Violence and Order: The February 2016 Cease-fire and the Development of Rebel Governance Institutions in Southern Syria

Abstract

This paper views cease-fires as being multifaceted with the potential for having diverse consequences for rebel governance development. It uses the February 2016 cease-fire for Syria as a lens through which to examine the interplay of order and violence at the national level on the development of local governance institutions in Syria’s southern Dara’a province. It argues that cease-fires do not simply end or freeze hostilities but rather are political instruments that recalibrate complex systems of layered governance.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank the University of Melbourne and the Program on Governance and Local Development at the University of Gothenburg for their financial support for the fieldwork for this paper. Additionally, Dr Bart Klem and Professor Ghassan Hage for supervision and encouragement of my research. Finally, my appreciation goes to the engagement and insightful comments provided by the members of my peer group at the University of Melbourne and two anonymous reviewers that greatly strengthened the paper.

Notes

1. Full text of the cessation of hostilities can be found as the annex to this Joint Statement of the United States and the Russian Federation, as co-chairs of the ISSG, on Cessation of Hostilities in Syria, February 22, 2016. Available at: https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/02/253115.htm

2. See for example, on South America, Arjona ‘Wartime Institutions: A Research Agenda’; Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence; on Kashmir, Staniland, ‘Organizing Insurgency’; and on Eurasia, Caspersen, ‘Regimes and Peace Processes: (Non)development in Armenia and Azerbaijan and Its Impact on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict’. Of the few examples of scholars working on governance and armed groups in the Middle East, see, Benedetta Berti, ‘Rebel politics and the state: between conflict and post-conflict, resistance and co-existence’ (Berti 2016); ‘Weathering the Storm: Hezbollah, Hamas and the Arab Spring’ (Berti 2012); Berti and Gutiérrez, ‘Rebel-to-Political and Back? Hamas as a Security Provider in Gaza between Rebellion, Politics and Governance’ (Berti and Gutiérrez 2016); Mara Revkin, The Legal Foundations of the Islamic State (Revkin 2016).

3. Traditionally a Shura council is made up of the heads of the local tribes as a way of mediating local disputes. In Dara’a however, after the cease-fire the Shura council evolved to also include other notable individuals from the area such as lawyers and doctors that had played a major role in the Syrian uprising (Interview 14).

4. Accurate reporting on casualty figures in the context of the Syrian civil war has been highly politicised. In January 2014, the UN acknowledged that it had stopped updating its death toll estimates due to the fact that it could not verify sources of information because of limited access into Syria. Figures of casualties by one reporting body, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, in February 2016 in Dara’a, for example, were 79 deaths attributable to Syrian government and Russian forces (compared with 599 in Aleppo). In March 2016 (after the cease-fire came into effect) 32 deaths in Dara’a were attributed to Syrian government forces; 23 to armed opposition groups and 9 to unidentified groups, the most of any governorate in Syria in March.

5. For example, in July 2016 there was a vehicle born improvised explosive device (VBIED) attack by an unknown group (supposedly Islamic State) on the Jordanian/Syrian border crossing at Rubkan leading the government of Jordan to declare its entire border with Syria a closed military zone and humanitarian convoys into Dara’a from Jordan were therefore suspended.

6. UNOCHA provides humanitarian needs figures however it is difficult to find data disaggregated by month and/or by governorate. A conflict analyst I interviewed (Interview 5) provided me with her documentation regarding market prices relating to trading routes from As-Suweyda governorate to Dara’a. This showed a price increase in basic goods such as food and construction supplies as the goods passed through communities in rebel and government held areas because of level of scarcity; the cost of transport and ‘taxes’ charged by each community.

7. A story that apparently spooked many humanitarian organisations was al-Absi’s religious dictum that music not be played in schools. These schools were often set-up or supported by Western NGOs (Interview 13).