A World Food Program without Food

(http://www.voltairenet.org/article185350.html)

The World Food Program (WFP) has discontinued its food aid program for the 1.6 million Syrian refugees due to a lack of funding. The program provided food vouchers to refugees living in the already overburdened countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt. According to the WFP, it needs $64 million to support refugees through December, and the likelihood that such funding will come through quickly seems very low. 

The WFP voucher program has already injected around $800 million into host country economies struggling to accommodate the 3.2 million refugees who have fled Syria. The program also offers assistance to the 7.6 million internationally displaced persons who remain inside Syria. Refugees were given $1 a day to spend at local stores. Although small, this source of income was essential, as in some of the host countries such as Jordan, refugees are not permitted to work. With temperatures dropping and new cuts being implemented in U.N. run camps, the timing couldn't be worse. 

(http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30275514)

Without the assistance program, refugees will demand more of local services and charities, making them less welcome in areas where they are already seen as a drain on limited local resources and a financial burden on local families. Lebanon has recently closed its checkpoints in order to prevent more refugee from entering its borders. This is because the nation is unable to take care of the 1.1 million refugees already living within its borders.

The relief agencies still operating in the area are perpetually underfunded and can only offer relief to the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, without the WFP, that number is sure to rise quickly and dramatically. Living expenses such as buying winter clothes and paying for gas for heating are rising, while informal labor like seasonal agricultural or construction work is ending. Parents will be forced to pull children out of school to save tuition and transportation costs, and many families will need to move into U.N. camps where WFP food aid is still provided, but where shelter is in the form of chilly weatherproofed-tents. Some may decide to return to Syria and re-enter dangerous conflict zones.

Many large NGOs like the Red Cross as well as the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have been unable to manage the incredible number of refugees currently displaced by the Syrian civil war. To put statistics into perspective, the number of refugees currently displaced by the conflict is the largest number since the Second World War. 

Many host governments are beginning to flounder publicly under the burden of caring for so many refugees with such little help from the international community. A few weeks ago, Jordan discontinued providing free healthcare to registered refugees, and the government is now considering cutting free education to displaced children. According to Oxfam, as of September 2014, only eleven countries had contributed over 50% of what was calculated to be their equal share of funding aid. 

(http://redcrescent.org/photos.html)

Refugees Stage Hunger Strike in Greece

Syrian refugees living in Greece staged a hunger strike last week in front of the parliament building in Athen's Syntagma Square. Refugees held banners in Arabic, English, and Greek demanding protection from exploitative landlords, better documentation, and freedom to enter other EU nations. Protesters have been occupying the square since November 19th and began a hunger strike on the 21st in solidarity with immigrants in the Amygdaleza detention center ten kilometers outside of Athens. 

EU law requires that refugees request asylum in the first country they enter. This restriction has prevented Syrians from leaving Greece, a country that has been unable to handle a recent influx of refugees. The only way that refugees can leave Greece under the current European immigration policy is on a tourist visa. In addition, Syrians can only stay in the country for up to three months every six months, all of which makes earning full legal status incredibly difficult. 

                           

To make matters worse, Lebanon and Jordan, Syria's neighbors, have said that they are unable to accommodate any more Syrians, which will continue to increase the strain on Greek the immigration and social services departments. 

According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, over 200,000 have died since March, 2011 in the Syrian conflict. 

Increase in Russian Asylum Claims in 2014

The US and other nations are receiving new asylum applications from gay russians fleeing homophobic legislation and violence in Russia. 

While there is no data yet available on the number of people fleeing Russia because of discrimination due to their sexual orientation, asylum applications by Russians are up by 34% from 2012 based on figures from the Department of Homeland Security. 

This increase in claims is in part due to the worsening anti-gay climate in Russia. Immigration Equality--a New York-based group that offers legal services to immigrants in the LGBTQ community--reports that the number of inquires it has received from gay Russians has risen from 68 in 2012 to 127 in 2013, and up to 161 through October 30th of 2014. 

