Double standards at work again

Double standards are at work once again in Syria and Iraq.

In Syria, government forces backed by ally Russia are besieging insurgent-held quarters of Aleppo, the country’s former commercial hub and most populous city.

The sole route supplying food, fuel, weapons and men to the opposition-held eastern quarters has been cut by government forces.

The UN reports that food stockpiles could run out in two weeks.

To ease the plight of civilians, Russia and the government opened up corridors to allow civilians and fighters to leave these areas, and several hundred civilians and dozens of fighters have departed, according to the Russian centre for reconciliation based in Latakia. 

The government offered amnesty to fighters who leave and is said to have created facilities to care for 3,000, although they are estimated to number 250,000-300,000 in the insurgent-controlled east.

If thousands took to the corridors, it is likely that displaced persons — the majority Sunnis supporting the insurgency or trapped in the east — would be permitted to go to government-held quarters of Aleppo, the coast and Damascus, where hundreds of thousands of Syrians have settled since the conflict began in 2011.

Men of military age would have to be screened for membership in armed groups and, if they agree, included in the amnesty.

There would be no discrimination against Sunnis, as Sunnis make up the majority in Syria. 

Opposition activists denied that civilians or fighters had left while the Britain-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that some people had departed but gave no numbers.

Damascus accused insurgents of preventing civilians and fighters from departing.

The UN, the US and Western powers dismissed — and some have even condemned — the Russian initiative.

The UN view, expressed by mediator Staffan de Mistura after consultation with UN headquarters in New York, was that providing safe humanitarian corridors is “our job”.

He failed to explain why the UN did not do its “job” by offering to assist Russia, which had appealed for help to de Mistura personally, the UN and the humanitarian community.

If it had, larger numbers of civilians might have taken the safe routes out of the eastern quarters, fearing that the siege and blockade could continue.

This is not the first time an effort to extract civilians in Syria has been tried. A May 2014 joint UN-Syrian government operation provided for the evacuation of the Old City of Homs where a few hundred civilians were trapped by a siege and held hostage by fighters belonging to nine different groups, including Al Qaeda’s Jabhat Al Nusra. 

Negotiations were conducted by UN personnel and a committee of Homsis.

Evacuation of civilians and fighters is precisely what the US, its allies and the Western-dominated UN do not want. As far as they are concerned, Aleppo must remain divided and civilians in place to prevent a blitz by government ground forces and Russian airpower. 

A victory in Aleppo for Damascus is totally rejected as this would be a decisive event in the war for Syria. 

Consequently, this week’s offensive launched by Ahrar Al Sham, a hardline fundamentalist faction, and Al Nusra to break the siege has been welcomed, although this will prolong the suffering of the civilians in the east.

In June in Iraq, civilians — Sunnis — were encouraged by the UN, US and Baghdad to flood out of the government-besieged and bombarded city of Fallujah, held by Daesh since early 2014. 

As attacking forces tightened the siege and blockade, humanitarian corridors were created by the US-backed Iraqi army and allied Shiite militias.

Until that happened, Iraqi civilians had to break curfews imposed by Daesh and flee Fallujah at night by braving the fickle currents of the Tigris River.

The Iraqi army’s corridors were praised by the international community even though thousands of men who availed themselves to depart ahead of Daesh’s last stand were detained by Shiite militias, interrogated, beaten, tortured and, in some cases, disappeared.

The Iraqi government was asked to guarantee the safety of those who were escaping, but said it could not manage due to the flood of escapees.

While the UN did not carve out the corridors, its agencies and others were on hand to receive the 90,000 plus civilians that did flee the fighting. These agencies did not have the tents, food, water, medicines and other items urgently needed by the refugees who were confined to camps in the desert where temperatures were over 40oC. 

Funds were not made available.

Having spent several months in limbo in Karbala and camps, the displaced from the Sunni city of Ramadi liberated from Daesh this past spring are going back to what is left of their city and their homes, although the Iraqi army has not yet cleared unexploded ordnance, mines and booby traps left by when the fighters fled.

Ramadi residents are weary of waiting and wary of the US-supported Shiite sectarian government which marginalises, ignores and persecutes Sunnis and cannot be persuaded to change its behaviour by Washington and other external powers.

For Baghdad, the battles for Ramadi, Fallujah and, eventually, Mosul are just as important as the battle for Aleppo is for Damascus. But Baghdad is Washington’s ally, while Damascus has been declared a US enemy.

In both countries, civilians suffer and the powers-that-be could not care less. 

But at least in Syria, the government remains resolutely secular at a time the region is resisting the brutal and super-sectarian takfiris.