Peace in Syria Vetoed

On 3 February 1982, the Syrian government forces were engaged in killing their own citizens ordered by the then President Asad, the present one's father. Friday last week was the 30th anniversary of the massacre. But it was the day when the son President was about to get a license to kill, when Russia and China vetoed the Arab League-initiated resolution before the Security Council.
A 'license to kill' is no exaggeration. Look at the indiscriminate bombardment, by artillery if not by bombers, on the small city of Homs which has been continuing for six days now, and which Mr.Ban Ki-Moon called an 'appalling brutality'. They are annihilating the whole population there.
But why did those two powers torpedo the resolution?
Both of them would like to see the present Syrian government to be sitting there for more time to come. Russia has the right to send its warships to a Syrian seaport on the Mediterranean, which would give an enormous maneuverability to her Black Sea Fleet. At this moment her small fleet is there signalling her support to the regime. Russia has been selling enormous amount of weapons, especially tanks and fighter planes, to this comparatively small country to militarize her.
China, on the other hand, is on the alert against any possible downfall of a dictatorship, a 'regime change'. She may also have found it fit to go together with
Russia for now. She ranks 174th in the ranking of the presence of the freedom of reporting, and it may be difficult to get any trustworthy opinion from within on this point. China's veto was a veto to her own people's demand for freedom.
Russia, however, enjoys more freedom. There was a 'huge' anti-Putin demonstration there last week. Was there any slogan, in the form of a banner or just anything, connecting the main internal issue with supporting the brutal regimes externally? The old 'internationalism' has left no legacy of its own?
When vetoing at the UN, the Russian Foreign Minister said that the Security Council was not the only diplomatic channel. An astonishing disregard by a Permanent Member of the UN. And his subsequent visit to Syria has, so it seems, been utterly futile.
But why is the Syrian regime able, so far, to repress its people? Asad's regime is based on the Alawite Muslim minority, about 11% of its 23 million population. Therefore if the things are allowed to go their own course, the alternatives would be either the majority will be silenced, or the dominating Alawites will be defeated and squeezed out of the country, whichever comes first. Historians will be advised to look more closely at the inter-World War years in Syria to see whether the Mandatory Power France's policies did not contribute to the division of the people on the religious basis. Syria at present resembles Iraq in recent years, and also India on the eve of her division into India and Pakistan in 1947, with, of course, significant dissimilarities.
Under the circumstances it is not easy to see how the formula by Gene Sharp for dislodging a dictatorship could be applied here. But the world is deeply impressed that the people on the whole have chosen the way of non-violent struggle against the blood-thirsty regime. The fact itself might show Sharp and Gandhi and King's instructions being put in action.
There is one lesson which is difficult to escape the eye of the observer sympathetic to the Syrian people. It has become clear on 4 February 2012, as if under the broad daylight, that the veto power, as is stated in the UN Charter, is a thing of the past.