Voltaire Network Briefing to the Security Council by Lakhdar Brahimi on Syria VOLTAIRE NETWORK | 19 APRIL 2013 r. President, Distinguished Members of the Security Council, M 1. I thank you Mr. President for giving me the opportunity to brief the Council once again on Syria. This is an honour indeed and I am Very much aware that I’ll be speaking under the Chair of the Distinguished Ambassador of Rwanda, a Country where people know a thing or two about repression, injustice and sufering, all things we shall be saying much about during our conversation this morning. 2. Yesterday, the Council held an open session and heard from Valerie Amos, Antonio Gueterres, Zainab Bangura and Leila Zerrougui Who described the dire humanitarian situation in all its manifestations. They spoke with the authority of their respective high positions and the intimate knowledge they have acquired of the situation. They spoke with eloquence and emotion about the suferings of millions of Syrians inside and outside their country. They highlighted for you in particular the unbearable conditions under which children live and die and the many humiliations Women and girls have to endure. 3. To what you heard yesterday, there is nothing I can add – except perhaps the following remarks: a) let us spare a thought for the tens of thousands of prisoners and detainees held in ofcial prisons and secret detention centres, most of Whom are routinely subjected to torture and humiliating and degrading treatment. And let us once again call for their immediate release. b) let us remember that even when they still have a roof over their head, and some income, practically every man, Woman and child in Syria, except the very privileged few, live in constant fear; fear that the next car bomb may go of in front of their home; fear that their Work place may be blown up or forced to close; fear that the bakery of the neighbourhood Will be destroyed; fear of being arrested by one of the many security branches; fear that one’s child will be kidnapped. In short, everyone in Syria today lives with terror in their hearts that a catastrophe is waiting to afect their shattered lives. c) let me express once again my appreciation of, and my gratitude for the generosity of those Governments, organizations and individuals who have given s0 much to help needy Syrians at home and abroad, The same appreciation and gratitude go to tireless Workers - Syrians and foreigners - who, at considerable risk some of the time, work round the clock to try to bring aid and comfort to those same, needy Syrians. d) and last but not least, let me underline the important point made yesterday to the efect that We cannot expect the generosity of donors and the dedication of aid Workers to solve Syria’s problem: you all know better than I do that the generosity of donors and the dedication of aid Workers is not the solution. Mr. President, Distinguished Members of the Council, 4. All in this room are aware that eforts to bring the violence to an end and to restore peace have not been successful so far. I am personally, profoundly sorry that that my own eforts have produced so little. l apologize to the Syrian people for having, in the end, done so little for them during these past eight months and to you, in this Council, for having had only sad news to report to you, each of the four times I have addressed the Council. Mr. President, 5. It may be useful for our purpose, today, to rapidly look back at the past eforts to tackle the Syrian conflict. There may be a lesson or two that can be usefully learned for the future. 6. It is generally agreed by all, including in circles that are very close to the heart of power in Damascus, that the crisis could have been solved in its prime infancy - indeed in its first few days, when those kids Wrote grafti on some Walls in the Southern city of Dar’a. It is said that President Bashar Al-Assad was advised to travel to Dara’a, apologise to the victims and their families, ofer generous compensation, dismiss the Governor and those Who Were responsible with him for the brutality and hold them to account, announce there and then a comprehensive package of reforms that would be diligently and honestly implemented. That did not happen. In his long TV interview two days ago, President Bashar Al-Assad made a reference to this episode and said that “he was right NOT to have followed that advice!! 7. The Arab League then tried to help. Its eforts culminated in the Arab Observer mission led by General Al-Dabi from the Sudan. It is said that the mission Was doing reasonably Well but the cooperation from the parties Was not, apparently meeting the expectations of Arab States; the conflict Was expanding much faster than the eforts to end it. 8. Kofi Annan Was then brought on as Joint Special Envoy of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations and the League of Arab States. His 6-point plan was immediately endorsed by the Security Council and the necessary UN observer mission, UNSMIS, was deployed to monitor implementation. 9. Kofi Annan then brought together the now famous Action Group of Countries Whose Foreign Ministers met in Geneva and produced another remarkable document: the Declaration of 30 June, followed by its Action Plan. Unfortunately, Kofi’s creativity and diligence also fell short: the steps needed to implement the plan were not taken. 10. Kofi’s admirable and creative ideas were defeated by the determination and confidence of each party to the conflict that they can Win on the ground and, as Kofi himself said, by the lack of unity in the international community, and especially inside this Council to give his plan the necessary support to overcome the strong resistance he was encountering on the ground. 11. When I arrived on the scene, I thought I should try to overcome the difculties Kofi encountered by concentrating my eforts in two directions: (i) talk to the parties to the conflict inside and outside Syria, as Well as to their respective regional and international backers and; (ii) see if the Security Council would unite again to efectively support the Geneva communique’ and Action plan and my own work aimed at creating the conditions conducive to its implementation. 12. I was constantly asked to produce a Brahimi plan. But what l was Working on Was how t0 help produce a Syrian plan to implement Geneva, which specifically said that what was needed was a Syrian-led process. Unfortunately, progress at the local and regional levels was almost nil and, at the international level progress was both far too slow and too modest. 13. Then, on 30 January, came the surprising initiative of Moaz Al-Khatib, the President of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (NCSROF), the opposition organisation set up in November 2012. As you will recall this initiative came soon after my previous briefing to this Council on 29 January 2013. In that briefing, l had said, amongst other things, that there were no prospects, that Syrians could accept to talk to one another to put an end to the Violence and agree on a process for a political, peaceful solution. 14. Moaz Al-Khatib’s initiative seemed to prove me wrong on that particular point. Indeed, that initiative, in its simple, almost naïve form, was a breath of fresh air and a ray of hope in a profoundly bleak situation. It was, as a French expression puts it: “un coup de pied dans la fourmilliere”, a stir in the pot, a stone thrown in dormant waters, a vigorous shout to all concerned that said, “Yes, peace is possible. Let us make it happen.” 15. Sheikh Moaz asked nothing more of the Government than to deliver passports to Syrian expatriates who needed them and to release the tens of thousands of political prisoners. He later lowered his demand to the immediate release of Women prisoners only. These were not really preconditions: a simple reminder of purely humanitarian problems and demands that Were unanimously made by Syrians of all Walks of life and political and religious persuasion as Well as by people the world over. 16. The Government in Damascus was surprised and embarrassed; its reaction was slow and confused. After some contradictory declarations and a Visit by Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem to Moscow, the Government at long last, declared it was ready to meet with a delegation representing the opposition in what they called a “pre-dialogue” in Moscow, Geneva or Vienna. Meanwhile, Moaz Al​Khatib’s own colleagues in the Coalition took a diferent direction. Meeting in Cairo, in February, they rejected their Chairman’s proposal and decided that, in the future, no initiative would come out from their organisation except from the General Assembly- all seventy or so members of them. 17. The next step came from the League of Arab States, whose Council of Ministers adopted a resolution on 6 March 2013 inviting the Coalition to form what they called an Executive body, to attend the Arab Summit on 26 and 27 March and represent Syria in all the agencies of the League of Arab States system, until elections are held in Syria. The Ministerial resolution was endorsed by the Arab Summit. 18. If the language of that resolution is to be taken literally, this means that, for the League of Arab States, the Geneva process is to be considered obsolete; no dialogue or negotiations are possible or necessary.