Syrian crisis

Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world's leading human rights organizations. He has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world.

DW: According to various reports, the Syrian regime is continuing its military campaign against the uprising after rejecting calls for a UN peacekeeping mission. The UN estimates that so far at least 5,000 people have been killed in Syria. What is Human Rights Watch's assessment of the current situation?

Kenneth Roth: It's clearly a disaster. You mentioned that the Syrian forces are using military means and in part that is against an opposition that is itself increasingly armed. But of course a lot of the violence from the Syrian security forces is still directed at peaceful demonstrators. And much of the death toll is of people who are doing nothing more than protesting in favor of a more democratic government in Syria. So I think it's important for us to keep in mind that as the situation does seem indeed to be degenerating toward civil war, nonetheless the largest death toll has been by people who are simply exercising their right to speak out and to protest on behalf of human rights and democracy.

Would you say the situation has even gotten worse since December when Human Rights Watch in a report detailed human rights violations and called for the International Criminal Court to prosecute the Syrian regime?

It's gotten much worse. I think that the level of indiscriminate shelling that we have seen in Homs in particular over the last couple of weeks was a further escalation in the violent repression. And so our call for the involvement of the International Criminal Court has become more urgent than ever. These are clearly crimes against humanity being committed by Syrian security forces, by the commanders who are ordering this kind of slaughter. This is precisely the situation where the International Criminal Court should be involved. Obviously the only reason that it isn't is because principally Russia with China has prevented the UN Security Council from acting. And because Syria has not ratified the Rome Treaty, the International Criminal Court's treaty, the only way that the court can gain jurisdiction over Syrian atrocities is through a referral from the Security Council which Russia so far has refused to countenance.

You have researched various human rights cases and worked as a prosecutor, from a legal perspective how would you describe the violence in Syria and how solid is the evidence against the Assad regime before a court?

I think it's a very strong case, in other words, if you are systematically shooting demonstrators or if you are systematically shelling civilian areas of a city indiscriminately those are classic crimes against humanity. Indeed if it rises to the level of an armed conflict within Syria it would also be a war crime. But so far we are talking about crimes against humanity. And those are clearly within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Collecting evidence of a solid nature is obviously difficult because the Syrian government has prevented human rights observers and journalists from operating freely.

That said, Human Rights Watch and others have been able to collect quite a bit of evidence from inside and I am confident that over time we will gain access to more evidence as well. So I think the difficulty is not going to build a case against Syria, but rather gaining the jurisdiction to allow the International Criminal Court to go forward. That's why Russia's veto has been the problem.

As you mentioned, Russia and China continue to block most of the efforts by the international community, from the prosecution of the Assad regime by the ICC to a condemnation by the UN Security Council to the peacekeeping plan proposed by the Arab League. In light of the ongoing violence what is your message to the leaders in Moscow and Beijing? 

I find that those vetoes, which were really led by Russia and China followed up (I don't think anyone thinks that China would have vetoed on its own, but it was quite willing to veto with Russia taking the lead), represent a callous indifference to the lives of the Syrian people. It was a playing of global politics at the expense of the Syrian people. Clearly what Russia values is that the Assad regime is really its last remaining friend in the Middle East and North Africa and is a major purchaser of Russian arms. Russia continues to look at the struggle for democratic change in the region through the lens of the Cold War. And it still seems to be against any evolution even if it is a very positive evolution in human rights terms, if it fears it might lose a close ally in the process. That is a cynical calculation which I hope Russia is widely condemned for by Europe and others because it is the opposite way a permanent member of the UN Security Council should act.

And we hope that frankly one lesson to be learned from Russia's and China's veto is that there is a need for a new norm at the UN Security Council that the permanent members will not use their veto in situations were mass atrocities are being committed. I fully recognize that the US has been as guilty of that practice in the past as Russia and China are today, so it would require a real change on the part of a good number of the permanent members. But there is an urgent need to for that shift. And the lack of a more responsible norm at the Security Council is today being felt painfully by the Syrian people.

What does the Syrian case do to the principle of Responsibility to Protect, which has been regarded as a kind of new standard for international involvement to prevent mass atrocities and for which Libya has been the prime example, when there hasn't really been any action so far in a similar case like Syria?

I think it's wrong to say that there isn't any action. It's important to remember that the Responsibility to Protect - which clearly is activated by the level of atrocities in Syria - is not simply about military action. It's about a range of steps by the international community to step in and put pressure on a government that is failing in its own responsibility to protect its people. In this case Syria is not even trying to protect its people, it's been killing the people. So there is a duty to act.

But we have seen I think unprecedented positive action by the Arab League for example which has imposed sanctions which has fought to deploy observers and did for a while and which most recently has proposed peacekeepers although Syria today rejected that action. So there has been a lot of action locally. The European Union, the US government and others have imposed sanctions and these are all positive steps that are a sort of ratcheting up of pressure on Damascus under the Responsibility to Protect. Clearly it's insufficient so far and there is a need to find additional ways to increase the pressure until if not Assad than at least those around recognize that there is no future through this path of violent repression and that there is going to be a need to come to some accommodation with those who envision a more democratic future for Syria. 

Would you agree with the perception that compared to Libya the international community in general, but France and Britain who led the mission against Moammar Gadhafi in particular, have been rather restrained when it comes to Bashar al-Assad's actions?

Britain and France have been part of the European Union consensus to impose an oil embargo, to impose targeted sanctions. In that sense they have been very good. I think what you are alluding to is that Britain and France are not today bombing Syria they way they did in Libya. There are many reasons for that, ranging from the much more disorganized nature of the opposition or the rebels in Syria by comparison with Libya, a much more coherent and able Syrian military force and just the greater complexity of the country. There are relatively few advocating military action in Syria today. I wouldn't completely rule it out if the repression continues, but at this point it is not what people are realistically talking about. They are trying to find other forms of sanctions and diplomatic pressure to isolate Damascus in its repression and to make it clear that this extraordinarily violent route is not one that is sustainable.

Could it be that history does repeat itself and the world will simply stand idly by as Bashar al-Assad in 2012 conducts the same scorched earth policy his father did 30 years earlier when he crushed a revolt in Hama killing at least 10,000 people?

What's interesting is that Hafiz al-Assad massacred in Hama at least 10,000 and the world barely noticed. There was little if any reaction. Today when his son is embarked on a similarly brutal strategy the world is outraged. People are imposing sanctions, they are imposing embargos, withdrawing ambassadors and isolating the regime. So the world has come a long way. I don't think one can equate the international reaction today at all with what happened with the Hama slaughter of 30 years ago. That said, so far the reaction isn't sufficient. And I think the challenge is not one of indifference, the challenge is of taking the deep concern that does exist and continue to ratchet it up until this killing stops. And hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later.

What then is your hope and advice for the international community to bring more pressure to bear against the Assad regime?

One is to recognize that what happened so far is insufficient and that additional means are required. And the second is to recognize that time is of the essence, that people are being killed every single day in large numbers. And so this is not a matter in which we can sort of see how things play out over weeks or months. There is a need for urgency.

But for Russia's and China's actions we would have already seen a significant ratcheting up of pressure. I am hoping that Moscow and Beijing are paying a sufficient price in terms of their reputation, a price for their callous indifference that they will find some way to embrace additional pressure on Damascus despite their narrow geopolitical calculations that have them siding with a brutal repressor rather than with the Syrian people.

Interview: Michael Knigge
Editor: Rob Mudge