Homs falls, it will embolden the Assads beyond any perceived limits of cruelty to establish their iron-fist rule.

Merely arming the UNSMIS observes under the Chapter VII of the UN Charter, as demanded by some, won’t do now. Time is running fast. We need to see that the UN Resolutions 2042 and 2043 to establish democracy in Syria do not remain on papers only.

G20 Leaders Summit is beginning tomorrow in Mexico’s beach town of Los Cabos. There are no indications that the Syrian Question is going to be discussed among the leaders of one of the most powerful world group formations, that controls 90 per cent of world’s GDP and 80 per cent of world’s trade. Its all Eurozone crisis hangover there, the signs say.

Though a RIA Novosti report said Putin and Obama would discuss ‘prospects of peace settlement’ in Syria along with other issues on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, nothing much can be expected given Russia’s sinister game of arming Assads and Obama’s compulsions of domestic politics in the election year that blunts a blunt (but just) decision to enter the Syrian war arena.

Obama has said that the US is talking to the international partners over the latest development in Syria after the UNSMIS suspended its operations, but it looks as yet another routine statement on Syria lacking any serious intent.  

Meanwhile, the Syrians continue to face massacres. And they continue to question our deafening silence.

The Syrian Question needs its answer without delay; without fail.

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/