Introduction
Amnesty International has compiled a list of 10 calls which the organization is making to those involved in the Geneva II peace conference on Syria, scheduled to begin on 22 January 2014. The calls relate to, among other points, humanitarian access, the release of peaceful activists and civilian hostages, access for the UN-mandated independent international Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic and effective participation of women and civil society in the conference. Some of the calls are to the parties to the conflict and relate to abuses committed in, or in the context of, the conflict itself. Others are to states supporting parties to the conflict or to the international community more broadly.
The conference is taking place some two months ahead of the third anniversary of the start of the crisis in Syria. Since then, according to UN figures, at least 100,000 people have been killed and around nine million have been forced from their homes; 2.3 million have sought refuge outside the country, while 6.5 million more are internally displaced.
Serious human rights abuses, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, continue to be committed with impunity. Government forces have used artillery, unguided air-delivered bombs, rockets, ballistic missiles and internationally banned cluster munitions against civilian residential areas in towns and villages, killing tens of thousands of civilians as result. They, along with pro-government militias, have arbitrarily detained, tortured, subjected to enforced disappearance or extrajudicially executed thousands of people suspected of supporting the opposition, including human rights defenders and peaceful political activists.
At the current time, they are enforcing blockades on opposition-held towns and districts that amount to unlawful collective punishment of the civilian populations there and have reportedly led to dozens of civilians dying of starvation. Areas affected include Moadamiya and Daraya, west of Damascus, Eastern
Ghouta, to the east of the capital, and Yarmouk, home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees, to the south. A December 2013 truce between government forces and armed opposition groups in Moadamiya has so far failed to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are met.
While the majority of the abuses have been committed by government forces, serious human rights abuses, including war crimes, have been committed by armed opposition groups, including some affiliated to al-Qa’ida and some affiliated to the Free Syria Army, and recent months have seen an escalation in these. Armed opposition groups have increasingly resorted to summary killings of members of the various government armed and security forces, pro-government militias, suspected informers or collaborators, members of rival armed opposition groups and members of minority communities perceived by members of armed opposition groups as loyal to President Bashar al-Assad such as Shi’a or Alawite Muslims. Armed opposition groups have also carried out indiscriminate attacks leading to civilian casualties, used children in hostilities, tortured or otherwise ill-treated captives, issued sectarian threats and carried out attacks against minority communities perceived as pro-government, and abducted and held hostages.
The goal of the Geneva II conference is to achieve a political solution to the conflict through a comprehensive agreement between the Syrian government and the opposition for the full implementation of what was known as the Geneva communiqué, a document adopted after a meeting held on the Syrian conflict on 30 June 2012 known as Geneva I, which called for the creation of a transitional government that would lead to the holding of elections.
Apart from the Syrian government and the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Syrian National Coalition), invitees include the five permanent members of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA – and representatives of the Arab League, the European Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and 26 other countries.