UN Security Council resolution 2059

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UN Security
Council Resolution 2059
Date: 20th July 2012
Meeting: 6812
Identifier: S / RES / 2059 ( document )
Poll: Pro: 15  Ent. : 0  Cons: 0
Object: The situation in the Middle East
Result: Accepted
Composition of the Security Council 2012:
Permanent members:

China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China CHN FRA GBR RUS USAFranceFrance  United KingdomUnited Kingdom  RussiaRussia  United StatesUnited States 

Non-permanent members:
AzerbaijanAzerbaijan AZE COL DEU GTM INDColombiaColombia  GermanyGermany  GuatemalaGuatemala  IndiaIndia 
MoroccoMorocco MAR PAK POR TGO ZAFPakistanPakistan  PortugalPortugal  TogoTogo  South AfricaSouth Africa 

The UN Security Council resolution 2059 is a resolution that the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted in its 6812th session on July 20, 2012 . It was brought up by France , Germany , Portugal and the United Kingdom and dealt with the situation in the Middle East. Specifically, the Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) by 30 days until August 21, 2012 .

In the run-up to the election, France, Germany, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States put forward a draft resolution threatening the Syrian government with measures under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations . The People's Republic of China and Russia prevented the adoption by their veto.

After Resolution 2059, the situation in Syria escalated further. Just four days later, UNSMIS withdrew half of its staff for security reasons.

background

The civil war in Syria began in March 2011 when peaceful demonstrations also broke out in Syria during the Arab Spring . The participants demanded political freedom and the overthrow of the government of President Bashar al-Assad . Security forces use live ammunition against demonstrators and opposition members are tortured in custody. In the second half of 2011, the opponents of the regime began to arm themselves and to fight against Assad's armed forces, turning the conflict into a civil war. Since then there have been various opposition alliances, including the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National Coordinating Committee for Democratic Change . Some of these alliances speak out against armed crackdown. Former soldiers also founded the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which saw itself as the armed arm of the Syrian opposition.

UNSMIS

At the beginning of April 2012, the former Secretary General of the United Nations , Kofi Annan , brokered a ceasefire that was to apply from April 12, 2012 and which was also approved by the Syrian leadership under President Bashar al-Assad. However, the ceasefire was subsequently ignored by both sides. For example, on May 25 and 26, the Hula massacre took place in which over 100 people were killed. On July 12, between 100 and 250 people died in the attack on Tremseh . The opposition and the government blamed each other for the bloodshed.

UNSMIS was originally an Advance Team to Monitor Ceasefire in Syria to monitor the ceasefire in the civil war in Syria. The Security Council created the conditions for this with resolution 2042 of April 14. By Resolution 2043 of 21 April 2012, she received her initially 90-day, mandate and was personnel increased from 30 to 300 unarmed military observers. The mission's mandate would have expired on the night of July 21st.

A representative of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) described the peace plan and the mission in advance as " stillbirth ".

Attack on the Syrian government

In a suicide attack on the headquarters of the national security office on July 18, just two days before the resolution was passed, several members of the Syrian government, including Defense Minister Daud Radschha , al-Assad's brother-in-law, Assif Shaukat and intelligence chief General Hisham al-Ichtiyar, died . The condition of Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Schaar, who was also injured in the attack, was unclear at the time of the resolution.

negotiations

Security Council meeting room at UN headquarters in New York

One day before the resolution was passed, at the 6810th session of the Security Council on July 19, the attempt by France, Germany, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States to introduce a resolution that extended the mission by 45 days and that of the Syrian one failed Government threatened sanctions under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations in the event of non-compliance with the ceasefire (full text of the draft under web links). The reason for this was a veto by Russia and the People's Republic of China. Pakistan and South Africa abstained from voting.

Russia justified its step with the wish to prevent a " Libyan solution ", that is, a military intervention. According to Resolution 1973, Libya was bombed with the help of international troops , which contributed significantly to the overthrow of the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi . Russia submitted its own text, but it did not put it up for election due to a lack of prospects of success.

