“The world is
full enough of hurts and mischance without wars to multiply them.” - J.R.R. Tolkien
The situation in
Syria has become worse and worse with each passing week and the atrocities
committed seem to have no end. The inhumanity of the killing bears no
description and as more information filters out of the beleaguered country, the
enormity and extent of the massacres is sickening. I can only think of the
masses of innocent people whose lives have been turned upside down or who have
indeed lost their lives.
UN observers reported
from the village of Al-Kubeir, near Hama, that there was blood on the walls and
a strong stench of burnt flesh, prompting Western governments to launch a push
for tough new sanctions against Damascus. Nine women and three children were among 17 people killed on Saturday in
a pre-dawn bombardment of a residential neighbourhood of the southern city of
Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Dozens more were wounded, some of them
seriously, in the city which was the birthplace of the uprising against
President Bashar al-Assad’s rule which erupted in March last year.
In nearby Jordan, hundreds of Syrian refugees demonstrated at dawn in
the border town of Ramtha to protest against the deaths in Daraa, Jordan’s
official Petra news agency reported. The Syrian army has killed at least 23
civilians in two protest cities, a watchdog says, as international outcry
mounts over a massacre in a central village.
It is unfortunate, but it looks very much like civil war and the situation
is likely to worsen. Unless firm action is taken, the bloodbath will become widespread
and many more innocent people will lose their lives. To have a country steeped
in violence like this in this day and age is a crime against humanity and it is
deplorable that the international community has not been more active in
intervening.
A requiem tonight in memory of the innocent people who lost their live,
whatever their creed, race or ideological background. It is the first movement
of Tomas Luis de Victoria's (1548 - 1611) from the Officium Defunctorum of 1605, performed by The Choir of Westminster
Cathedral.
I cannot see an end to the massacres, given that entrenched presidents do not give up power voluntarily. We have seen country after country kill its own citizens, until the despots are killed, gaoled or exiled. And I don't mean the 1939-45 war... consider the Arab Spring in the last couple of years.
ReplyDeleteHowever I am much more worried about Australia's response to desperate refugees. We degrade them and their saviours, put them in refugee camps on isolated islands or allow their ships to sink at sea. What a disgrace.