Attaching price tags
The writer is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad. She is a LUMS and Warwick alumnus
On September 7, at the Masnaa Border Crossing (between Lebanon and Syria), 17-year-old, Zainab Mohammed Al Ibrahim collapsed and died. Though the cause of death has not been identified, it was determined she was part of a large group of Syrians on their way to their homeland. They had been barred entry since they could not pay the $100 (SYP 51,317) entrance fee that the Assad regime mandated in July 2020. Zainab Al Ibrahim’s death comes a month after the Syrian government declared that irrespective of nationality, all those wishing to leave Syria have to pay a $100 departure fee. The official line is that this is remuneration for Covid-19 tests conducted for those people departing the country. However, the tests are a cover-up for the regime’s desperation for acquiring hard currency to counter the economic ramifications of the United States’ sanctions imposed through the Caesar Act earlier this year.
Another impediment the Syrian regime has set for its citizens is lack of certification. The now nine-and-a-half-year war, which has killed hundreds of thousands and forced millions to flee, has left a majority of the Syrians lacking various types of civil documentation necessary for accessing healthcare, education and aid. The scatter caused by the war has resulted in complete disconnect of many Syrians from the Syrian bureaucracy — the only authority that can officially issue paperwork and legal documents.
Safe to say that the Syrian government’s regeneration plans offer no outlooks for safe and dignified refugee return.
Moreover, to further stoke up the already bad situation, since 2011 the Assad regime has initiated more than 50 laws on housing, land and property matters. These have provided legal cover to the state to decimate areas formerly under opposition control and complicate and prevent the return of civilians to certain areas. The most alluded to act is Law No. 10 (passed in 2018) according to which Syrian inhabitants have a year to showcase proof of ownership of property, in an area marked for reconstruction purposes. Failure to do so will result in transfer of proprietorship to the regime. On the rare occasion that correct documentation is presented, citizens have the options of getting land shares or creating companies to invest in and develop the reconstruction area. This process of selective reconstruction is deepening existing socio-political fissures. The Assad regime’s strategies are designed to benefit only their coterie at the expense of public interest by strengthening existing and new regime backers. This in itself is proof that for the Syrian administration, consolidating power is the top priority — one they will go to any lengths for. Even if it entails crushing their own populace in the process.
The Syrian economic situation keeps deteriorating. Hyperinflation has reduced people to boiling weeds for sustenance. Long queues, spanning miles, at petrol stations are the norm. Syria’s oil production is now a sixth of what it was before 2011, 60% of businesses have shut down and those that remain are barely surviving. To protect its banking system, the regime has limited withdrawals and forbidden dollar transactions. Despite all this, fighting continues unabated in many parts of the country. Regional and global powers are bent on pursuing their vested interests. ISIS also rears its head time and again. The promised US troop withdrawal never materialised. Instead US soldiers are now helping Kurds secure authority over the oil rich fields in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate.
The geostrategic consequences of the Syrian crisis cannot be underrated. Even after nearly a decade of war, the regime is unfit to address the increasing number of challenges it faces on all fronts. If Syria’s economic collapse continues, a new wave of restlessness, this time from regime loyalists, will inevitably rise, thus amplifying projections for intractable conflict, destruction and disintegration.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 3rd, 2020.
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