10th anniversary of the beginning of the uprising in Syria

Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP)

This episode marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the uprising in Syria. This is episode 3 in the new GCSP Podcast Series. Dr Paul Vallet interviews Mr Kenneth R. Rosen is an award-winning foreign news correspondent, who reports especially from the Middle East for numerous publications, among which the New York Times New Yorker magazine, The Atlantic, VQR, and now Wired. His work has been translated into Arabic, Spanish, German, and Japanese, and he's the author of two books. He is also a digital fellow with the GCSP's Global Fellowship Initiative Dr Paul Vallet: This week marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the uprising in Syria against the regime of Bashar Al Assad, in what was Syria’s part of what was then called the Arab Spring. The results of that spring have been varied in countries across the Middle East North Africa region. In Syria, Libya and Yemen, a civil war emerged from these initial uprisings in 2011, which, despite the varying levels of foreign involvement, have not died down. In terms of casualties and displaced people, Syria’s perhaps among the most complex one that is most edged on international conscience, especially when seeing from Europe. But how is it that the war is being perceived on the outside? How can the story be told when it has been so dangerous for journalists to cover it? To get an idea today, we're talking with Kenneth R. Rosen, who has recently joined to become a digital fellow for the GCSP Global Fellowship Initiative. This is a great favour in joining us from the region in the Middle East. So welcome to the podcast, Ken. My first question to you, of course, has to do with a bit of your work experience, but probably those of your fellows as well. Can you tell us what has been the experience and the role of foreign correspondents and reporting about the war in Syria? Mr Kenneth R. Rosen: Sure, the former press corps is given a lot of access to campaigns and military movements and a lot of the upper political parties who are tied into the region and also into these conflicts writ large. If I if I can just go back a little bit in history, you know, the First World War in the Second World War, foreign correspondents on both sides were granted unprecedented access. I mean, you had AP and Reuters correspondents who were embedded with German troops. And there was a lot of transparency on either side there. And I'd like to mention that only because while we do have access to say the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria or the Peshmerga, in northern Iraq, where I am calling you from today, it's just not the same as it was many years ago, even as even as recent as the invasion of Iraq with US forces, a lot of American media, we're able to embed with the forces and see upfront up close the multiple sides of the conflict. But now it's a little bit more restrained. There's more vetting going on between who's allowed in to report on different campaigns or different situations, such as the internally displaced people's camps within north-eastern Syria, you certainly can't report from regime controlled areas, and it's very difficult to report from Turkish-backed opposition controlled areas. There was a recent report in the New York Times when a correspondent and several other agencies were granted access to the Turkish areas. But generally speaking, it's very difficult. And when you are granted access, you're followed by miner and taken only to areas that are of interest to government agenda. So it's a lot of narratives are coming out of the region. And there are a lot of journalists who are doing really great work. And it's important work. But it's very limited given the situation and the types of parties who are involved with the conflict. You have Russia, you have Iran, you have northern Iraq, you had the autonomous administration in north-eastern Syria, you have the regime controlled areas of the government of Syria in the West.