Welcome to the past rather than the future, back to another cold war. What we’re now facing is a new cold era, and not only due to the current Russian frost. What happened during the Un Security Council last week was a time-machine-like event that pushed us 100 years back, straight into the 20th century.
The "big three" at the Yalta Conference, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, Feb. 1945
The Un members had to vote a resolution to give Bashar al Asad, the president of Syria, a strong warning on violence in his country. Almost all the countries agreed about giving sanctions to the dictator. All but China and Russia. These two countries put a veto on Un resolution and drove us back to the past.
Everyone knows about Russia and China’s contrasting feelings regarding human rights. Sometimes it seems they don’t even care about them preferring to focus their attention on their imperial policy. This actions allow them to influence that part of Middle East which, according to their politicians, has always been under their control. Despite the Great Play actions-like, it seems to everyone that the two countries are turning their head to avoid facing what is really happening in Syria. In that nation not only the cities are under siege, but also all the hospitals, which are under the control of mukhabarat, the bloodiest secret service in the whole Arab world. “There are more government agents than doctors”, said Dr. Moschocoritis, of Doctor Without Borders. “Inside and outside the hospitals mukhabarat checks everything. They torture or even kill all the casualties that were wounded during the anti-Asad rallies. If you are against the president, well, you are an enemy of the government. No medical surgery is possible in this condition”. The number of dead people has reached 7.000 so far. Among them, 400 children, according to Unesco.
Internet is filled with videos that show to the world how humongous is the massacre perpetrated by Asad. To be truthful, not all videos can be verified, as a consequence of Asad’s denial to let independent journalist visit the country.
A Syrian man holds his wounded brother in a house that is used as a hospital in Bab Amr, a southern neighborhood of Homs. Feb. 6, 2012 (Alessio Romenzi)
In these days, Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister of Russia, is visiting Damascus. Apparently he’d like to warn Asad and to force him to pass some reforms. In fact Russia is asserting his “duty” to control Syria.
We’re going back to the past, walking backward like a lobster. It’s a new cold era between former communist states and liberal western countries. The situation is blurred because even the “second” western world (the so called Brics –Brasil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) seems not to care about human rights. In the meantime Syrians are waiting, hoping that new world won’t be like the one they left behind.
Elia Milani
