Humanitarian
workers chronicle Syria's suffering -- but withhold key details on who is at
fault.
BY COLUM LYNCH
During the past year, the United Nations' chief relief agency
has routinely withheld from the public vital details of the Bashar al-Assad
regime's systematic campaign to block humanitarian assistance to Syrian
civilians. This silence has infuriated human rights advocates, who believe that
greater public exposure of Assad's actions would increase political pressure on
the Syrian government to allow the international community to help hundreds of
thousands of ordinary Syrians who are trapped in the line of fire.
Instead,
the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) -- which
oversees international relief efforts in Syria -- has relied on low-key,
behind-the-scenes diplomacy to quietly persuade the Syrian regime to open the
aid floodgates. So far, critics say, the strategy has been ineffective. Worse,
it provides a measure of political cover to the Assad regime as it carries out
mass starvation and slaughter, these critics contend.
The U.N. "should be much
more willing to point the finger at the Syrian government when they are
responsible for vast blockages of aid. They haven't said enough about who is
responsible for violations and the character of those violations," said
Peggy Hicks, the head of advocacy for Human Rights Watch. "There is always
a balancing act, but we have been concerned that the U.N. has been reluctant to
recognize the limits of working behind the scenes."
In the latest effort to avoid a
diplomatic confrontation, the agency's chief, Valerie Amos, privately urged
U.N. Security Council members to hold off on plans to promote a resolution
aimed at pressuring Syria to meet its humanitarian obligations. Instead, she
has proposed establishing a high-level group -- including representatives of
Australia, the United States, Iran, Luxembourg, Russia, and Saudi Arabia -- to
quietly pressure Syria's combatants to "lift bureaucratic and other
obstacles hindering humanitarian work," according to a confidential copy
of the plan. Both Iran and the U.S. have tentatively agreed to participate, Foreign Policy reported on Friday.
During the past month, Amos has
engaged in a rare bout of public scolding, criticizing the Syrian government's
imposition of bureaucratic delays and its laying siege to civilian towns. While
Hicks and other critics say they welcome the change, they say she has not gone
far enough.
Amos defended her response,
telling Foreign Policy in prepared remarks that her agency has been speaking out
in private and public about Syrian government obstructions and that it
"publishes regular bulletins on the humanitarian situation inside Syria
including constraints on access." But she stated, "We are not just an
advocacy organization."
"Our job requires an
operational response on the ground, information management, sensitive
negotiations and advocacy," said Amos, who on Nov. 13 toured the
storm-ravaged town of Tacloban, Philippines, where she is overseeing the
troubled humanitarian response to Typhoon Haiyan. "We have a
responsibility to help those most in need. We have achieved that through a mix
of public pressure and quiet diplomacy with the parties active in the conflict
in Syria."
The distribution of humanitarian
aid has emerged as a central front of the Syrian government's military campaign
to starve out pockets of potential support for the armed resistance. By
restricting deliveries to pro-government areas, the Syrian government has
gained a political advantage by ensuring that food and assistance is channeled
disproportionately to those who support it.
"Both sides want to be the
food-giver, but Assad has made it very clear he's not going to let anybody else
but him feed Syrians," said Joshua Landis, an expert on Syria at the
University of Oklahoma. Assad's hope: that "people will crawl back to
him" for bread, salaries, and other subsidies. "And that's what's
happening.
While the United States and
European powers have publicly denounced the Syrian government's curtailing of
assistance to opposition territory, one of their chief objectives in Syria --
saving lives and stopping the wholesale flight of refugees -- has perversely
aligned with Assad's aims, according to Landis.
"If you want to stop refugee
flow and cauterize Syria, which is [the West's] major objective, the way to do
it is to pump more calories into Syria, and the best way to pump calories into
Syria is to work through Assad," Landis said. "He owns the Syrians,
and he will facilitate that food distribution if it relegitimizes him.
The United Nations estimates that
more than 9.5 million Syrians are in need of assistance, including 2.5 million
people residing in areas beyond the reach of international relief workers. Many
have not received help for more than a year. "Syria has become the great
tragedy of this century -- a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and
displacement unparalleled in recent history," Antonio Guterres, the U.N.
high commissioner for refugees, said in September.
The Assad government and Syria's
armed opposition -- a fractious coalition of fighters that has become
increasingly dominated by extremist jihadists -- have both committed widespread
abuses of civilians. The al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,
for example, has warned that aid workers are at risk of kidnapping or death in
Syria. The International Committee of the Red Cross claims that at least 22
Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers have been killed since the conflict
started.
