Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

People Before Profit will support the motion calling for the lifting of sanctions on Syria. It is worth reminding ourselves that the last serious discussion we had on the question of sanctions was about the sanctions on Iraq. Within ten years, the sanctions on Iraq took the lives of 250,000 children, many dying due to the lack of simple medicines to cure things like diarrhoea and measles. As the Minister of State said, quoting the EU, sanctions should be targeted in a way that has the maximum impact on those whose behaviour we want to influence. History tells us that economic sanctions of this type do not target those we most want to influence. They target the most vulnerable, the poorest, the sickest and those like people described in a Reuters news agency report, which states:

In the cancer ward at Damascus Children’s Hospital, doctors are struggling with a critical shortage of specialist drugs to treat their young patients - and it’s not just due to the general chaos of the Syrian civil war.

Local and World Health Organization (WHO) officials also blame Western sanctions for severely restricting pharmaceutical imports, even though medical supplies are largely exempt from measures imposed by the United States and European Union.

The article continues: "Fewer than half of the country’s hospitals are fully functioning and the numbers of doctors have dived." The article quotes a World Health Organization spokesperson as saying: "The impact of economic sanctions imposed on Syria heavily affected the procurement of some specific medicine including anti-cancer medicines." History has shown us that it is not that we have to reinvent the wheel and look at how economic sanctions might put manners on a regime that we do not like, but to recognise that sanctions hurt the most vulnerable and the most exposed.

It is worth remembering and reminding ourselves that the first time that Syria was mentioned in an international context for a long time was by none other than George Bush, when he declared that he was about to pursue an "axis of evil". The first part of that axis of evil was Iraq, then Iran and Syria. I wondered at the time why he was so interested in that country, which is one of the most beautiful countries at the heart of the history of civilisation. Syria became a venue for the proxy war of the interests of the various imperialist powers. What we saw happen in Syria was not just a brutal reaction by a brutal regime to young boys painting a slogan on the wall that the people wanted the regime to go, the slogan of the Arab Spring in the city of Daraa, but what followed was a proxy war by the various interests of imperialism in the region to try to establish themselves as powerful influences, including France, Britain, Russia, to the European Union and the USA. All of them had their hands in some element of the conflict in Syria. Russia exported 10% of its total armaments to Syria during the war, making Syria the biggest recipient of Russian arms. The Americans, with the collusion of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, armed ISIS and al-Qaeda as so-called freedom fighters against the regime. There is another element to the Syrian conflict, which still exists, which is genuine resistance to the brutal regime of al-Assad, whose father was also a brutal dictator who killed 30,000 people in one week in the city of Homs in 1984. There is a history of brutal repression in this region by those dictators who do not wish any political opposition to emerge.

While we oppose the sanctions, we also have to say that there is a major hypocrisy on the part of the European Union, including us, in that we pay billions to countries such as Turkey and now Libya to hold onto refugees. We are witnessing an absolutely shocking repetition of history in Libya at the moment. Human beings are being sold. Strong boys are being bought in the slave trade. The regime is totally chaotic and using the resources the European Union is pumping into it to allow the brutal captivation of millions of ordinary people who are trying to flee war, destitution and famine. The hypocrisy of the EU imposing sanctions on Syria and pumping money into Libya is breathtaking. It is, therefore, crucial that we speak out against this and support the lifting of sanctions.

In our amendment, we propose to amend the motion by inserting the following after “evacuees from those towns; and”:

“— the slaughter of up to half a million of their own people by the brutal regime of President Bashar al Assad including the current bombing by Assad and Russian forces of Eastern Gouta, where up to 400,0000 civilians are trapped and according to the United Nations facing ‘catastrophe’;

— the imperialist interventions in Syria by both the US and Russia, neither of whom are serving the interests of the Syrian people;

— all other foreign intervention in Syria whether by the EU, Turkey, Iran, ISIS or Israel, as the grievous problems of Syria can and must be solved only by the Syrian people themselves”.

Our amendment also proposes to insert in the motion the following after “missing children from al-Fu’ah and Kafraya;”:

“— increase substantially its intake of refugees from this appalling humanitarian catastrophe and put pressure on the EU to assist a speedy, dignified resettlement of refugees currently trapped in appalling conditions in camps in Greece, Macedonia and various border crossings in Europe.”

We saw recently a disgusting attempt by this regime to start arguing against the resettlement of a lousy few hundred Syrian refugees. We promised many years ago to take in 4,000. We have taken in way fewer and now we are talking about stopping the programme because of the housing crisis. It is despicable that anyone would use the housing crisis to argue against offering assistance and relocation of families coming here from a crisis such as that in Syria.

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