Over the last year, gay-rights gatherings and parades have been targeted by violent assailants as Russian parliament passed laws prohibiting "gay propaganda," pride marches, and increased punishments for sexual behavior between same-gendered couples. At the moment, men or women found guilty of participating in "nontraditional sexual relations" face a fine of up to 200,000 rubles ($6,060), something many activists have been detained and charged for after pride marches. In early 2014 a spokesperson for the Russian Orthodox Church tried to organize a national referendum on a ban on homosexual relations in Russia, and Ivan Okhlobystin--a popular actor who also called for Russians to be burned alive in ovens--has been pushing for Parliament to reimplement a law which punished sodomy with up to five years in prison. These violent anti-gay sentiments pro port that LGBTQ communities are a threat to Russian society, and are found everywhere in mainstream Russian media. The most recent " call to arms" from a TV host who recommended, during a nationally televised broadcast, that Russians burn or bury the hearts of gays after they die. 

For more information on Russia's current Anti-Gay law, click here

Counter-protesters yell slogans at a Pride march

To be approved for asylum, an applicant must show evidence that he or she has a "well-founded fear of persecution" in their country of origin, and in November the European Court of Justice ruled that gays could not be told to be discreet as an alternative to asylum. Russian's anti-gay legislation and history of violence against gays could be enough to earn applicants' approval for refugee status. 

There have also been many online videos which have surfaced in the last few months which show that violent and humiliating attacks on gays is increasing in Russia. These videos show gangs stripping men naked, urinating on them, trying to force them to perform sexual acts on objects like glass bottles, beating them, and forcing them to tell their full name and address to the camera. Many of these attackers don't seem to differentiate between homosexuality and pedophilia. 

The Pacific Solution

''We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.''

-Australian Prime Minister John Howard, 2001

Groups of asylum seekers without a visa started arriving to Australia by boat in 1976. In response to this steady influx of unapproved arrivals, the government enacted new legislation in 1992 by Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating that required that anyone who arrived without a visa must be detained until they were processed and approved.

In 2001, Prime Minister John Howard announcement a new policy regarding maritime arrivals called the 'Pacific Solution.' This policy was pushed as the answer to what Howard called, "the boat people" and has so far caused the detention of thousands of asylum seekers at immigration centers on small Pacific islands on Australia's neighbors. Proponents justified the policy on the grounds that Australian national security was being compromised when asylum seekers were accepted and housed on the island before being fully processed. For nearly the last two decades, the majority of asylum seekers arriving in Australia are from countries in the Middle East. After the terror attacks in the US earlier that year, it was easy to sell the 'security concern' to the Australian public. 

Prime Minister John Howard
(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/howard-rates-as-our-best-pm-of-the-past-four-decades/story-fn59niix-1226849689572)

At that time border security was considered one of the two most important issues in Australia, and Howard encouraged fears concerning public safety during his campaign efforts that year, saying in a speech that the 9/11 attack was "an attack on Australia as much as it was an attack on the United States" as it "assaulted the very values we hold dear."

Under the Pacific Solution, asylum seekers who arrive by boat are detained in offshore immigration centers in Papua New Guinea and Micronesia. The conditions in these centers have frequently criticized by the few human rights groups that have been gained access to the centers and detainees have repeatedly gone on hunger strikes and self-mutilated by sewing their lips together.

Detainee at Nauru. Photo taken secretly by ABC News
(http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-22953103)

Tony Abbott, while opposition leader, criticized the Gillard government for not doing enough to protect those attempting the dangerous sea journey, WikiLeaks cables revealed that at that same time, a senior Liberal Party strategist had told a US embassy official that boat arrivals were "fantastic" for their party and that "the more boats that come, the better." The Abbot team later used maritime arrivals to fuel their 2013 federal election campaign in 2013 by spreading the mantra "stop the boats" and boasting on March 14 that no asylum seekers had reached Australian shores in almost three months.

Offshore detention centers were closed in 2008 following the Labor party's Kevin Rudd's election promise to end the Pacific Solution, but reopened under the Labor party in September of 2012.  

Cambodian-Australian Resettlement Deal

The Australian Prime Minister and Cambodian Interim Minister recently signed a $35 million agreement regarding refugee resettlement. Under this new agreement, Australia will add $35 million to the already $79 million of aid for the 2014-15 financial year in exchange for Cambodia accepting asylum seekers who land on Australian shores. Hmmm people for money? Sounds uncomfortably like a "legal" version of human trafficking.