The Chinese representative in the Security Council, Li Baodong , justified the veto with the one-sidedness of the draft, which he described as " counterproductive ". He declared that his country had no self-interest in Syria and was relying on Annan's peace plan. The crisis should be resolved in Syria itself, with China seeing itself as a protective power for the Syrian people and the basic norms for international relations.

The representative of Syria, Bashar Ja'afari , who was also invited , asked the members of the Security Council for a short and practical resolution to monitor the 6-point plan. He spoke of a group of states that let the peace plan fail by using the " Friends of Syria ", an international contact group, to establish a parallel roadmap and by means of disruptive maneuvers to create the impression that the Syrian government is killing its people. He also mentioned the attack on government officials on July 18 and blamed foreign terrorist groups for it.

content

The Security Council praised the work of UNSMIS and decided to extend its mandate by 30 days. The recommendations of the Secretary-General regarding the restructuring of the mission should be taken into account. The Security Council mentioned the increasingly dangerous security situation in Syria.

The Security Council called on all parties to guarantee the security and freedom of movement of the UNSMIS. He also mentioned that the Syrian authorities are primarily responsible for this.

The Security Council also stated that the UNSMIS mandate will only be extended again in the future if heavy weapons are no longer used in Syria and all sides have restricted the violence.

In conclusion, the Security Council declared its readiness to remain active in the matter and requested Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to report back within 15 days.

Reactions and consequences

The Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Tschurkin expressed his satisfaction with the " appeal to the two conflicting parties to end the violence ".

The previous head of UNSMIS, the Norwegian General Robert Mood , was no longer available for an extension and was replaced by the Senegalese General Babacar Gaye . Shortly after the resolution was passed, the latter admitted that the results of the mission were unsatisfactory. He resisted the view that the 30-day extension was just about time for an orderly retreat. He emphasized that he wanted to make the best possible use of the given time. The United States government, however, spoke of the possibility of a " safe and orderly withdrawal " through the extension.

Four days after the resolution, on July 24th, UNSMIS began withdrawing half of its personnel from Syria due to the deteriorating security situation. There was no plan for these observers to return.

Web links

Wikisource: Original text of the resolution  - sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ UNSMIS Facts and Figures. In: Official website of UNSMIS. Retrieved on July 24, 2012 (English): "Current authorization until August 21, 2012"
  2. ↑ Markus Bickel: The revolutionaries are fighting a war of attrition. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. October 14, 2011, accessed July 23, 2012 .
  3. ↑ a b c UN Security Council extends observer mission in Syria. In: RIA Novosti . July 20, 2012. Retrieved July 24, 2012 .
  4. ^ A b Hans-Michael Ehl: Syrians have little hope in UN mission. In: Tagesschau . July 21, 2012, archived from the original on July 23, 2012 ; Retrieved on July 24, 2012 : “... a spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Council described the mission and plans of the UN special envoy Kofi Annan as stillborn ... shortly after the decision in the UN Security Council admitted that the results so far the mission are not satisfactory ... "
  5. ↑ Syrian security chief dies after attack. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . July 20, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012 .
  6. ^ Fatal attack on minister in Damascus. In: Tagesschau. July 18, 2012, archived from the original on July 21, 2012 ; Retrieved July 25, 2012 .
  7. ↑ Markus Bickel: Right in the heart. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. July 18, 2012. Retrieved July 19, 2012 .
  8. ↑ a b c d Security Council Fails to Adopt Draft Resolution on Syria That Would Have Threatened Sanctions, Due to Negative Votes of China, Russian Federation. In: Official website of the United Nations. July 19, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Ban sends top blue helmet to Syria. In: The Standard . July 22, 2012. Retrieved July 24, 2012 .
  10. ↑ a b Michael Martens and Christoph Ehrhardt: Turkey closes border with Syria. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. July 25, 2012. Retrieved July 25, 2012 .