OTTAWA
- NATO's
"mission creep" under its United Nations Responsibility To Protect (R2P)
mandate in Libya - which now apparently creeps to heavy continuous bombing of
Tripoli to effect regime change - has not unexpectedly undermined UN Security
Council solidarity and thus the deterrence potential of R2P on the Syrian
regime.
Human
rights groups estimate that over 1,300 people, most of them unarmed civilians,
have already been killed since the pro-democracy uprising in Syria
began.
Russia and China have now both said they would not support an
R2P-type intervention in Syria. Russia and China had previously abstained –
rather than blocked - a Security Council vote to take limited military action in
Libya and are now upset that NATO is overstepping that original
resolution.
"The
intent of the R2P resolution around Libya was to protect civilians in imminent
danger, and not escalate the conflict into a
regime-change-by-bombing-into-submission exercise. This creates a bad precedent
that will undermine the appropriate application of R2P by the UN Security
Council in other crisis situations," said Eric Walton, Green International
Affairs Critic.
A debate regarding the Libya mission extension is coming
up this week in the Canadian House of Commons.
Regarding the crisis in
Syria, the Green Party of Canada is calling for more robust sanctions to include
an international trade and energy embargo and not just sanctions against
specific individuals and Syrian security organizations.
"The Canadian
government should immediately seek to mobilize international support for a trade
and energy embargo against Syria unless lethal violence against protesters ends
immediately. Even if full co-operation on robust sanctions can not be
immediately obtained, the world community needs to know which countries are
prepared to continue trading and profiting from a regime that uses tanks and
helicopter gunships against its own unarmed civilian protesters," said Green
Leader Elizabeth May.
Syria's domestic energy supply now only provides
for about two-thirds of its required energy needs.
Protests in Syria have
been underway since March, inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.
President Bashar al-Assad has responded to the protests with lethal military
force. Sanctions have been placed on certain senior Syrian officials (including
President Assad) by the United States, Canada and the European
Union.
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Contact:
Kieran Green
Director of Communications
613-614-4916
Kieran.green@greenparty.ca