Raise your voice for those in need
The conference was entitled “Syria – Paths to Peace?!” The ICO is trying to contribute at various levels, through social and pastoral projects, “that the people in Syria keep their hope”. ICO chairman Slawomir Dadas in his words of welcome on Monday morning: “We want to give people the certainty that we are thinking of them, that we are committed to them and that we are raising our voices for them.”
The German political scientist and journalist Christine Helberg opened the conference with an overview of the current political situation in Syria. She drew a very differentiated picture of the situation on the ground and the political and interactive forces involved. Helberg currently considered a political solution to the Syrian conflict to be unrealistic. She pleaded for a kind of conflict management to ensure the supply of the population on a practical level. According to the political scientist, the big political questions had to be left out.
90 percent of the population lived below the poverty line, and half of the Syrian population no longer lived in their own houses and apartments due to the war. The country is in a political impasse, with modern insecurity and a tremendous humanitarian and economic crisis. Syria is divided into four areas of rule: the government-held parts, the Kurdish areas in the northeast, the Idlib region held by Islamist militias with Turkey’s backing, and the Turkish-held areas in the north.
Helberg spoke out in favor of a “depoliticization of humanitarian aid” and in this context criticized the UN aid for Syria, which runs entirely through the Syrian government. 43 billion dollars in aid money in recent years have therefore largely fizzled out. Half of it flows into the Syrian central bank due to the exchange rate. Unfortunately, the UN has come to terms with this, Helberg regretted, but at the same time warns that the UN must once again assume a position of strength. Ultimately, the Syrian government is dependent on these aid funds. The political scientist, who lived in Syria for a few years before the war, was convinced that significantly more aid should also flow to the autonomous Kurdish regions in the north-east of the country. According to Helberg, the human rights situation in the Kurdish region is much better than in the government area.
Regarding the modern sanctions, the political scientist said that not all sectors are affected by the sanctions, the import of medicines or agricultural products is possible. Of course, it is not always easy to separate all of this in practice, and in the end the population suffers immensely from the sanctions. With the blanket demand to lift all sanctions, you are making it too easy, Helberg said. For example, she advocated linking a partial lifting to conditions, such as allowing humanitarian aid across the country.
The country’s social turmoil, caused by dictatorship and war, is also a major problem. The Syrians need space to be able to communicate better with each other. However, this is not possible in the country itself. However, she sees opportunities here with the many Syrians in the West.
In her remarks, Helberg outlined the current situation in all Syrian regions. The political scientist reported that the humanitarian situation in the Idlib region, which IS controlled by Islamist groups and into which almost no aid flows, is particularly bad.
The situation is also difficult to maintain in those that are conquered by Turkey and held by allied jihadist militias. The goal of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the end of the Kurdish autonomous areas or at least an extensive “security strip” on the Turkish border. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from these border areas, according to Helberg.
Upper Austrian Jesuit: Unimaginable misery in Syria
Among those present at the ICO conference in Salzburg were the Armenian Apostolic Bishop of Damascus, Armash Nalbandian, the Franciscan Father Ibrahim Alsabagh from Aleppo and the Upper Austrian Jesuit P. Gerald Baumgartner, who has been living and working in Homs for around one and a half years. He reported on the unimaginable misery of the people and impressively described the lack of the most fundamental goods.
Read about it in the Linzer KirchenZeitung: Where you don’t see God immediately.
Bishop Hermann Glettler from Innsbruck, the Viennese Orient expert Gudrun Harrer and Austria’s Ambassador to Syria, Peter Krois, also had a say.
Initiative Christian Orient
The Linz-based Christian Orient Initiative (ICO) has been supporting Christians in the Orient for more than 30 years. Numerous aid projects are implemented every year in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. According to the annual report, the ICO 2021 was able to realize a total of 93 projects with a value of a good 1.3 million euros. In Syria there were 30 projects with a total volume of more than 522,000 euros. (Information: www.christlicher-orient.at)