A presentation to help you understand what is going on in this country we are hearing so much about lately. It is important to keep ourselves informed of all world events.

1. Helping you understand the
conflict in Syria
10 simple points
A presentation by Gema Parra

2. First thing you need to know...
This is one of the most complicated wars in history. This is a messy, cruel war where
neither side has much regard for civilian casualties.
This war is not black-and-white. You may believe it is the brave rebels versus the evil
dictatorial regime, and that’s part of the story. But it’s not all of it, not by a long way.
Confused about Syria? We all are. This quick presentation will
help you further understand what exactly is going on in 10 simple
points.

3. 1.About Syria
A country smaller than the state of Victoria with almost the exact same population as
Australia (22.5 million to our 23 million) which borders Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel
and Lebanon. Syria has both deserts and fertile areas and is steeped in history dating
back to biblical times.

4. 2. The Syrian regime
The Syrian Civil war is a conflict between its long-serving government and those
seeking to boot it out of office. The Assad family has held power in Syria since 1971.
First it was Hafez al-Assad, then Bashar al-Assad.
Unlike many regime leaders in the middle east, The Assad family is not religiously
extreme. They are Alawites - a relatively obscure branch of Islam which is not
particularly hard-line. So the people have not been protesting against hard-line
Islamists, as happened in other countries which participated in the Arab Spring
uprisings.
But people are still angry at their government about the failure of long-promised
economic and political reforms.

5. 3. The Civil War begins
Rodger Shanahan (former peacekeeper in Syria and
non-resident Fellow at the Lowy Institute for
International Policy)says the catalyst was the jailing
on March 6, 2011, of some children who painted anti-
regime graffiti. Some were killed in detention, and
this led to public protests which spread around the
country - fuelled by the failure of the government to
punish the perpetrators.
Another theory says the war started with
demonstrations which mirrored those in
neighbouring countries, and which soon led to a
security crackdown. In April 2011, the Syrian Army
fired on demonstrators and the protests became a
full-scale armed rebellion.

6. 4. The rebellion grows...
By July 2011, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had formed. As Dr Shanahan explains, the FSA never existed before
that. "Local areas formed their own militias with the aim of toppling the government without any co-ordination
or centralised command or control," he says.
"The militias were a combination of local area tribal groups, deserters from the military [who had been
conscripted despite holding anti-government beliefs] and disaffected locals."
Then a combination of Jihadists, some from Syria and some from elsewhere, joined the FSA. Some even came
from the faraway Caucasus region - where accused Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev originally hailed from.
So in other words, you had genuine Syrian freedom fighters joined by people with their own Islamist agendas.
But because the FSA was underarmed and undermanned, they had little choice but to form a loose coalition
with these volatile new kids on the revolutionary block.

7. 5. Bad guys on both sides begin killing civilians
As Father Dave Smith (Sydney Anglican priest who this year travelled to Syria on a humanitarian mission) says, "the way it's
been depicted the last couple of years, you get the impression the rebels are Robin Hood and his band of merry men, and that
all they want is freedom and justice for all. But that couldn't be further from the truth."
Father Dave illustrates his point with a communication he had with a Syrian woman which he published on his blog. The
woman's name is Ghinwa and she wrote by text:
"The situation is very bad now in Latakia province. 7 Alawite villages were massacred. We know about the killing of 136
villagers all killed on sectarian bases. A friend of mind lost 21 member of his relatives.
"All of my friends who were documenting the name and the events of massacres in Latakia against Alawites are now being
threatened to be killed by FSA and Al Nusra terrorists … On TV we are shown something different. It is only a propaganda.
They're trying to say that Alawites are not being killed or displaced. The truth is being hidden by mass media. .. This is sick…
My sister now is very ill … I guess a part of her illness is caused by sadness … we are afraid."
A quick recap. Alawites are the ethnicity of the ruling family. The fact they were allegedly being killed by rebel groups suggests
the rebels are not all angels.

8. 6. Civilian casualties
"There are accusations of atrocities on both sides," Rodger
Shanahan confirms. We should believe some of them,
absolutely. There's no accurate confirmation, but it's a nasty
horrible civil war with people on both sides getting killed.
Dr Shanahan says there is evidence that opposition car bombs
have killed countless civilians in the name of taking out a
government target. But there are equally distressing reports
that government soldiers executed civilians. Others,
shockingly, were executed for taking a moral stance and
failing to follow orders to execute civilians.
Like we said, it's a bloody mess. Literally. The death toll in the
war is now said to be well over 100,000.

9. 7. The president’s wife
Allow us to break up this tale with a story of the president's
wife. Her name is Asma al-Assad and she was raised in Britain
by Syrian parents. She's smart, glamorous and she worked as an
investment banker before meeting her future husband in
Britain in 2000 - just months before he became president.
In March 2011, the American version of Vogue magazine ran a
long, glowing profile of Asma al-Assad. Talk about bad timing.
The story was soon removed from Vogue's website and the
journalist who wrote it tried to cover her tracks by penning a
separate story elsewhere entitled "First Lady of Hell".
Even as the Civil war rages, the Assad family remains popular
with many middle class Syrians, especially urbanised Sunni
Muslims, says Dr Rodger Shanahan. "They still prefer him to
the opposition," he says.

10. 8. Refugee Hell
The United Nations estimates that more than 1.5
million refugees have now fled Syria. Father
David Smith visited several camps across the
border in Lebanon - a country whose population
of 4.3 million is bulging with the influx of a total
of nearly 2 million Palestinian and Syrian
refugees.
"The camps I saw were deeply impressive," Father
Dave says. "Every Palestinian family took in two,
maybe three Syrian families. These included
polygamous families which presented a whole
new problem. The wives often lived in separate
houses in Syria but now they were not just under
the same roof but sleeping on the same floor. The
domestic violence and rape problems are
enormous. I was deeply impressed with camp and
people running it."

11. 9. Chemical weapons
Just who unleashed the chemical weapons attack which killed hundreds of children and other civilians last
week - and why? UN weapons inspectors arrived yesterday with a mandate to find that out. And when they do,
it will affect what the world does next.
"They have a mandate to say whether a chemical attack occurred but not to apportion blame," Dr Shanahan
cautions. "First, they have to establish whether an incident occurred [it is still disputed by some] and at what
level the action was authorised. It is plausible that Assad didn't authorise it but a local commander did."

12. 10. What happens next?
The world waits. "You would think the way diplomatic manoeuvrings are going that if
there is some kind of military strike it would be quite limited," Dr Shanahan says. "It
would be punitive, not designed to tip the military balance."
In other words, no Iraq-style invasion or prolonged Western intervention.
And Father Dave's opinion of what comes next? He doesn't know. But he's praying. He
speaks of a man he met in Syria who said he's gone "from unemployment to slavery".
That's his way of saying the revolution has so far achieved a whole bunch of nothing
except bloodshed and dislocation.
"I see the faces of all those beautiful people and I pray," he says.

13. How to help Syrian refugees? These 6 groups you may not know are
doing important work...
1. Migrant Offshore Aid Station
2. Refugees Welcome
3. The Worldwide Tribe in Calais
4. Small Projects Istanbul
5. Karam Foundation
6. Hand in Hand for Syria