The human toll of the devastating earthquake that hit southwestern
Turkey and northwestern Syria last week continues to unfold. By noon Monday,
the death toll in both regions had reached a horrific 36,000 deaths, with more
than 100,000 injured. And an unknown number of victims are still trapped under
the rubble.
اضافة اعلان
The extraction period will take time and effort. Millions have been
affected by the disaster, and hundreds of thousands of survivors are now in
desperate need of shelter, food, and medicine. We will only realize the full
dimension of this humanitarian catastrophe in the coming years as both
countries move toward reconstruction.
Almost 100 countries had stepped in to help Turkey deal with the
disaster — sending search and rescue teams, medical supplies, and sophisticated
sensor equipment. In Syria, less than 20 states, most of them Arab, responded
to the calamity. The situation remains uncertain, complicated by years of civil
war, economic sanctions against the Syrian government, and logistical hurdles.
It took four to five days before aid convoys began trickling through the border
crossing between southern Turkey and the beleaguered rebel-held province of
Idlib.
While it is uncertain how many lives were lost there because of delays resulting from cautious political calculations and internal squabbling, it is certain that many lives would have been saved if it was not for western imposed sanctions against Damascus and the complex situation in rebel-held areas.
While it is uncertain how many lives were lost there because of
delays resulting from cautious political calculations and internal
squabbling, many lives would have
certainly been saved if it was not for the western imposed sanctions against
Damascus and the complex situation in rebel-held areas.
On Saturday, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and
Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, after visiting the Turkey-Syria
border, tweeted: “We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They
rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.” It
was not till Thursday that the
US embassy in Damascus announced that: “Our
sanctions programs do not target humanitarian assistance and permit activities
in support of humanitarian assistance, including in regime-held areas. The US
is committed to providing immediate, life-saving humanitarian assistance to
help all affected communities recover.”
Still, political squabbling has hindered the flow of aid convoys to
rebel-held areas.
The Syrian government is hesitant to allow aid to move from its
territory to that of the opposition. Likewise, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, which is
in control of most of Idlib, said that allowing aid to come from the
regime-held areas would be tantamount to recognition of its legitimacy. It would
only accept aid moving through the border, which then raised objections from
outside parties. Moscow and Damascus want aid from Turkey to go through one
recognized border point, while the
US demanded that all border crossings
between southern Turkey and northern Syria be open for aid convoys.
The failure by the international community to deliver life-saving aid to the Syrian people has exposed the serious shortcomings of sanctions as an economic weapon deployed to achieve political goals.
By late Monday, Griffiths announced that some of these objections
had been resolved. The UN Security Council was to meet on Monday to discuss the
situation in northwestern Syria while EU officials were debating ways to
override some of the sanctions to deliver humanitarian help to Damascus.
The failure of the international community to deliver life-saving
aid to the Syrian people has exposed the serious shortcomings of sanctions as
an economic weapon deployed to achieve political goals. The debate has renewed
over the efficacy of sanctions and whether they do deliver.
Sanctions seldom work in achieving their objectives, whether it is
altering regime behavior or effecting regime change. They failed in Cuba, North
Korea, Venezuela, and
Iran. They failed in Iraq, even though then US ambassador
to the UN, Madeleine Albright, told an interviewer in 1996 that “the price is
worth it” when asked about the death of half a million Iraqi children as a
result of her country’s sanctions. The ultimate result was the US invasion of
Iraq in 2003, after falsifying evidence, which toppled the regime of Saddam
Hussein.
Sanctions never hurt the leaders of the targeted country. They do
harm the civilian population and undermine the civilian infrastructure,
however. And such is the case in
Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan. The
earthquake disaster exposed how the government in Syria was ill-prepared to deal with the
humanitarian crisis there. The US Caesar Act of 2019, ironically titled the Syria
Civilian Protection Act, has failed the Syrian people and did nothing to
advance a political process to end the civil war or rid the country of foreign
intervention.
The US Caesar Act of 2019, ironically titled the Syria Civilian Protection Act, has failed the Syrian people and did nothing to advance a political process to end the civil war or rid the country of foreign intervention.
Writing in Foreign Policy in January of last year, geopolitical
expert Anchal Vohra said: “Western sanctions that banned reconstruction of any
sort, including of power plants and pulverized cities, certainly exacerbated
Syrians’ miseries and eliminated any chance of recovery.” The catastrophic
event that hit Syria’s population must present an opportunity to revisit
sanctions as a blunt tool that hurts the very people it claims to support while
pushing state actors to revive efforts to kick-start a political process that
would end the unpardonable suffering of millions of Syrians.
The shameful response by the international community to the
humanitarian catastrophe in Syria is a stain on humanity!
Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in
Amman.
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