Ceasefire in Syria, continue with the war!

With a resolution adopted at the United Nations Security Council, “a call for a month-long humanitarian ceasefire was made to all parties at war in Syria.” The Syrian regime’s air bombardment of jihadist groups in Eastern Ghouta, which led to hundreds of fatalities including civilians, especially influenced this decision. Despite the ceasefire called by the UN covering all regions in Syria, bourgeoisie media outlets of all colours in Turkey present this decision as if it is only taken for Eastern Ghouta.

Therefore the first question to ask about the decision at UN is weather it includes Afrin or not.

It is stated that the ceasefire covers all parties except for ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the Nusra Front and those identified as terrorist groups by the UN Security Council; PYD/YPG are not in the listed organisations. On the day of the decision, permanent representative of Syria at the UN, Bashar Jaafaristated that the ceasefire area “should be comprised of all Syrian land including Afrin and Gholan”. It must also be remembered that allegations of tens of lost civilian lives in Afrin is claimed in the world media, even though this is not shared with the Turkish public.

At the time this article is written, no official statement was yet made but it would be no surprise if the government statement read “we are carrying out an anti-terrorist operation in Afrin. The ceasefire decision does not affect us”. However, we can already say that such a statement would not easily convince the public opining in the world because the Syrian regime can too say that they are carrying out an operation against terrorist threats to Damascus. Besides, in their case, there is no unclear definition of terrorism. To date, hundreds of rocket attacks on Damascus directly from Eastern Ghouta - under control of the Saudi backed Jaysh al-Islam and where al Nusra have influence - led to hundreds of deaths.

The continued operations of the Assad regime on Eastern Ghouta and Idlib against jihadist groups; the aerial assault by the US - claimed to have cost the lives of hundreds of soldiers - in response to an operation by the Russian and Assad forces on an energy complex in Deir ez-Zor, which is under SDF control; increased attacks by Israel in Syria and the forces of the regime shooting down an Israeli warplane; the Afrin operation by Turkey and the involvement of the regime-Iran backed forces in this conflict against Turkey…

The ‘proxy’ war in Syria is fast evolving into one where the ‘real’ players are getting closer to a direct military conflict. Furthermore, these ‘real’ players, led by Russia and the US, claimat every opportunity that the “only viable solution is a political one”. In contrast, when the issue is the determination of their area of influence post-IS and the struggle to control the region, they do not seem to hold back from military conflicts.

Under the condition of dominance/redistribution in Syria, the temporaryUN ceasefire cannot be anything more than a mere factor. Civilians are also not a concern of the US and Western powers;through the propaganda of the civilian genocides,once again they want to question the legitimacy of the regime, which is trying to stamp out the last strongholds of jihadist groups. On the other hand, Russia agrees with the ceasefire decision as they have gained the initiative in Syria; they want to invalidate this propaganda and give the regime some more time. Therefore, debatable as to what extent it can/will be implemented, this ceasefiredoes not mean much more than abreak in the war; although it is of vital importance for the people living in this area of conflict. It does not seem possible that any ceasefire can bring a democratic-peaceful solution until the countries that have turned the region into a war/arms laboratory withdraw from Syria.