Foreign companies are enriching Assad's brutal regime – but even
the Syrian people are divided on the issue of sanctions
By George Monbiot
Illustration by Daniel Pudles
I
would rather not be writing this column. To argue against the course of action
I'm discussing is to tolerate collusion with a murderous regime. To argue in
favour is to risk promoting wider human suffering. The moral lines are tangled
and the progressive response is confused: perhaps it is unsurprising that this
issue has attracted little public discussion. Should we or should we not
support wider economic sanctions on Syria?
I
felt obliged to tackle this question when I discovered last week that Shell,
the most valuable firm listed on the London Stock Exchange, is directly
connected to the economic interests of Bashar al-Assad's government. It has a
21% share in the Al Furat Petroleum Company, 50% of which is owned by the
state. Ghassan Ibrahim, CEO of the Global Arab Network and a prominent opponent
of the regime, tells me that the government permits foreign companies a share
of its booty only if they can offer expertise it does not otherwise possess. As
much of the wealth produced by Syrian state companies goes into the pockets of the
elite, it seems clear that if Shell were not useful to the regime, it would no
longer be there.
Shell
says: "We condemn any violence and the human rights abuse it represents
and we have deep concern over the loss of life … we comply with all applicable
international sanctions." But, though complying with current sanctions, it
is enriching a government that is violently repressing peaceful protest. The
regime has killed some 2,600 Syrian people since March. Its interrogators have
tortured and mutilated its prisoners, cutting off genitals and gouging out
eyes.
The
likely outcome of Shell's investment is that Assad has more money to spend on
soldiers, weapons and prison cells. The argument for forcing Shell and other
investors to leave and for finding further means of starving the government of
money is a strong one.
But
no one with an interest in human rights can be unaware of what happened when
western nations applied sanctions to Syria's neighbour, Iraq. No one who has
seen it can forget the CBS interview in 1996 with Madeleine Albright, Bill
Clinton's secretary of state. The interviewer pointed out that half a million
children had died in Iraq as a result of sanctions. "We think the price is
worth it," Albright replied. The sanctions on Iraq could scarcely have
been better designed to cause mass mortality. But even measures that are
narrower in scope and applied more humanely will add economic distress to the
suffering of Syria's people. Sanctions broad enough to hurt the government's
ability to deploy troops will also be broad enough to hurt the people they are
meant to protect.
And
if not sanctions, then what? So far the only alternatives on offer are vacuous
condemnation and demands from the likes of Nick Clegg that "it's time for
Assad to go", which, in terms of efficacy, is like being mauled by a giant
sock.
So
far the European Union has imposed travel bans on members of the regime and
frozen some of their assets. The impact is likely to be limited, not least
because Assad and his close associates are said to have stashed far greater
sums beyond the reach of the EU (and beyond the reach of any kind of scrutiny
or accountability) in Swiss banks. It wasn't until May that European
governments decided to impose an arms embargo on Syria, which tells us more
than is comfortable about their priorities. But better late than never.
More
recently, Europe banned the import of Syrian oil. Because the EU imported over
90% of Syria's oil, because oil provides 25% of state revenue and because the
state has a monopoly on its sale, this would have stung – had Italy not
insisted that the ban be delayed until mid-November. This gives the government
time to find new customers. An investment ban, which would reduce the value of
assets that enrich the political elite, could hit the government much harder.
The
obvious means of resolving this question is to ask the Syrian people what they
want. But there is no clear consensus. Of the three opponents of the Assad
regime I've consulted, two are in favour of wide-ranging sanctions, one is
against. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding,
who has spoken to a much larger number of dissidents, tells me that
"Syrians are hugely divided on this issue". Almost everyone in the
protest movement supports sanctions aimed specifically at members of the regime
and their businesses, but they are split over wider measures, such as the EU's
oil embargo.
Ghassan
Ibrahim told me that opponents of the government recognise that "freedom
is very expensive and you have to pay the price. Let's pay it once and for
good." He argues that sanctions are likely to be more effective than they
were in Iraq, as the regime's resources are smaller. Even today it can scarcely
afford to sustain its army. The government's oil revenues provide few benefits
for the people.
Samir
Seifan, a prominent economist who sought to reform the regime, argues in favour
of a wider embargo, including sanctions on investments in the oil and gas
sector. This would, he concedes, hurt people because of its impact on industry,
farming, transport and electricity, but it also restricts "army movements
which are using a huge amount of oil products". Others have argued, Doyle
says, that as well as hurting the people more than the regime, sanctions would
give Assad an excuse to blame the Americans and Europeans for the economic
crisis he has caused.
So
I posted the question on Comment is free, in the hope that Guardian readers
would help to resolve it. There was a big response. It provided no clear
answers, but it helped to clarify some of the issues.
The
most widespread objection to the sanctions was that the governments imposing
them are selective in their concerns and lacking in moral credentials. This is
true on both counts. This column is discussing sanctions on Syria only because
they are being imposed there, rather than on Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, which are
also run by violently repressive regimes. Far from restraining them, the UK and
other European nations continue to supply them with a hideous array of weapons.
Though both the UK and the US committed the crime of aggression in Iraq, there
is no prospect of sanctions against them. This is the justice of the powerful.
But
these concerns, while valid, do nothing to resolve the question. You could just
as well argue that because the grisly Russian and Chinese governments oppose
further sanctions, they must be a good idea. The brutality of Assad's
government is not altered by the nature of the states that oppose him, or by
the incoherence and self-interest of their foreign policy. We must make our own
moral judgments.
The
division on this question among Syrians, the difficulty in predicting the
outcome of measures that might help and will harm, a repulsion from
collaboration pitched against a fear of aggravation, lead me to an unusual
place for a polemicist. There is no right answer.
-This commentary was published in the Guardian on 19/09/2011- George Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books The Age of
Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate
Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows,
Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land
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