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| The BBC graph shows death toll rising by all counts |
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| Death count breakdown by "Syrian Shuhada" |
Newswires and international media continue to parrot
the old United Nations line, “The UN estimates that more than 10,000 people,
mostly civilians have been killed in Syria” since the uprising.
The problem is that the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva stopped producing estimates last December
because verifying the roll had become too difficult.
A current graph featuring in a BBC News feature,
titled “Syria
crisis: Counting the victims,” shows differences in Syria casualty estimates
ranging from a government low of some 6,000 to a high of 15,000 by activists’
networks.
One reliable opposition website, referred to by some
branches of the UN, Syrian Shuhada (Syrian Martyrs), puts the
number of civilians and military killed at 16,014 in 448 days up to June 7,
2012.
Syrian Shuhada breaks down its death count by province,
city, day, week, month, gender, age and surname. It documents the killing of
2,663 people – including 240 children and 251 women – since joint special envoy
Kofi Annan’s proposed April 12 ceasefire.
Tariq Alhomayed, editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, today takes Annan to
task for effectively giving Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “an
extra opportunity to kill” by failing to unequivocally notify the UN
Security Council of the collapse of his six-point plan and his mission.
Had he done that, he would have opened the way for
ending the Syrian people’s hemorrhage either trough UN-mandated military action
or a “coalition of the willing” against the regime
Instead, Alhomayed writes, Annan’s idea of a
so-called “Contact Group” actually invites the Iranians, Russians and Chinese to
partake in the “Syrian bazaar” and gives “the tyrant a new opportunity” to keep
killing.
Hazem Saghieh, political editor of the pan-Arab daily
al-Hayat, says Annan’s mission having
breathed its last the choice henceforth is between “outside intervention and civil
war.”
The Houla and Qubair massacres make an open-ended
civil war more likely for showing that:
- For the regime, holding on to power is do or die
- Post-Ottoman Syrian society is deeply disjointed
- Clamorous condemnations fed to public opinion and the media are simply meant to “mask regional and international apathy.”
With a “political solution” in Syria now defunct,
says Saghiyeh, unremitting “regional and international apathy” turns into “a
crime.”
Massacres such in Houla and Qubair risk becoming a
daily occurrence and escalating militarism and sectarianism make unrestricted
civil strife inevitable.
Outside intervention is imperative – “not only to
oust a murderous regime” but also “to keep Syria governable” by any side in
future.
Outside intervention can additionally reprieve
Lebanon and Iraq, where hatreds and sectarian divisions are rampant. Sectarian
flames in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq risk encircling the oil-rich rich northern
Gulf as well.
Saghieh tells opponents of outside intervention it is
civil war that nurtures Islamist bigots rather than the other around. Likewise,
outside intervention can shield ethnic and religious minorities instead of them
becoming civil war victims.
