Anan's plan on Syria has backers and doubters but there is no alternative, writes Graham Usher at the UN On 24 April UN-Arab League special envoy Kofi Anan briefed a closed session of the Security Council on the peace plan that bears his name. It followed the council's unanimous adoption of a resolution authorising the deployment of 300 unarmed military observers plus civilians to Syria over the next three months. According to diplomats, Anan called for a "rapid deployment" of the UN mission to reverse the deteriorating conditions in Syria despite an ostensible ceasefire between the government and opposition: his peacekeeping chief, Herve Ladsous, told the council that the fastest deployment possible would get 30 observers into Syria by the end of the week, and 100 by the end of one month, said diplomats. Anan said "the situation in Syria continues to be unacceptable". He was "particularly alarmed by reports that government troops entered (the Syrian city of) Hama�ê� after observers departed, firing automatic weapons and killing a significant number of people. If confirmed, this is totally unacceptable and reprehensible." He said two observers were now permanently stationed in the city, said diplomats. Earlier Anan's spokesman, Ahmed Fawzi, told UN Television that satellite imagery showed Syrian forces had not withdrawn heavy weapons from urban centres, nor returned troops to barracks as they are supposed to do under the peace plan. This too Anan conveyed to the council. There are just 11 observers now in Syria. Last week they visited the blasted cities of Hama and Deraa as well as the Damascus suburb of Douma, another resistance redoubt. In all three they were mobbed by thousands denouncing the regime and pleading for international protection. No sooner had they left Hama and Deraa than the army resumed shelling, reportedly leaving 40 dead in Hama (an army officer and his assistant had been assassinated earlier in the same city, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights). Hundreds were arrested; several may have been executed. The exception to this grim tale of protest and collective retribution is Homs. Once the primary target of state repression, the city has witnessed a relative calm, say residents. Anan told the council what he thought was the cause. "In Homs [the] violence has dropped significantly in response to the presence of a very small number of observers". He probably believes that once the 300 monitors are deployed in other flashpoint cities there will be a similar deterrent effect, shifting the dynamic of the conflict from armed confrontation to political dialogue. It would be "a pivotal moment for the stabilisation of the country" he predicted on 22 April. That is the optimist view of the UN mission. There is also a pessimist view. Although speaking in favour of the resolution authorising the observer mission on 21 April, United States UN Ambassador Susan Rice nonetheless openly doubted whether a UN mission could end the violence in Syria. "The Syrian people, like us, know that the deployment of 300 or even 3,000 unarmed observers cannot on its own stop Al-Assad regime from waging its barbaric campaign of violence against the Syrian people," she said. "What can bring a halt to this murderous campaign is continued and intensified external pressure on Al-Assad regime." By "pressure" she meant sanctions, including possibly an arms embargo. UN Ambassadors from Britain, France and Germany said similar things, hoping the Anan plan will succeed but readying for sanctions if it doesn't. Yet the adoption of any UN sanctions resolution would require the votes of Russia and China. And "sanctions are counterproductive", said Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin. He also warned against any reprise of the "Libya model", when a council resolution ostensibly passed to protect civilians was invoked by NATO to promote regime change. Instead, Churkin emphasised that "the Anan plan and the council decision to deploy monitors is the only strategy [able] to reverse the violence in Syria and get a settlement satisfactory to all segments of Syrian society". Many analysts think Churkin has a point, and not just because of Russia's military and other interests in Syria. Due to Russian activism, the Anan plan commands unanimity at the UN, and has managed to insert international observers on the ground. Rice and others' dire warnings that the Syrian regime will be punished for past crimes remain just that -- warnings. They suggest the West and Arabs also have no practical alternative to the Anan plan, says analyst Shashank Joshi. "Given the absolute lack of stomach for US intervention, Turkey's unwillingness to intervene unless it is under US and European leadership, and the clear signs of posturing from Saudi Arabia's [calls to arm the rebels] but lack of any real follow up, I don't see the strategic purpose of collapsing the Anan agreement," he told Reuters. If so, henceforth the international struggle over Syria will shift from the Security Council to the nature of the observer mission. It's almost certain the larger the mission the greater will be the regime's temptation to sabotage it, as already witnessed in Hama and Deraa. On the other hand the more cities in which the observers are stationed the greater the deterrence to the Syrian regime and the likelier the conditions can be created to bring about a political process to end it. That, in essence, was Anan's fundamental message at his closed session with the Security Council. (see p.11)
