THE United Nations warned Syria’s warring parties on Thursday that starvation sieges were a war crime as it pushed for an easing of the dire humanitarian crisis ahead of peace talks, just 11 days away.
After months of negotiations with stakeholders, a second convoy carrying food and other essentials entered Madaya on Thursday where residents told newsmen they had been surviving on soup from boiled grass. On Monday, a first convoy reached Madaya, where Syrian forces have laid siege for the past six months, and truckloads of aid entered two other towns blockaded by rebel groups. Humanitarian aid access is seen as a key confidence-building measure ahead the new round of Syrian peace talks. The United Nations is struggling to deliver aid to about 4.5 million Syrians who live in hard-to-reach areas, including nearly 400,000 people in besieged areas.
It may be noted that France, Britain and the United States called for an emergency meeting of the Security Council to press demands for aid to reach some 400,000 civilians facing starvation in besieged areas.
The Security Council has adopted resolutions demanding an end to the sieges, but these have been largely ignored. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ZeidRa’ad Al Hussein, speaking in Qatar, said that those responsible for the starvation sieges should face justice.
The Security Council can ask the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes in Syria but a previous attempt to open up ICC probes was blocked by Russia and China in 2014. With international pressure building on Syria, a senior Red Cross official said there were prospects for an end to the sieges.
It is no stretch of the imagination that calling the present Syrian government an illegal and criminal one would represent the truth. Any government which punishes its citizens – matter how misguided or anti-government they might be, by using starvation as a weapon, cannot be called anything except criminal. The plans to starve their own citizens is reminiscent of the plans Hitler had to starve the German people in 1945 for not obeying his instructions to fight to the bitter end.
Whatever the reason — the masterminds of the current Syrian government must be handed over to an international court for the almost half of the 400,000 Syrians who are currently under siege, along with ISIS which is responsible for the other half. Under the principle of universal jurisdiction — as occurred with Chile’s former ruler Pinochet — anyone who has committed crimes against humanity can and should be tried anywhere in the world.
We urge Interpol to collect a database of the Syrian top officials so that they can be arrested in any airport of the world if they leave their own country. Accountability must not be distant — it must be brought near to those who cling on to power at any cost and think themselves accountable to no one.
