Syrian refugee crisis can only be resolved when all concerned shoulder their responsibilities
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Version 0 of 1. While your editorial on the root of the refugee crisis (4 September) correctly identifies the international community’s inept and ineffectual policy towards Syria, it is a caricature to say that “the refusal to intervene against Bashar al-Assad gave the Syrian president permission to continue murdering his people”. The international community has already intervened, providing weapons and military support to armed groups that want to overthrow Assad’s government. Syria has pursued its legitimate right to defend itself against such aggression. Assad has handed over Syria’s chemical weapons, under UN supervision, been re-elected president, and found his overtures for peace talks rebuffed by the crude precondition that he must first leave the stage. Meanwhile, the US-led airstrikes on Syria – an assault on its sovereignty – seem to be singularly unsuccessful in their avowed intention of containing Islamic State, while perhaps less so in attacking Syria’s infrastructure. Unless the US and its allies get round the table with the Syrian government, the tragic, wanton destruction of Palmyra will stand as a stake in the heart of civilisation.Peter GodfreyIsle of Harris, Scotland • Media demands that the UK government, and others, open their doors to thousands of Syrian refugees, shows that we really haven’t learnt lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. Surely we must set the conditions to allow them to return as soon as possible to their homes in Syria? I’ve been to Syria a bit in the past four years, and to Iraq and Afghanistan a lot over the past 25 years, and I know many Syrians. Every single one wants to return to Syria. The refugee problem in Europe is a direct result of our inactivity towards Syria hitherto, and in particular, globally, ignoring the stated red line on the use of chemical weapons after the Ghouta attack in 2013, which killed hundreds. We must create a no-fly zone to prevent the haemorrhaging of civilians out of Syria, closely followed by safe zones to allow aid in. In conjunction with this, the international military coalition must step up its air and land campaign and hit, very hard, any Isis units likely to possess chemical weapons. This is a red line we cannot afford to ignore and we must begin to set the conditions for Syrian refugees to return to Syria, or it will not be 1 million looking for homes in the UK, Europe and the Middle East, but more like 5 million.Hamish de Bretton-Gordon (Col Retd)Shaftesbury, Dorset Why should Europe shoulder all the burden? • Clearly, much of the chaos in the Middle East arises from our ill-conceived interference in countries such as Iraq and Libya on the naive notion that democracy will flower on removal of their authoritarian regimes. We are compounding our error by arming and training rebels against the Syrian Regime, thus prolonging the ruinous 4-year-old civil war there. With all its faults, the Assad regime has not been altogether bad for Syria. Syria contains a mosaic of religions and ethnic groups – Sunni and Shia Muslims, Alawis, Christians, Druzes, Armenians and Kurds – who have lived together in reasonable harmony due to the stability it brought. The Arab spring raised hopes of greater freedom and democracy, but the examples of Iraq, Libya and Egypt warn us that transition to democracy is not easy. It would certainly be advisable now, notwithstanding the horrible things done by all sides during the Syrian civil war, for us to cooperate with Assad to help defeat Isis, subject to his agreeing to a significant degree of power-sharing and progressive reform.Rod WaltersAbergavenny, Monmouthshire • Polly Toynbee is correct to say that the UK government’s stance on the refugee crisis is embarrassing (Opinion, 4 September). What has also been interesting is the defence of policy, put forward variously by George Osborne, David Cameron and Crispin Blunt, that seeks to rely on statistics demonstrating the generosity of the overseas aid programme. The international development budget is, at face value and in total, generous, and larger than many EU countries; however, closer analysis of DfID’s figures reveals that the £900m aid that is being quoted with respect to the Syrian crisis is the total allocated since 2012. Two-thirds of this hasn’t been spent and it also includes funds allocated for undefined periods into the future. Assuming it is all spent by 2017, that amounts to £150m a year, which is less than the £180m committed by Germany for this year.Gareth MorganLondon Kofi Annan is perhaps too modest to say: 'I told you!' • George Osborne’s decision to raid (and thus significantly reduce) the foreign aid budget as part of Britain’s response to the refugee crisis contradicts David Cameron’s stated claim of dealing with the crisis “at source”. The government would do much better to raid the export credit guarantee scheme and other subsidies to the arms trade. This would raise funds for refugee provision and reduce arms sales to Middle Eastern states, impacting directly on the latter’s ability to wage war on their and other populations in the region.Benjamin SelwynDirector, Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex • Your migration correspondent (Analysis, 5 September) sets out what Europe can do, what Turkey can do, what the Gulf states can do; but does not mention the US or Russia. Surely the two countries most to blame for the Syrian crisis should shoulder some, if not all, of the responsibility for sorting it out. Perhaps 100,000 refugees being sent to the US would focus Washington on other solutions. Even the UNHCR commissioner, Antonio Guterres, fails to mention any obligations on the part of the US and Russia to accommodate refugees. Why should Europe shoulder all the burden?Neil StrettonPenrith, Cumbria • We have heard much about creating a safe haven within Syria for refugees. In fact, there is already a part of Syria held by an ally of the western powers: the Golan Heights. It is within the powers of the UN security council to order Israel to release this territory to the UN, to be used as a safe haven. This policy would presumably also have the support of Syria. Harold ImmanuelLondon • As the full horror of the Syrian refugee crisis is brought home to our television screens, the former UN secretary-general and later UN peace envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan is perhaps too modest to tell the international community, particularly US and its EU allies, “I told you!”. In his poignant resignation letter( Report, 12 May 2012), Mr Annan lamented “as an envoy, I can’t want peace more than the protagonists, more than the security council or the international community, for that matter… At a time when we need – when the Syrian people desperately need action – there continues to be finger-pointing and name-calling in the security council”. President Assad was as uninterested in Mr Annan’s six-point peace plan as were the so-called moderate Syrian opposition groups supported by Britain, the US, France and Saudi Arabia. Both parties and their supporters saw war as the only solution to the conflict. The resultant crisis, which Mr Annan could have help resolve in 2102, has become a major political problem in the EU, threatening not only Schengen agreement bout also the UK referendum on the EU membership. But these are nothing compared to the human cost being paid by the Syrian men, women and children. Why can’t we the British remember and act on Winston Churchill’s waning that “jaw-jaw is better than war-war”? Is the mass migration of people from Africa fleeing poverty and environmental degradation not already bad enough without creating more by supporting war in Syria and Libya?Sam AkakiDirector, Democratic Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa (Dipra) |