Currently, there are only 63 refugees living in Cambodia, and the nation has struggled to protect them. A recent report from Human Rights Watch pointed out some of the difficulties faced by the refugees living in Cambodia, which include discrimination, abuse from corrupt officials, poor access to health services and education, and low employment prospects. The director of the organization's Australian branch, Elaine Pearson, said that the UN refugee agency handed over responsibility for processing refugee applications to the Cambodian government in 2009, and since that time "not a single refugee has ever received a Cambodian residence card, let alone citizenship." Cambodian law entitles refugees to these documents, but the government has yet to issue any permits. Rather than citizenship or even residency rights, refugees are given a proclamation known as a "praka." This card is essentially useless, because in order to be employed, apply for a driver's license, open a bank account, receive a wire transfer, enroll their children in school, or lease a house residents need to show a passport or a residency permit. Refugees are often extorted by police and their children turned away from schools. 

(http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-54996/Nauru?)

(http://www.metrolic.com/travel-guides-nauru-156844/)

If Cambodia has failed to resettle a single person during its five years of processing refugees, how will it be able to process the thousand that Australia wants to send?

For now, no refugees will be sent to Cambodia. Those living in the Australian asylum seeker detention center located on the Micronesian island of Nauru must consent to being resettled in Cambodia. So far, none have volunteered.

Ghosts of Aleppo

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and has served as a commercial capital for over a thousand years. Today, it is the capital of the Syrian revolution. Many of the city's pre-revolution inhabitants have fled, and their places have been filled by rebels from the Islamic Front. Militants and civilians living in the city are at constant risk of aerial bombing and ground assaults from both the Assad regime and ISIL, and have built a maze of tunnels beneath the city. The following documentary program was produced by VICE News and follows rebels fighting in the city's destroyed medieval center during the summer of 2014.

War huh. What is it good for?

I've talked about Syrian refugees in previous posts, but I haven't discussed the conflict that has killed over 100,000 and forced 2 million from their homeland. 

Syria has been fighting a civil war that began with protests in Demascus in March, 2011. For a more detailed timeline of the 
events precipitating the outbreak of war, click here. Syrian protests were mostly peaceful, but protests in neighboring countries during the "Arab Spring' were not. To prevent a violent uprising, Bashar al-Assad repressed activists with violence and imprisonment, which of course lead to a violent uprising. Assad is part of the socialist Ba'ath party which has ruled Syria since 1949, and was considered by Western powers to be a stable dictator before protests broke out. Many leaders want him to be removed from power, but they fear the power vacuum that he would leave, especially with ISIS fighting for power.

Assad's soldiers holding the Syrian flag

Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against fighters and civilians as well as other war crimes. For his part, Assad defends his actions and asserts that he and his army are protecting Syria from "new colonization" by the west on one side, and "dark" forces of religious extremism on the other. 

There are about 70,000-100,000 rebels fighting against the Assad regime, many of which are ex-Syrian soldiers. The rebel army (of which there are many factions) formed when seven Syrian military officers released a video on YouTube posted in July 2011 in which they declared that they had defected from the military and were forming a new group called the "Free Syrian Army" to fight against the Assad regime. 

Rebel fighters holding a Free Syrian army flag

The Free Syrian Army consists of military defectors, civilians, as well as members of Assad's Ba'ath party. In addition to these native fighters, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy estimates that there are also 2,000-5,500 foreign fighters actively fighting in rebel Syrian armies.  The Supreme Military Council unites the rebel groups, but so far no single, central leader has emerged. 

Many foreign nations and sympathetic Sunni groups from neighboring nations are assisting rebel groups by supplying weapons and training in order to "marginalize the extremists and assert their own authority" according to Elizabeth O'Bagy, a senior research analyst for the Institute for the Study of War. 

Sadly, the rebels have also been accused of committing human rights abuses including summary killing and torturing captives, as well as using chemical weapons including the nerve agent sarin. 

The final player in the Syrian conflict is ISIL (also known as IS and ISIS), a terrorist organization known for mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and dedicated to a campaign of shocking brutality. 

The goal of ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is to form a hardline Sunni Islamic state. The group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has 30,000 fighters to spread the group's brutal 'convert or die' campaign.  ISIL is funded by a well-organized tax system, international donors, and from the sale of oil from wells in areas under their control. 

Lucy al-Khatteeb, a fellow at the Brookings Doha Center who has been doing research into ISIL's oil smuggling says the group has control of five oil fields of 40-70 wells each in Iraq, and earns about $1.2 million each day from selling 25,000 bpd at $25-$60 per barrel.  This large and steady cash flow allows the group to continue committing atrocities and fighting against Assad and rebels groups.

It is from this complex fighting that Syrian refugees flee, and unfortunately, it doesn't look like the violence it will stop any time soon.