In Syria, Humanitarian Aid Props up a Murderous Regime

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

In the horrific Syrian civil war, now into is eight year, the international humanitarian system served as an enabler of the Assad regime.

By accepting its claims as a sovereign state, international aid agencies helped the regime generate tangible benefits and resources in its wider efforts to persist at all costs. 

Indeed, at a time when it faced almost certain defeat, they were critical to the regime’s resilience and its insistence – against all empirical evidence -- on being recognized as the only legitimate player in a country that had actually been ripped apart by contending rebel groups. 

An understanding was hammered out between May and August 2012 allowing eight UN agencies and nine international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to operate inside Syria. But only by acknowledging the “sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity” of the country. 

So Syrian officials insisted that the Damascus government was to be fully in charge and that all outside groups provide unconditional respect for state sovereignty -- already a fiction by that time.

NGOs were further restricted by being allowed to work only with local relief agencies affiliated with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARC) – an organization hose claim to independence from government control was dubious at best.

SARC was given a gatekeeper’s role over the UN’s humanitarian operations in Syria. It became a mandatory operational partner and a focal point for all NGOs.

In fact, among the senior local staff employed by UN agencies in the country were individuals known for their ties to the Syrian secret police (Mukhabarat) and relatives of senior regime incumbents.

Humanitarian assistance was subjected to a host of crippling administrative and politically motivated hurdles. For instance, throughout 2015, only 23 per cent of UN convoy requests reportedly received government approval, and less than half of those were able to proceed, primarily because of the Syrian government’s refusal to give security clearances.

Requests to deliver medical assistance, such as surgical supplies, were rejected or ignored. In some cases, regime forces distributed aid items they had seized to regime supporters and military personnel.

On the other hand, the regime labelled unlicensed aid workers escaping government control as criminals and terrorists. The Syrian Civil Defence rescue workers known as “White Helmets” were targeted in air strikes, though they asserted impartiality in the Syrian conflict.

Under further threat from the Assad government, may of them were evacuated in 2018, finding asylum in Canada, Jordan, and Great Britain.

Saudi Arabia also provided some aid through its International Islamic Relief Organization, but this went mostly to Syrian refugees in camps in Jordan.

So, through its loud assertions of state sovereignty, the Syrian regime has maneuvered itself into the driving seat and became by far the dominant partner in its relations with UN humanitarian agencies and NGOs. 

It gained significant financial resources directly from the humanitarian aid efforts as it provided business and financial opportunities to privileged members of the government. These included enterprises that were subject to American and European Union sanctions.

“We recognize and respect Syria’s state sovereignty despite the difficult situation and the extra ordinary circumstances,” the UN’s own resident humanitarian coordinator, Yaqoub al-Hilo, remarked a few years ago, in explaining his mission.

Opposition-held areas received far less aid in proportion to the scope and severity of their needs. UN agencies fell prey to the regime’s manipulations, causing aid to be channeled away from rebel-held areas. 

Damascus continued to wield its nominal sovereignty over its borders by denying the UN authorization to use at least nine border crossings that could have served millions of people in need, especially in Idlib and Aleppo, though most of these crossings weren’t even under government control.

Yet donors rarely raised questions, because they had no interest in tarnishing the UN-led aid effort.

As Stanford University political scientist Stephen Krasner observed in his book Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, “rulers seek legal sovereignty because it provides them with an array of material and normative resources and benefits” while it “imposes no costs.”

This is indeed a cautionary tale. It demonstrates the skills that an authoritarian regime used in order to build, sustain, and set the terms in its dealings with international aid groups despite the well-known knowledge of its brutality.