Adapted from my original
piece in Arabic posted on Jan 21. Thanks to my friend Nazir Kanaa for an
initial translation.
Suddenly, the Syrian Opposition discovered that the
United Nations (UN) funds the “Shabiha”...with
contributions from the Gulf States
and ‘Friends of Syria’.
There are 130 countries that recognize the Syrian
National Coalition (NC), but none of them have tried to translate this
recognition into practical measures to move things forward – not on the ground
in liberated territories in Syria,
nor across the international community as a whole. Neither in terms of weapons,
nor in terms of humanitarian relief support. Supplying weapons remains under
embargo, while relief support inside Syria goes through the UN, channeled
through the criminal regime to ‘distribute’. This is the bitter reality that we
must face and work courageously to change.
The UN does not recognize us, and it will not until we
achieve a remarkable victory on the ground that the UN and international
community won’t be able to ignore.
Who represents Syria at the United Nations? The irony
is that two years into the revolution, the International Organization only
recognizes Bashar Jaafari, Assad’s ambassador to the UN, as the
"sole" representative of the Syrian people. This fact is not a
failure of the revolution, but of those who claim to be friends of the Syrian
people.
For months now, many including myself have been warning
the leaders of the political opposition about this...I said it in their
presence to representatives of the UN Secretary-General during their last
meeting with the opposition in New
York, long before the UN plan for humanitarian assistance
was setup. I told them, and I quote: “The International Organization funds
Assad's Shabiha”. The UN rebuttal was
that they would have no access in Syria without the consent of the
regime, and some even thought I overlooked diplomatic tact; after all, the UN
has "controls" in place.
As for the "controls" the UN is said to have,
I just wonder if they include the regime controlled Syrian Red Crescent (SRC) and
similar pseudo "non-" governmental organizations; or if the
“controls” account for “credible” figures like the head of the SRC, Abdul
Rahman Attar and his circle of regime parasites. Of course, let’s not forget that
the supreme President of the SRC, under its charter, is none other than Bashar
Assad!
As for what the UN can and can’t do: It is not true
that the UN cannot enter Syria
without the consent of the regime. They have entered more dangerous countries,
such as Indonesia and some African countries plagued by civil wars, without the
consent of their regimes, and in fact against them. The UN and its agencies, need
only a decision by the Secretariat on the basis of a resolution already adopted
by the General Assembly, and can provide relief services to the liberated territories
of Syria via Turkey
under the protection of the Free Syrian Army. This has not happened yet because
it requires political will and a creative vision that is lacking at the top of
an international organization, content with inaction in the absence of
international consensus on Syria.
But what about that loud consensus recognition of the NC by the
international powers a month ago in Marrakesh?
Well, it did not translate into pressure in the UN, rendering itself pure
propaganda – merely a piece of paper tossed into the trash the day after it was
proclaimed.
The “brotherly” Gulf
states and “friendly” Western ones have managed to
shush their conscience, not by helping the revolution, but rather by financing
activities of the UN "directed to support the efforts of the Syrian
government to provide humanitarian assistance to the affected population...”. That's
how the money we've been hearing about was spent, including the millions the
Americans keep telling the world they donated to the Syrian revolution. And this
is how the rest of the funds that are still to come the UN’s way will be spent.
Just like that, so carelessly, international assistance pours under the control
of the regime; as if the funds and arms the regime is getting from Iran and Russia were not enough for them to
keep up the killing, torture, displacement and indeed the genocide.
I include below a summary of regime entities under
whose supervision the UN plans to spend the money in Syria (at a projected value
exceeding half a billion US dollars, or about 45 billion Syrian pounds in the
first half of 2013 alone). I did not find in the UN documents information to
show that any of these funds might go to the Ministry of Defense, although I am
sure that the Syrian regime will not lack the means to use some of them to rebuild
and replenish the new sectarian “Shabiha” structure to be named the
"National Defense Forces":
·
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants would
supervise $9,438,752, for overall coordination
·
Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor would
supervise $20,547,692, for the purposes of community services
·
Ministry of Education would supervise $23,024,800,
to be spent on education and psychosocial support for children
·
Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian
Reform would supervise $196,896,716, to secure food
·
Ministry of Health would supervise $81,905,133,
for the provision of health services, hospitals and medicines for all, and
psychological support for women and children
·
Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian
Reform, Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, and Ministry of Local
Administration would supervise $19,670,111, to secure livelihoods and their
means of subsistence
·
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants,
Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Local Administration, and the affected governorates
- would supervise $5,500,000, to secure logistics and communications for UN humanitarian
operations
·
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs,
Ministry of Local Administration, and municipalities would supervise $110,771,867,
to provide non-food items and shelter
·
Ministry of the Interior, and related
"agencies" would supervise $8,454,837 to provide security and safety
of UN staff
·
Ministry of Local Administration, and the
General Authority for Palestinian Refugees in the S.A.R would supervise $43,417,139,
to provide water, sanitation and hygiene
What caught my attention the most in the extensive list of UN projects is
the allocations for "psychological support for children and women of Syria." They
did not even forget psychotherapy! After all, torture, mass rape and
displacement perpetuated by the regime do require psychological support. How
civilized and compassionate…
Now the French authorities have called on the Syrian
opposition to meet in a hurry in Paris, and surely they will say they addressed
all these relief issues, although the purpose of the meeting apparently is for
France to push forward the formation of an opposition interim government. And who
knows, perhaps the meeting would restore to the “City of Lights”
some of the luster tarnished in their escapades in Mali.
Now we pin our hopes on the Paris meeting... let the revolution wait one
more week...
Damn the UN and damn the international community. Damned be our
work as opposition, not believing what is right before our nose until after its
stench blocks our sense of smell.