COMMENTARY | For the past week the Syrian government’s military forces have been shelling the city of Homs in the central part of the country, likely killing hundreds of innocent citizens as it cracks down on dissenters of its regime.
While Homs is bearing the brunt of President Bashar Assad’s wrath, it isn’t the only city in Syria to be torn apart. Daraa, Hama and Latakia have had a turn. According to the United Nations, more than 5,000 Syrians, including many children, have been killed by the government since the uprising began last March.
After an observer mission by the Arab League failed miserably last month, followed by a failure to pass a resolution in the United Nations Security Council, it seems clear the world is ready to sit on the sidelines and watch innocent civilians continue to die in Syria, just as they have done for the past 11 months.
The U.N. and the Arab League are considering sending a joint observer mission to Syria. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday the current devastation being leveled on Homs was “a grim harbinger of worse to come.”
How exactly, Mr. Secretary-General, could things get worse?
Sure, Assad’s government could continue to use its military to ride roughshod over Homs and other Syrian cities while his friends from Russia protect him. His thugs could continue to kills hundreds of Syrians each day while his state-run media ignores what is happening.
Assad could continue to promise reforms as he has done for months, with no real intention of following through. These things have been going on for nearly a year and there is no reason to believe anything will change, particularly when nobody has the stomach to stand up to Assad and his murderous regime.
While pro-democracy demonstrators, spurred on by last year’s Arab Spring, get beaten, tortured and killed by their own government, the beacons of democracy and human rights — the U.N., the U.S., the European Union — and Syria’s own neighbors, prefer to stand on the sidelines and watch it all unfold.
But much like the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the global community doesn’t care or doesn’t want to dirty its hands to save innocent civilians from slaughter.