Saturday 16 June 2012

Operation Ostrava: Month 16, Week 2, Day 3.

Today (16/6/12) the United Nations Supervision Mission In Syria (UNSMIS) has suspended it's observer mission. Although UNSMIS personnel will remain in the country they will stay confined to their hotels/barracks. The suspension of operations will be reviewed on a day to day basis.

However now that the Saudi Irregular Army (SIA) have withdrawn from the Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan's six point peace plan there is no ceasefire for the observers to monitor. In fact the only way I can envisage the mission continuing is by having it's mandate changed to allow it to support the Syrian government in ending the insurgency - something which due to the foreign support for the insurgency the UN's own charter requires it to do.

Something needs to be done soon though because I can quite easily see the death toll spiraling out of control to over one million dead. So if the US' Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice is serious about preventing another Bosnian or Rwandan genocide her moment is now.

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