Syria Anti-Violence Resolution Adopted by UN General Assembly

The UN General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution written by the Saudis. It condemns the violence by the Syrian government and the Security Council’s failure to stop it.

The UN correspondent for the Washington Post, Colum Lynch, was watching the vote. He told The World’s Aaron Schachter that the UN resolution, which is not enforceable, will have little impact. “It can do absolutely nothing about the violence in Syria,” Lynch said. “The whole process of the negotiation collapsed last month when Russia and China vetoed a resolution that was laying out the envoy Kofi Annan’s final blueprint for resolving the crisis diplomatically.”

“The real gravity is shifting to the region, and the next phase of this will be largely military,” Lynch observes. “In a way this seems like a bit of a side show.”

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Aaron Schachter: I’m Aaron Schachter and this is “The World”.

Recording: The voting has been completed. The machine is locked.

Schachter: Today, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution written by the Saudis. It condemns the violence by the Syrian government and the Security Council’s failure to stop it.

Recording: The result of the vote is as follows: in favor – a hundred and thirty-three, against – twelve, abstention – thirty-one.

Schachter: The UN correspondent for the Washington Post, Colum Lynch, was watching the vote. Colum, what is the UN actually able to do about the violence in Syria?

Colum Lynch: Absolutely nothing. I mean I think that the General Assembly action today, somebody described the diplomacy to me at the UN. They’re saying the whole process is kind of going to this diplomatic twilight zone where it’s like there’s someone dead in the family sort of in another room and nobody wants to acknowledge that they’ve passed away. I mean it’s the strange. I mean the whole process of the negotiations sort of last month when Russia and China vetoed a resolution which was kind of laying out the envoy Kofi Annan’s sort of final blueprint for resolving the crisis diplomatically. The were elements of pressure on the parties to go along with a plan for a political transition and the Russians and the Chinese blocked this and left Kofi Annan with very little diplomatic leverage to apply to the parties and we saw that he has resigned this week. And so the UN diplomatic track is essentially dead. It’s possible it could come back to life down the road, but I mean the real sort of gravity is kind of shifting to the region and the next kind of phase of this is going to be largely military. I mean in a way it feels like this is a bit of sideshow.

Schachter: Well, given the fact that Kofi Annan resigned for these very reasons, these big divisions within the UN, especially the Security Council, and the fact that this resolution was non-binding, why do you think they even brought it up?

Lynch: Well . . .

Schachter: It does look pretty silly, as you say.

Lynch: Yeah, but I think that another example of this is the French Foreign Minster after the vetoed resolution was saying, “Let’s hold a meeting of Security Council ministers and the Security Council and plot new steps,” and they had to cancel it because no one was going to show up for it. I mean there’s no prospect for breaking the impasse between the West and the Arabs on one hand and the Chinese and the Russians on the other, so it’s kind of stuck. But everyone, like the French Foreign Minister, wants to show that they’re doing something.

Schachter: Yeah, well, it’s a wonderfully noble thing what they purport to be trying to do, but it seems that every failed resolution, every failed plan just makes the UN look worse and worse.

Lynch: Yeah, it doesn’t make it look like it’s a serious organization when it’s an organization set up sort of to do diplomacy and it’s kind of handled in such a ham-handed way.

Schachter: Is it safe to assume that Moscow and Beijing are two of the votes against?

Lynch: Yeah, it’s safe to assume that. I mean before the vote you had a lot of the usual suspects, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, coming out and denouncing the West and saying that this resolution is kind of a cover for a military intervention. South Africa [sounds like] came out with a kind of somewhat convoluted reasoning, sort of saying that “This was not a balanced approach, but that in the cause of international unity we’ll support the resolution anyway,” but clearly they wanted to register their sort of disquiet over the process

Schachter: Colum Lynch is the UN correspondent for the Washington Post. He spoke to us today about an UN resolution condemning the violence by the Syrian government and the Security Council’s failure to stop it. Colum, thank you.

Lynch: All right. Thanks a lot for having me. No problem.

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