Telegraph
If there is a Marie Antoinette of our age, it must be Bouthaina Shaaban, the odious “media adviser” to Syria’s regime. When asked about the medieval sieges currently being imposed on a million Syrians in rebel-held enclaves by her master, Bashar al-Assad, she did not actually say “let them eat cake” – but she might as well have done.
There was “no need” for food aid in Syria, declared Ms Shaaban during a press briefing last Thursday, and the inhabitants of the towns and refugee camps blockaded by her regime could do without “macaroni” and “tin fruits” from the United Nations.
One suburb of Damascus, known as Daraya, has been subjected to a particularly pitiless siege since November 2012: during the whole of that time, the regime has allowed only one aid convoy into the area – and even that was prevented from carrying any food.
the purpose of Assad’s siege tactics is to starve the rebel-held areas of Syria into submission"
But the well-nourished Ms Shaaban blithely described Daraya as the “food basket of Damascus”, adding: “There’s nobody starving in Daraya.”
Her callousness and dishonesty showed, once again, how the world’s worst regimes turn the delivery of food aid into a supremely cynical game. From Sudan to Syria to Sri Lanka, amoral leaders extract concessions in return for graciously allowing the world to feed their own citizens. When relief finally arrives, the regime always tries to bend it to suit its own purposes.
And be in no doubt: the purpose of Assad’s siege tactics is to starve the rebel-held areas of Syria into submission, as if they were medieval hill villages during the Hundred Years War. At this moment, his forces are blockading 49 areas of Syria inhabited by at least a million people, according to Siege Watch, a monitoring group.
Another three areas are held by Assad and besieged by various rebel groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Oddly enough, the regime has no problem with the UN supplying those areas with food.
But in the 49 places where Assad is doing the besieging, his aim is to starve as many people as possible until they give in. That goal obviously demands the exclusion of aid, particularly food. Thus a wearily familiar game begins.
First of all, the regime insists on its right to approve the delivery of aid, usually on grounds of state sovereignty. In this case, “sovereignty” means the sovereign right of a government to starve its own people. Sometimes, this insistence is presented as part of a struggle against “imperialism”. In this case, “imperialists” are those who want to give food to the starving.
The next stage is that the regime says it might be willing to allow aid supplies, but only if it gets something in return. When Darfur was being laid to waste by his security forces and militias after 2003, Omar al-Bashir, the dictator of Sudan, allowed relief agencies to ameliorate the suffering – but with one implicit condition. They had to keep quiet about the horrors around them and say nothing critical to the media.
By and large, the charities obeyed, so Bashir traded the delivery of aid for silence about his crimes. When Sri Lanka’s previous rulers were bombarding the last redoubt of the Tamil Tigers, killing 40,000 people on a tiny stretch of beach in 2009, the same rules applied. The aid agencies allowed to evacuate casualties had to keep quiet about everything they saw.
In Syria, Assad’s minions graciously announced on Friday that aid would be allowed into 11 besieged areas (not all 49 blockaded by their forces). If this happens – and it remains a big if – the regime will be sure to get something out of it in return.
There are practical risks and difficulties with air drops. But the biggest question is: does anyone have the will ?
How can this tragic game be ended? The only answer is for the world to summon the will to drop food by air, with or without the regime’s gracious permission. Referring to the RAF, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, formerly a senior British officer, said: “These guys can drop five ton loads of water and food onto the size of a tennis court. Operating out of Cyprus with C130 Hercules, you could get tons and tons of aid into these besieged areas of Syria very quickly and, I think, make a difference.”
There are practical risks and difficulties with air drops. But the biggest question is: does anyone have the will? Or must we play an endless and cynical game with regimes who would say “let them eat cake" ?.