Syria: enough already

You might not have seen it what with all the reporting of the fact that 2012 was very wet (who knew?) and the Argentinians deciding that it was about time that it reminded the world that it has a claim on the Falkland Islands (I am afraid I just can’t get excited about this), but last night the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that in the period 15 March 2011 and 30 November 2012 more than 60,000 people had been killed in Syria by both sides. More than 60,000 – it is truly staggering.

And let’s be clear, these are not mickey mouse figures based on hunches or the claims of the opposing sides but based on five months of analysis by independent experts who have only counted people for whom they have a first and last name and a date and location of the death.  So no exaggeration, rather supreme caution. As the High Commissioner’s spokesperson chillingly put it “There are many names not on the list for people who were quietly shot in the woods”.

And what have we been doing while 60,000 people were killed? Well, pretty much nothing. We had effectively been twiddling our thumbs while the country burns.  The Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay warned that thousands more would die if the conflict continued and if we failed to prepare for the inevitable instability that will occur when it finally does. She called for serious planning “not just to provide humanitarian aide to all those who need it, but to protect all Syrian citizens from extrajudicial killings and acts for revenge.”

And she’s right. We have been here before haven’t we? Somalia, Iraq, DRC, Afghanistan. But with well-planned strategic support from the international community, post-conflict mayhem can be avoided. Just think of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Mozambique.

Now, I don’t pretend to know what the solution to the crisis in Syria other than it must in the end come from the Syrians themselves. But I do know if we fail to heed to words of the wise Ms Pillay 60,000 dead will seem small.