"The
deliberate targeting of hospitals, medical personnel and transportation by all
parties to the conflict remains a daily reality," according to a
confidential paper produced by OCHA. "Kidnappings and abductions of
humanitarian workers are growing, as is hijacking and seizure of trucks."
But the government's use of aid
blockades has been far more sweeping, according to experts on the region.
"Both sides are employing siege tactics that seek to gain a military
advantage by denying supplies to the civilian population," said Noah
Bonsey, the Syria analyst for the International Crisis Group. "But it is a
much more of systematic policy on the regime side," one aimed at starving
out populations in hard-to-reach rebel strongholds. That includes Ghouta, where
the government used chemical weapons in August to try to dislodge the
resistance.
For much of the past year, OCHA
has studiously avoided opportunities to cast direct blame on the Syrian
government for paralyzing the U.N. relief effort in rebel-controlled territory.
Instead, the organization preferred to nudge Assad behind the scenes in the
hope of widening access for relief workers. Until recently, a typical public
statement will raise concern about the brutality of life for civilians under
siege but will not identify who is responsible for imposing it. Many basic
facts -- for instance, the existence of a Syrian government policy of denying
medical syringes into opposition areas -- have been limited to distribution to
the Security Council and have been marked strictly confidential.
A review of confidential internal
documents provides a far clearer picture of Syrian obstructionism. For
instance, one document contained a list of eight villages and
neighborhoods in Damascus and Homs that had come under siege by Syrian security
forces -- including Moadamiyeh, where thousands of Syrian residents were forced
to eat leaves in order to fend off starvation. For
anyone paying close attention to Syria's civil war, the government's siege of
Syrian villages was hardly a secret.
Syria has failed to act on U.N.
requests to establish humanitarian aid offices in numerous cities, including
Aleppo, Daraa, and Quamishli. That has complicated U.N. efforts to deliver
assistance in the country, according to another internal document OCHA
presented to the Security Council this month.
Syria routinely delays the
issuance of visas, and when it does grant them, it will not allow relief
workers into the country, according to one of the
documents. Procedures for delivering aid, as well as importing
communications equipment, are particularly cumbersome. For instance, U.N.
relief workers must submit a travel request to the Foreign Ministry 72 hours in
advance of sending a convoy into the field. Approval must be granted by the
Syrian Foreign Ministry, the Syrian Arab Red Cross, and the Ministry of Social
Affairs. In the case of medicine deliveries, the U.N. must also obtain a
clearance letter from the Ministry of Health.
The Assad government has long
prohibited the United Nations from delivering aid across Syria's borders with
countries viewed as sympathetic to the armed opposition, including Turkey and
Jordan. Instead, aid is shipped through Damascus and often blocked from
crossing conflict lines. "Restrictions imposed by Syrian authorities on
delivery of medical supplies over past six months include: medical supplies
which could be used for surgical interventions (e.g. scissors, infusions,
anaesthesia) not allowed into opposition-controlled areas," according to a confidential
document provided
by Amos's office to the Security Council this month. (The document, however,
did note that some medical supplies were delivered to Idlib and the town of
Termallah in Homs between August and October).
The United States and its Western
allies have denounced Syrian obstructions and have accused the Syian government
of stepping up efforts to starve out civilians in towns suspected of
sympathizing with the opposition. "The regime has shown that it can
facilitate access to chemical weapons inspectors when it wishes, and it could
do so for humanitarian relief if it showed a shred of humanity and wished to do
so," British Foreign Secretary William Hague recently
told British
Parliament.
But in the face of such behavior,
the U.N. has tread carefully and generally from behind closed doors. This month
-- according to confidential documents shared with the U.N. Security Council --
Amos's office backtracked on a plan to set specific timelines for reopening
shuttered hospitals and schools in conflict zones. Even a U.N. proposal to
deliver polio vaccines to 700,000 Syrian children by January was dropped before
it was officially presented to the Security Council on Nov. 4.
In recent weeks, and in the face
of intense pressure from human rights groups and aid agencies, the U.N.'s
humanitarian agency has stepped up its public complaints about the Assad
regime's hostility to relief workers.
"Lack of access is the
biggest problem we face in Syria. Both the Government and the opposition are
blocking aid deliveries, as I have pointed out in public and in private
fora," Amos told Foreign Policyin
her statement. "We face serious bureaucratic constraints in getting
permission from the Government for convoys and obtaining visas, setting up
humanitarian hubs and getting essential equipment through customs. Opposition
groups have blocked our convoys and refused to allow us passage through
checkpoints."
