Letter: Violence in Syria

Although most countries in the Middle East and North Africa have successfully thrown out their former dictators who have oppressed and tortured them for decades, the leader of Syria is still clinging to power by butchering his own people at whatever cost. While UN observers in Syria daily report senseless killings of the population on a daily basis by the army, they are also reporting lack of food, water and medicine.

The army has stopped UN observers giving medical assistance to women and children. The UN are powerless to render any assistance and to stop this horror. The world has turned into a paralyzed spectator and powerful leaders such as Obama and Putin seem reluctant to interfere and stop this massacre.

Syria is, at the moment, an incredibly lucrative country where many countries supply arms to both the Syrian government and the rebels, making billions of dollars from the warring parties on a daily basis without getting involved by sending in their own troops.

The world has not changed at all since Alexander the Great wreaked havoc by killing thousands of people and annexing many conquered lands to his empire stretching from southern Europe, northern Africa all the way to India.

While our ancestors battled on horseback, camels and on elephants with bows, arrows, stones and spears, nowadays it is easy to destroy cities including their populations with just one rocket. Who said that we are civilized? The human character is absolutely unchanged at all, the lust for power and greed and the need to kill are still rampant.

Lynna van der Zee-Oehmke
Bogor, West Java