After a year of intense civil violence in Syria, the policy group Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) takes a look at the conflict from a national and international perspective.
Amnesty International's Senior Crisis Response Adviser Donatella Rovera joins CSIS foreign experts in a discussion titled "View From the Ground in Syria."
Ms. Rovera recently visited Syrian villages to hear civilian concerns and returned to write a report called "Deadly Reprisals." In it, she describes conditions in the country: "Over a year has passed since the uprisings began, and it only seems to be getting worse," Ms. Rovera writes. "At least 17,000 people have already been killed."
Reacting to Rovera's report is CSIS' Visiting Fellow Aram Nerguizian. Following the discussion, the participants will take audience questions.
Panelists also reacted to questions about what happens in the future, either after the conflict is supressed or after Assad resigns, saying that a ready-made democracy doesn't exist, and that there are many factions and groups that will have to be incorporated before a stable nation can be created. They noted that the American Revolution took many years and that the country is still perfecting its democracy more than 200 years later.