But
she added: "[W]e do not release detailed operational information publicly
for reasons including the security of our staff and those in partner
organizations, and the integrity of our negotiations."
The U.N.'s caution reflects a
long-standing dilemma for U.N. humanitarian relief workers: Is it better to use
the bully pulpit to increase pressure on a government to treat its people
humanely, or is it better to nudge the government quietly behind the scenes?
For decades, U.N. relief workers
have preferred to keep their concerns off the headlines and reveal little about
the perpetrators of violence against civilians, thereby preserving their role
as neutral healers and helpers.
But a spate of internal reviews
of U.N. responses to mass killings from Bosnia to Rwanda and Sri Lanka have
challenged that view, arguing that the U.N. cannot remain impartial and silent
in the face of massive abuses against civilians.
Last year, Charles Petrie -- a
retired U.N. official who served in trouble spots from Rwanda to Myanmar --
conducted a major internal review of the U.N.'s response during the final
months of the Sri Lankan civil war, when more than 70,000 civilians were
killed, mostly by government shelling. The review faulted the U.N. for failing
to confront the government more directly.
"There was a continued
reluctance [by the U.N.] to stand up for the rights of the people they were
mandated to assist," he wrote. While top U.N. officials frequently decried
the death of thousands of civilians "the U.N. greatly weakened the impact
of its statements by not identifying the government as the perpetrator of
individual attacks associated with these casualties."
But others say it is not so
simple. It's true that the U.N. "has a tendency to err on the side of
quiet diplomacy longer than they should," said Steven Ratner, a professor
of international law at the University of Michigan Law School, who oversaw a
second review of the mass killing of civilians in Sri Lanka. "But I think
it would be too simplistic to say there is always one right way of handling a
situation like Syria. In some situations, quiet diplomacy works; and in others
condemnation works; and in others maybe a combination of both" will work.
Security Council diplomats say
that Amos, a British national who was put forward for the U.N.'s top
humanitarian job by her government, is concerned that the pursuit of a more
confrontational approach toward Syria will backfire. She worries that it will
feed a perception in Damascus that the U.N. aid effort is linked to the Western
powers' attempts to bring about the fall of the regime. She has tried to
encourage the combatants' allies -- including Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia --
to use their influence on the fighters to permit the delivery of relief.
"The U.N. doesn't want to be perceived as being politicized," said
one Security Council diplomat. The U.N. relief agency, the diplomat said, is
concerned that it could be accused of "playing politics with the
West."
A second Security Council
diplomat defended Amos's handling of the response, saying that has been
necessary to proceed discretely in order to avoid antagonizing Russia, Syria's
closest ally on the council, or provoking Syria to impose even tighter
restriction. Taking an even-handed approach to the crisis has served to induce
Russia to accept Security Council pressure on the parties. "She has been
outspoken," the diplomat said. They say she has quietly worked behind the
scenes to persuade Syria's allies, Russia and Iran, help the U.N. gain access.
"I would think the criticism
against OCHA seems unfair; OCHA has been trying to draw attention to these
problems and trying to say there is clearly problems in access due to
bureaucratic hurdles, which points to the government," said another
Council diplomat. "OCHA has responsibility to balance between public
awareness and trying to gain concrete steps on the ground, which can sometimes
be more efficient not to make too much noise."
The U.N. Security Council has
long been paralyzed by a big power standoff, with Russia and China on one side,
the United States and its European and Arab allies on the other. But on Oct. 2,
the U.N. Security Council finally adopted its first formal statement calling on
Syria and the armed opposition to permit unfettered access to relief workers.
Human rights and relief organizations said the U.N. has been slow to pressure
the government to meet the council's demands. The U.N. only presented the
council with a plan of action on Monday, a month after the council issued its
plea for access.
Human Rights Watch's Hicks
welcomed the U.N. relief coordinators' increasing willingness to speak out in
recent weeks, but says the United Nations has too often withheld precise
details about who is responsible for blocking assistance to needy civilians.
For instance, Hicks noted, Amos has said it was a "scandal" the U.N.
can't reach 330,000 people in besieged areas. But she didn't note that the vast
majority -- some 280,000 -- are being held captive, part of a systematic
campaign to cut off civilians. "The lesson of Sri Lanka shows that when
access to people in need is completely blocked and stymied, as has been the
case in Syria, the U.N. needs to speak out loudly in a very forceful way in
support of all those in need of assistance."
-This
article was published first in Foreign Policy on 17/11/2013
-Longtime Washington Post correspondent Colum Lynch reports on
all things United Nations for Turtle Bay
