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| By www.facebook.com/rev.multimediateam |
I've heard it said that mixed feelings, like mixed drinks,
confuse the soul and mind. So I don’t know whether to hail or wail tomorrow’s
international pledging conference for Syria in Kuwait City.
Hail, because over four million people are in need of
assistance in Syria, half of them in Aleppo, Homs and Rural Damascus, plus
another 704,314 Syrian refugees in neighboring countries and North Africa.
Wail, because UN fundraisers have already earmarked at
least a third of the required humanitarian response for the next six months to
President Bashar al-Assad’s tentacles.
Tomorrow, heads of
state and representatives from UN agencies and non-governmental organizations will
gather at Bayan Palace in Kuwait City to attend the first-ever high-level
International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria.
The one-day conference
will give member states an opportunity to continue supporting the much-needed
humanitarian response. So far, only a small percentage of the funding has been
received, limiting the ability of UN agencies and their humanitarian partners
to reach people who desperately need help.
Hosted by Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh
Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah and chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the
conference will address the funding gaps for the Humanitarian
Assistance Response Plan (HARP) for Syria and the Syria Regional Refugee
Response (SRRP).
Together the plans seek
$1.5 billion to assist millions of civilians affected by the Syria war over the
next six months, including those inside the country as well as many others
taking refuge beyond its borders.
About
$1 billion is for the SRRP, which will support more than 700,000 refugees who
have fled Syria to Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Algeria.
HARP
requires more than $519 million to help over four million people inside Syria,
including an estimated two million internally displaced persons.
Problem
is the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has unashamedly said all
humanitarian assistance is, and will continue to be, delivered “with full
respect to the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic” during the
implementation of this Response Plan.
“This Humanitarian
Assistance Response Plan aims at supporting the Government of Syria’s efforts
in providing humanitarian assistance to the affected populations. It will
cover the period from 1 January 2013 until the end of June 2013. The
financial requirements amount to $519,627,047,”
according
to unocha.org.
And
here is how
HARP will disburse the $519,627,047 to Assad’s government ministries:
Agriculture & Agrarian Reform: $196,896,716
Health: $81,905,133
Education: $23,024,800
Foreign Affairs: $9,438,752
Labor & Social Affairs: $20,547,692
Local Administration (Water, Sanitation and
Hygiene): $43,417,139
Labor, Social Affairs, Local Administration
and Municipalities (Non-Food Items and Shelter): $110,771,867
Agriculture & Agrarian Reform, Labor
& Social Affairs and Local Administration Labor (Livelihoods): $19,670,111
Logistics, Emergency Telecom and Staff
Safety Services: $13,954,837
I wonder if UN budget planners had the wisdom of consulting Assad about his
own destruction chart for the next six months to at least work in synch.
The Syrian Expatriates Organization (SEO), the Union of Syrian
Medical Relief Organizations (USMRO)
and the Syrian Americans for Democracy (SAD) have all
deplored the UN decision assigning Assad’s government to manage the
humanitarian aid inside Syria.
The
Local Coordination Committees, a network of grassroots activists in Syria, said
the proposed aid amounted to "blatant support for the regime to continue
its savage crimes to repress the Syrian revolution.”
The Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces wondered
in a statement, “Is it logical to provide aid to a regime
responsible for destroying cities, bombing hospitals and bakeries and
displacing a population, so it can fix the dire situation it created?”
It
said, “Humanitarian aid to the widows and orphans, the hungry, wounded and
displaced in Syria, should not be delivered to them through the same party that
caused their suffering and pain, for it would be an added humiliation and
degradation.”
Avaaz, the
international activist network, has condemned the HARP plan as a “crazy
handout” to the Syrian government. It has called for donors to bypass the
Kuwait conference and give money instead to the relief efforts of “the Syrian
National Coalition, the recognized and legitimate representative of the Syrian
people.”
