The antidote to a “huge trend of lying”

There is so much bad news from Syria that it counts as good news when someone undertakes a serious effort to document what is happening.  Mohammed al-Abdullah, a young Syrian living in Washington, is leading an effort to do just that at the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre.  He briefed on the nascent Centre, which will be located in Lyon, France, this morning at Brookings, with Tamara Wittes in the chair.

For now, the data is collected by other organizations, Syrian and international, before being mapped on the SJAC website. Data sources are vetted and documented.  It is the Centre’s intention to document all abuses, regardless of the perpetrators.  Eighteen governments are supporting the initiative, which grew out of a Hillary Clinton commitment to accountability.  There will be a donors conference in Morocco September 14.  IREX, Public International Law and Policy Group and No Peace Without Justice are SJAC partners.

The data will not generally provide the kind of legal basis needed for individual prosecutions.  But it will document what is going on, provide important leads and context, and will be useful in the future for memorialization.

It is also hoped that such documentation may reduce the likelihood of future revenge violence, in particular on a sectarian basis.  I frankly doubt that:  I don’t know of an instance in which documentation efforts have demonstrably reduced the likelihood of revenge, but if readers do I hope they will comment accordingly.  There is no sign yet of Alawite or Druze community openness to this initiative, even though it would be welcomed.

A number of interesting comments were made during the presentation.  One knowledgeable long-time observer of the Levant noted that there has been no documentation of the civil war or any serious reconciliation in Lebanon, but somehow everybody has agreed to forget, if not to forgive.  That admittedly seems unlikely in Syria, where the conflict is taking on an increasingly sectarian character.  It was noted that defectors from the Syrian army are more open to applying international humanitarian law once they join the revolution than civilians who take up arms, some of whom are bent on revenge.

Perhaps most tellingly it was noted that there is a “huge trend of lying” among Syrians, who may exaggerate what is going on, misrepresent their role in it, and even prevaricate about where they are located.  This alone makes the SJAC effort worthwhile.  The numbers are horrifying enough without exaggeration:  more than 22,000 killed and more or less the same number wounded.  And things are getting worse, not better.