Visiting Ramtha, Jordan.
I was one of four New Zealand parliamentarians who visited Ramtha last week, a small Jordanian town on the border with Syria.
The town houses a United Nations transit camp for refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria and we arrived to meet some of the 149 who had crossed the border under cover of darkness a few hours earlier.
The televised pictures we view from thousands of kilometres away in the comfort of our lounges do little to convey the raw human emotion of the plight of those seeking to escape the killings which continue daily in Syria.
One man who spoke English tugged on my sleeve and asked how we could help. He pointed to his five young children all aged under eleven, and his wife. She was petite and looked too young to be a mother. He explained that her mother had just been killed by tank fire and as he translated my condolences her eyes welled with tears.
The family had walked and hitched rides for 380 kilometres from their home in Homs. They were glad to be safe but uncertain as to what the future would hold for them. They had left Syria without money or possessions.
Another man displayed a freshly bandaged stump, the remains of an arm which had been blown off by shell fire.
We visited two other longer stay refugee camps. One was for single men at a sports stadium. Crowded into an area not designed for human rehabilitation, and without sponsorship to leave the camp, they were effectively imprisoned. The passion and anger at what the Syrian government had done was palpable. As the weeks pass and frustration grows, it would be easy to see that frustration boil over.
The other camp was for families. Many were Palestinians who had been living in Syria and who had been made refugees for a second time. They faced greater difficulties than Syrians in gaining the sponsorship needed to leave the camp. Families were squeezed into small concrete block rooms with very basic shared facilities. What would the world do to help them, we were asked by the women.
Spare a thought for the Jordanian government in all of this. A small and poor country of just six million, it has already absorbed 1.8 million Palestinian refugees from the wars of 1948 and 1967. Following the US invasion of Iraq, it took another more than 500,000 Iraqi refugees. Now it is having to accept tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. This movement will turn from a flow to a flood if the civil war in Syria deteriorates further. New Zealand’s assistance to refugees by comparison numbers only up to 750 a year.
What should the international community be doing to tackle the cause of the problem? President Bashar al Assad is a member of a minority group in Syria, the Alawites, who are Shiite Muslims. His hold on power rests on his control over the instruments of force in Syria, the Army and the Police. His father killed tens of thousands of his own people to preserve his power and privilege, and the current President is doing the same.
In an uneven battle against rebels, an estimated 13,000, mainly civilians, have already died. Efforts by the Arab League and UN representative, Kofi Annan, to broker a ceasefire and a peaceful solution have so far failed.
Russia has to this point supported the Syrian regime along with Syrian Shiite allies, Iran and Iraq. Lack of international consensus has diminished the UN’s ability to pressure al Assad to stop human rights abuses and the killing of civilians.
Under the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, the UN to be effective needs to be able to act – with sanctions, with overwhelming diplomatic pressure, with no fly zones and ultimately the removal of a despotic ruler if everything else fails. How many more thousand will die before there is the agreement and the will internationally for this to happen?
well Libya was probably the most progressive country on the planet with it’s wide spread general trends relating to quality of life for it’s civilians, & the consequential environmental balance that only flows from a happy civilian foundation & it has been devastated by U.N. ‘help’ despite having 90% of indigenous support for it’s previous prosperous status quo.
The most powerful thing any country can do to help another, is to set their own example of an egalitarian social compact with a thriving human dignity based economy. That’s what breeds respect for human dignity, because it’s real, & thus is where there is real power in wanting to truely help people in other countries, not hand wringing over wanting other political regimes to replace their political structures.
The above sentiments are the approach that an enlightened leader like the late JFK realized & promoted as the real key in promoting an unified world community also.
Another MP on an oversea junket. Where do I sign up for a job like this?
What should the international community be doing to tackle the cause of the problem?
Good question. Didn’t see any answers though. Do you support armed intervention? Seems like that was sort of the answer in the last paragraph. However as you said Russia supports Syria so that is not going to happen. Should NZ declare war on Syria to remove its government? Maybe we should be telling the civilians to be happy with the status quo, much less killing and destruction.
Good to read about some political compassion for those worse off. Makes a change from the mean-minded Budget this week.
Surely NZ could take more refugees to replace all those people fleeing to Australia. Refugees make great immigrants.
That’s sad Phil.
I wonder what the world could do to help! 
!
you like to pose the hard questions phil…. unfortunately, the small numbers of people who could actually make a real difference to these situations don’t have the sway with societies that they could tip the balance….
this kind of thing has been going on since humanity learnt to use weapons against each other in the competition for resources… for this to become something that we have “grown” out of requires just that…. for humanity to “grow up” as a species…. to finally learn the lesson that, at this point in our development, co-operation is not just desirable, but utterly necessary…
and I’m not talking about the pseudo co-operation practiced by modern governments, which is just a continuation of the time honoured practice of masquerading self interest as progressive interaction….
what is needed is a sea change in human thinking regarding our continued existence on earth…. the knowledge that we are rapidly poisoning our environments, and our futures with it, won’t be enough to affect real changes in thinking patterns(or, reactions,to be precise)until the addictions we have had forced onto us are dealt with in a meaningful fashion…
while humans still lust after power, and the trappings of power(money, luxury items, property, opulent lifestyles, indolence, etc) there will be no realistic progress to stop the abuses beyond the small enclaves of sense, and sensibility that exist now…
@Phil G – Slightly off topic but understand that you also spent significant time in Israel during your trip – what were your findings regarding the use of preventive detention of Palestinians by the Israeli administration, including children and young people?
@bbfloyd – well-said (and if we can’t achieve that universal co-operation out of our fellow man, we can always beat it out of them!)
It’s great that Phil, and the NZ Labour Party took part in this trip as part of the Parliamentary Friends of Israel. With Kennedy Graham from the Greens attending, it is great to have such support for Israel from the Left. Here in Australia, we also have great friendship with Labor Minsters – Julia Gillard, Bill Shorten, Kevin Rudd, Stephen Conroy and Michael Danby are all strong supporters.
I heard also that Phil attended the Yom Haatzmaut function, celebrating the creation of Israel. Great stuff Phil!
One minor point – the 1.8 million refugees include the descendents from those wars. In 1970 the UNRWA only had 500,000 registered refugees.
You also neglected to mention that the Jordanian government killed thousands of Palestinian refugees in Black September of 1970.