Speakers:
In support of the proposal;
Lord
Bates, Member of the UK Parliament- House of Lords, Commenced the “Walk of Truce”
from Olympia to London
Peter Economides, Brand Strategist, Founder and
CEO of Felix BNI
Against the proposal;
Prof. Athanasios Platias,
Chair of the Department fo International and European Studies, University of Peiraeus
Maria-Daniella Marouda, Professor of
International Law, Panteion
University
Moderator: Nikos Andritsos, Journalist
During the Debate Antonia Dimou posed the following
question:
First of all, I would like
to thank you for your excellent presentations, and my question is addressed to
each one of you. Many times in your presentations you referred to Syria and also
there was specific reference to the international levels and tools that are
existent in order to enforce or inspire peace. According to the American
Pentagon, Peace enforcement entails the physical interposition of armed forces
between ongoing combatants to establish a cease-fire that does not exist. According
to the UN, peace enforcement refers to efforts to prevent a ceasefire from
collapsing or to reinstate a failed cease-fire. With this in mind, let’s move
to Syria.
The August 15 Report of the International Independent Commission Inquiry on Syria blames
government forces and opposition armed groups for the massacre in Houla. The
Report says that violence has increased in intensity and spread into new areas
since February 2012 and that although the opposition is not party to the Geneva Conventions, it
has to respect the principles of the International Humanitarian Law. In the context
of this reality and given the increasing death toll, can international efforts
to create a ceasefire in Syria
succeed through peace enforcement or peace inspiration?
Maria Daniella Marouda: There are international tools and they are successful, if they are put
into place. For Syria,
you mentioned two definitions of enforcement and there is a third one actually,
and this already shows how many problems we have with definitions, with different
ideas, with different priorities. There is a third one saying that even though
enforcement is associated often with authority and with violence, in the context
of conflicts and peace, it’s more important the pressure, how you compel parties
to come into the negotiating table and have an increased cooperation that will
bring about a ceasefire, a truce and a peace agreement. So what we strive for
in Syria is an opportunity to impose these mechanisms to have an increased
cooperation of the parties to the conflict; if this cannot happen through the
Security Council, it can happen through the General Assembly. Already, the second
day of the Olympic Games again and the General Assembly issued a resolution,
according to which resolution there should be an imposition of peace asking the
Security Council to do it. There is a possibility institutionally in the United
Nations to have the majority of States in the General Assembly to authorize imposition
of measures for Syria.
So, this is a way out.
Lord Bates: Just
briefly to add to those points. I do think that there was a very interesting
point in the case of Syria,
to say that is there a comparison into the level of resource that we put behind
things. When we commenced my Walk one of the reasons why I commenced my Walk
was because I was seeking to persuade the United Kingdom government, who have
since repented their sin and come behind the initiative in a wonderful way, but
I was seeking to persuade them to invest 20 million pounds in a project to
promote peace and reconciliation under the Olympic Truce, and I failed and then
a week later there was a resolution about Libya that went through the United
Nations Security Council; it was passed by ten (10) people not the 193
countries that have backed the Olympic Truce and within a weekend we were able
to assemble a navy, a billion dollar budget that apparently were found by somewhere
and we were able to have incredible international cooperation to go in a
military way. My argument is this; if only we gave a chance to put in the same resources
behind peace and peace building that we put behind war, then we might find that
it has more effect, if we talk some of the 180 billion dollars which the US
government alone is spending in Afghanistan each year and spend some of that into
efforts to bring about peace in Syria, we might get a different result. The problem
is that we have become obsessed with military solutions and when you are a hammer,
every problem looks like a nail.
Results:
36% in support of the Proposal
60% against the Proposal
4% neutral position Athens, Wednesday 19 September, 2012
Amphithreatre of Dim. Vileka, Building of the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC)
