![]() The provisional nature of local cease-fires should not obscure the point that they are but placeholders until the government is in a position to retake the community. ![]() The primary outcome of both is to subsume people and territory back into the state. While the government arguably did not have a formal blueprint for the trajectory local cease-fires and reconciliation agreements have taken, they are both a military strategy used to force rebel areas to acquiesce, either immediately or at a later date. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, in hopes of buying time for opponents to come to some sort of political solution.Ī strategic lineage can be drawn between local cease-fires and reconciliation agreements. These began in Barzeh, northern Damascus, and shortly afterwards with the U.N.-brokered cease-fire in Old Homs in February 2014. Until the agreement in Daraya, localized cease-fires had been used in various communities throughout Syria. The evacuation of the rebel-held community of Daraya in August 2016 marked a turning point in the Syrian government’s use of reconciliation agreements as a strategy to recapture rebel-held territories. ![]() This usually involves the evacuation of certain elements of the population and the reinstatement of Syrian government control over the territory.Īs such, for most of the people living within “reconciled” areas, these types of agreements represent more of an imposed solution or terms of surrender than any form of reconciliation. These grim conditions spur the community inside the besieged area to put tremendous pressure on their leadership to reach some sort of agreement with the government to ease the suffering. Most often, the government achieves this by creating a siege environment around the area and augments the inability of the population to access safety, food and humanitarian supplies through aerial bombardment. ![]() Rather than offering any form of reconciliation in the traditional sense, these agreements are more a coercive tool used by the Syrian government to retake communities that have fallen outside its control. However, in the context of the Syrian civil war, “reconciliation” agreements are, for the most part, not so dignified. It is also reminiscent of South African-style transitional justice mechanisms. The term “reconciliation” usually implies some sort of amicable agreement between former foes. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |