Syrian Cease-Fire Controversy

Syria Agrees to a short-term cease-fire

President Assad and organizer of cease-fire, Brahimi

I chose to read about a story where Syria agreed to have a 4-day cease-fire over a religious Muslim holiday called Eid al-Adha. During this cease-fire, the Syrian government still made it known that they still had the right to respond to rebel attacks and bombings during the holiday. The reason this cease-fire was planned by Lakhdar Brahimi, an International envoy representing the Arab League and the U.N., was to try to stop violence that has been going on in Syria for 19 months. He was hoping that maybe this short term cease fire would lead to a longer cease fire and maybe the Syrian government and the rebels would negotiate and end this terrible violence that has been killing many people in the area for over a year and a half. The reaction of the rebels against Syria was diverse. Some were a little worried that maybe the Syrian government would not keep their promise and would still attack, while others flat out refused agreement to a cease fire. As part of the agreement, rebel fighters said they would commit to the truce if opposition prisoners were released on Friday. The cease-fire was supposed to take effect starting the morning of Friday, October 26^th 2012 and end on Monday, October 29^th.

CNN:http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/25/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html

Will the rebels trust the government? Will the truce last?

Car bombing in Syria on the first day of Eid al-Adha

The answer to both of those questions is an emphatic, no. It took no longer than a few hours for the truce to be broken. Evidently, there was a car bombing in the capital, Damascus, on Friday, so the truce has already been broken. There has been a lot of accusing going on between the two sides where each side is saying that they were responding to an attack from the other side. State television that was being broadcasted on Friday was saying that they were terrorist car bombings that killed 5 people and wounded 32 others. While this car bombing was going on, apparently there was also clashing going on between rebels and government troops in the rebel run neighborhoods in Aleppo. According to activists, the violence was much less intense in these clashes than they were before the truce, so maybe it has some effect on the intensity. This isn’t what Lakhdar Brahimi was aiming for though. He wanted a complete cease-fire and negotiation. It doesn’t look promising right now, but maybe over the next few days the violence settles and the Syrian government and rebels can come to a temporary agreement at least.

FOX: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/26/car-bomb-explodes-in-syrian-capital-despite-truce/?test=latestnews

Aljazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/10/2012102615101701470.html 

Do the two stories match up?

I covered this story to compare two different news agencies covering the same exact story and try to tell what their views are based on the way they report on this story. The first website I accessed was Fox News.com. The title of their article was, “Car bomb explodes in Syrian capital despite truce.” My initial reaction on the way they covered this story was that they were extremely biased by supporting the US and criticizing the Syrian government on not being able to maintain the peace, but once I read it over a couple more times I noticed that most of the story matched up with the other website that I referred to to research this story. Most of what the fox news cite was saying was from second hand sources and didn’t seem to be very reliable. Most of the quotes and reporting was coming from The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other activist groups. This activist group is clearly opposed to the Syrian government and could be exaggerating some of these stories to make it look like the Syrian army is instigating these attacks and bombings when really it could be all the rebels. Overall, the Fox News article seems more like an overview and basic report on a current event, rather than a breaking news story or article with direct quotes from witnesses or victims.

The next website I accessed was Aljazeera.com. This is a Qatar based website that reports on stories from around the world and has had a reputation of having some biased articles. Although Aljazeera also seems to have a lot of reports from activist groups, it does have specific direct quotes from protestors as well.

One Event, Two Stories

This investigation of two different websites reporting on the same event really shows us how stories can be skewed and how sources really do matter. In the end both articles are available to everybody and it is up to you to chose which one is more reliable, based on the sources and author.