Syria

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, Syria is the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our time, generating the largest movement of displaced people since World War II. We are all grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, for giving us this brief opportunity to turn a spotlight on these events. In my brief remarks, I will say something about the plight of minorities in Syria.

All faith communities and minorities, such as the Yazidis, have suffered, but the fate of the country’s Christians, already referred to, is catastrophic. The Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo, Jean-Clément Jeanbart, asks:

“What are the great nations waiting for before they put a halt to these monstrosities? Let me cry with my people, violated and murdered. Allow me to stand by numerous families in Aleppo who are in mourning. Because of this ugly and barbarous war, they have lost so many loved ones, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters and cherished children”.

ISIS has murdered, plundered, raped and abducted, including whole villages of Assyrian Christians. Now that joint Kurdish and Assyrian forces have recently recaptured a number of villages, can the Minister tell us whether we are going to provide teams, especially in the Khabur River Valley area, to find and dispose of mines and make homes and villages safe again? Where ground has been recaptured, will we be supporting the proposal of my noble friend Lord Dannatt to enhance their military capability? Do we accept that more training and support are needed for the Kurdish-led alliance, which can likely even seize Raqqa, with the result of crippling ISIS in both Syria and Iraq?

Does the Minister agree that the Kurdish-Assyrian democratic self-administration governmental structure and its commitment to civil society and the rule of law should be the model for a post-Assad, post-ISIS Syria and possibly for the entire region? Will the Minister consider practical support for Bassam Ishak, the president of the Syriac National Council of Syria, who has a vision of a Syria in which rights are based on citizenship; where all people, regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender, are treated equally; and where women have a prominent role in the structures? These pillars of the DSA system should surely be the pillars of a post-Assad, post-ISIS Syria.

The overall goal must be to enable all Syrians who have left, including Christians, to return to their homes, to be safe when they return, and to participate in rebuilding the Syrian infrastructure and Government on the basis of social and political equality, with religious freedom and human rights being safeguarded. It is not perfect but the Kurdish-Assyrian coalition is the best example in this fractured region of hard-headed bridge-building and what the West should want to see in the Syria of the future.