Financial curbs on Syria must be lifted first

Last week the European Union mounted its seventh conference to raise money for Syria and received pledges of Euros 9.6 billion in grants and loans, half a billion Euros short of the UN target. More than half of the sum, Euro 5.6 billion came from the European Commission and European Union (EU) member states. Euros 4 billion comprised loans from international financial institutions and donors. The shortfall is less than expected but is significant and pledges do not always mean delivery of funds.

The money is meant to provide basic aid to 15 million of the 18 million Syrians still in the country and 5 million living as refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Turkey.

UN Assistant Secretary-General Ulrika Modéer said that the situation in Syria not only impacts communities in Syria but also the region and the world. “We have to support the resilience of communities, basic services, the local economy” so that recipients can cope with conditions they face.

Coping is not a solution. Syrians living in Syria need more than humanitarian aid to stay alive. They need to return to their hometowns and countryside properties, they require jobs and services, and their children need schools. While billions of Euro in aid are welcome, this money simply provides the minimum needed by suffering Syrians and perpetuates the dire situation in Syria and refugees presence in host countries. This money does nothing to resolve the crisis in that country by enabling Syrians living at home to rebuild their lives and refugees to repatriate and become productive members of the society.

Countries hosting Syrian refugees, particularly crises-ridden Lebanon, economically challenged Jordan, and fractured Turkey, have been exerting pressure on the millions of Syrians to go home. Many have nothing to go home to as their homes were destroyed, factories and shops where they had employment were wrecked, and farms left fallow during the war which began in 2011 and wound down in 2019. Men fear being drafted into the Syrian army or punished for fleeing conscription when they were needed to fight the collection of militias which sought to topple the government.

Nevertheless, leaders of these three countries have spoken of repatriating refugees as most of the country controlled by the government is largely at peace and the Arab world has normalised relations with the government. At present a mass return is neither practicable nor humane for the reasons mentioned above.

The only solution for Syria is for Europe and the US to lift sanctions which are preventing large-scale reconstruction and investment in the country. But Europe and the US are bent on retaining the policy of political “transition,” i.e., ousting the government led by President Bashar Al Assad. They are using the plight of the Syrian people to blackmail the government into negotiating regime change with expatriate opponents who have no backing in Syria.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell made this clear in his opening statement to the Brussels conference. He stated, “We will not re-establish full diplomatic relations with the Assad regime, or start working on reconstruction, until a genuine and comprehensive political transition is firmly under way – which is not the case...As long as there is no progress – and for the time being there is no progress – we will maintain the sanctions regime. Sanctions that target the regime and its supporters, and not the Syrian people. Our sanctions do not target the population of Syria, nor the health care or the food sectors.” He also quoted a conference participant who stated, “The European Union, the international community, must find ways of empowering Syrian civilians with the means to rebuild their country.”

Borrell’s statement was disingenuous, to stay the least. Sanctions do not affect the government and the wealthy elite, sanctions harm Syrian middle- and working-class families and individuals. Sanctions impact all areas of life in Syria: food, medicine, medical equipment; fuel for Syria’s power plants, generators, and irrigation pumps; building materials, spare parts for machinery, and raw materials for manufacturing. None of these essential items can enter Syria without payment to suppliers in hard currencies denied by sanctions or without government permission. While there is smuggling, this cannot rebuild Syria’s infrastructure, residential areas, clinics, schools, and industrial estates.

The 2020 US Caesar Act is a serious obstacle to Syria’s recovery. Sanctions against Syria are the most severe of those imposed by the US on other countries. They impact third parties and amount to an embargo. The measure punishes governments, individuals and entities which do business with the government with the aim of deterring Syrian and foreign investors from participating in reconstruction following the civil war. It is significant that this law, sponsored by pro-Israeli members of the US Congress, was adopted when it became clear that the Assad government had won the civil war and was in control of most Syrian territory.

Sanctions must be lifted now. Sanctions are war by economic means and are in the long run more deadly and destructive than war. Brown University’s Watson Institute has reported that the death toll in post-2001 war zones of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen “could be at least 4.5.- 4.6 million with nearly one million killed in fighting and the rest from “health problems caused by destruction of economies, public services, and the environment.” War-related impacts on post-fighting conditions have been magnified by sanctions on Syria as well as Afghanistan where millions of Syrians and Afghans suffer from sanctions.

Therefore, the only way to rescue Syrians is to reconstruct Syria by breaking the economic siege and blockade of Syria. This will require a coordinated campaign against the West, which has interfered long enough in the affairs of Syria and this region. China, Russia, and Iran can breach sanctions by providing Syria with reconstruction material. The United Arab Emirates, which was first to restore relations with Syria after the break caused by war, and Saudi Arabia, which has recently re-established ties, can provide encouragement and protection for companies and businessmen who seek to invest in Syria. Arab decision-making independent of the West is the key to rebuilding Syria and repatriating Syrian refugees.