For years, UN human rights our bodies have been documenting, monitoring and publishing reviews on abuses, and bringing Syria’s dire human rights document to the world’s consideration.
The autumn of Bashar al Assad in December 2024 was largely greeted with euphoria by the Syrian individuals, however pictures of a whole bunch of individuals pouring into the infamous Sednaya Jail, desperately trying to find buddies or family, and testimony from former prisoners, recounting the sadism and torture they endured, was a vivid reminder of the atrocities dedicated underneath the previous regime.
Since 2016, the Worldwide Neutral and Unbiased Mechanism (IIIM), has been amassing an unlimited assortment of proof, aiming to make sure that these accountable are finally held accountable.
Within the eight years since, constantly denied entry to Syria, they’ve needed to work from exterior the nation.
Nevertheless, all the things modified after the fast collapse of the regime. Simply days later the top of the IIIM, Robert Petit, was in a position to journey to Syria the place he met members of the de facto authorities. Throughout this historic go to, he made a degree of emphasizing the significance of preserving proof earlier than it is misplaced endlessly.
UN Information interviewed Mr. Petit from his places of work in Geneva and started by asking him to explain the reactions of the Syrians he met throughout his go to.
This interview has been edited for readability and size.
Robert Petit: It was a sobering and emotional time. I skilled a mixture of hope and pleasure, in addition to concern and anxiousness, and a whole lot of unhappiness from the households of prisoners who had been killed.
However there was undoubtedly a way of change throughout the board. It is my private hope that the aspirations of Syrians will likely be absolutely realized with the assistance of the worldwide neighborhood.
UN Information: What was the aim of your go to, and was it profitable?
Robert Petit: As with a lot of the world, we have been shocked on the pace with which the regime crumbled, though in hindsight we should always have realized that the foundations have been fully eroding for years.
We needed to rapidly begin serious about tips on how to tackle this new scenario: for the primary time in eight years, we’ve got the possibility to essentially fulfill our mandate.
The principle function of the go to was to begin partaking diplomatically and clarify to the brand new authorities what our position is and what we wish to do and get permission to take action. We discovered them to be receptive.
We formally requested permission to ship groups to work and discharge our mandate in Syria. That was again on December 21. We’re nonetheless ready for the reply. I’ve no purpose to imagine that we’ll not be granted permission. I believe it is a matter of processes moderately than willingness, and we’re hoping that inside days we’ll get that permission after which we’ll deploy as quickly as we will.
UN Information: How exhausting was it to gather proof through the years that you simply have been denied entry to the nation?
Robert Petit: Syrian civil society and Syrians on the whole have, since March 2011, been the very best documenters of their very own victimization. They gathered an unlimited amount of proof of crimes, usually at nice danger the price of their very own lives.
Yearly since we have been created, we tried to entry Syria. We couldn’t get permission, however we developed shut relationships with a few of these civil society actors, media stakeholders and people who collected credible proof, as did different establishments.
We gathered over 284 terabytes of information through the years to construct circumstances and assist 16 completely different jurisdictions in prosecuting, investigating and prosecuting their very own circumstances.
Now we doubtlessly have entry to a wealth of contemporary proof of crimes, and we’re hoping to have the ability to exploit that chance very quickly.
UN Information: Through the Assad years, although, you had no assure that anybody can be delivered to justice.
Robert Petit: Our mandate has been very clear from the start: put together circumstances to assist present and future jurisdiction. And that is what we have been doing. There was at all times a hope that there was going to be some sort of tribunal, or complete justice for the crimes in Syria. In anticipation of that, we’ve got been constructing circumstances and we hope to construct a wealth of understanding of the scenario and the proof that might assist these circumstances.
On the identical time, we have been supporting 16 jurisdictions everywhere in the world prosecuting these circumstances, and I am very completely happy to say that we’ve got been in a position to assist over nearly 250 of these investigations and prosecutions and can proceed to take action.
UN Information: Throughout your journey you mentioned there is a small window of alternative to safe websites and the fabric they maintain. Why?
Robert Petit: Syria’s state equipment functioned for years, so there will likely be a whole lot of proof, however issues go lacking, they get destroyed and disappear. So, there’s a time problem.
UN Information: Are the de facto authorities in Syria serving to you to safe proof?
Robert Petit: We had messaging from the caretaker authorities that they have been aware of the significance of preserving all this proof. The very fact is that they’ve been in management for barely six weeks, so there are clearly a whole lot of competing priorities.
I believe the scenario in Damascus is comparatively good in that a whole lot of the websites, the primary ones no less than, are secured. Outdoors of Damascus, I believe the scenario is much more fluid and possibly worse.
UN Information: When Volker Türk, the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Syria in January he referred to as for truthful, neutral justice within the wake of the tip of the Assad regime. However he additionally mentioned that the extent of atrocity crimes “beggars perception”. Do you personally suppose that justice moderately than revenge, in a spot the place individuals have been so badly brutalized, is feasible or doubtless?
Robert Petit: That is for the Syrians to reply themselves and hopefully be heard and supported in what they’ll outline as justice for them and for what they’ve suffered.
If individuals are given the hope that there will likely be in place a system that may deal pretty and transparently with no less than these most answerable for the atrocities, it can give them hope and persistence.
I believe it’s doable. I’ve labored in sufficient of those conditions to know that quite a lot of issues might be executed to handle these very complicated conditions, but it surely should be Syria-led, and so they should have the assist of the worldwide neighborhood.
UN Information: Do you envisage that legal trials would happen in Syria at a nationwide stage or at a global stage, for instance on the Worldwide Felony Court docket?
Robert Petit: Once more, it can rely upon what Syrians need. You are speaking about actually 1000’s of perpetrators, and a complete state equipment devoted to the fee of mass atrocities. It’s an unimaginable problem to outline what accountability means.
In my view, these most accountable, the architects of the system, should be held criminally accountability. For everybody else, the methods a post-conflict society tackles the problem varies.
Rwanda, for instance, tried to make use of conventional types of dispute decision to strive 1.2 million perpetrators over a decade. Others, like Cambodia, merely attempt to bury the previous, and faux it by no means occurred.
One of the best answer is the one which Syrians will resolve for themselves.
