It’s now Somalia, Syria that Need Intervention

DISASTERS do not seem to end. When one is done with, another crops up somewhere, under the watchfulness and sometimes reluctance of the international community. In Somalia, for instance, the number of people now in need of food relief due to drought, conflict and high food prices, according to the World Food Programme (WFP), is approximately four million.

This is confirmed by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) for Somalia and the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET), which are on ground in the country bedeviled by instabilities. WFP reports show that hundreds of thousands of Somalis have fled to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, in just this current crisis.

That tens of thousands of others have poured into the capital Mogadishu, in search of help. Mogadishu enjoys relative peace, sustained largely by troops from Uganda and Burundi, under the peacekeeping mandate of the United Nations Security Council and the African Union (AU).

For any humanitarian operations the WFP has handled, Somalia remains the most challenging in the world. In that country, WFP aimed at feeding not more than 1.2 million people in Mogadishu, central and northern Somalia, for the year 2011. The number included malnourished children and their families.

Farther North in the Arab world, there are counted at least 5,000 people killed during Syria’s nine months of protests against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The fighting between government and millions opposed to Assad’s rule continues, as the international community simply ponders a common move.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), Navi Pillay, there are cities that are sites of heavy clashes in Syria. He brought it to the attention of the UN Security Council that many Syrians faced a large assault by the government forces. “The prospect of such an attack is extremely alarming. The number of deaths in the uprising is so far probably exceeding 5,000 including over 300 children,” she reportedly revealed.

But Assad, who is now also facing criticisms from the Arab League, claims his government has instead suffered the loss of 1,000 of its police and other armed forces, at the hands of the opposition. He enjoys support of Russia, one of the five veto wielding super powers of the Security Council.

The BBC World Service recently reported that Russian Foreign Affairs minister Sergei Lavrov made claims in favour of Assad’s government, claiming the opposition forces were simply trying to provoke a humanitarian catastrophe in Syria, to suck in foreign powers for interventional measures. Lavrov blamed the international community for failing to rein in forces against Assad, describing the omission as immoral.

But Patriarch Gregorios III Laham, the Damascus-basedleader of the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church, in a recent AsiaNews interview, gave an objective view of what Syrians face, explaining that there was need for urgent help to the people, to overcome the conflict, especially through dialogue with them. He adds: “In solidarity with those killed in clashes in recent weeks, Christians have celebrated the rites of Holy Week and Easter in a very sombre manner; no processions, music or festivities, to correctly participate in the mourning of the population.”

Laham, who has reportedly written to America and Europe, asking particular governments to intervene without causing further violence, says the Church is trying its best to mediate between the warring parties. The patriarch notes, however, that there remains political pressure to shake up the balance of power in the whole of the Middle East, along the divide of the Israel-Palestinian rivalry.

“In all situations that happen in the Middle East, there is always a link with the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, war, emigration...! We have been in this situation for over 62 years. For this, I sent a letter to European and the American leaders and invited them to put pressure on their governments to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian problem as a priority: only in this way will there be less migration, less terrorism, less fundamentalism, less violence.”

That Laham mission, which the patriarch said he also emphasised at the Synod of Bishops last October, much to the welcome of Pope Benedict XVI, is already having a fair share of huddles, with powers that be failing to cut a lasting deal for both Israel and Palestine to coexist in their geo-politics.

Ending the conflict in Syria is a matter of priority, Patriarch Gregorios III contends. He says, peace is important for the future of Muslim-Christian dialogue in that country and the world in general. “If the crisis continues to force Christians to migrate, the Arab world will become exclusively Muslim, increasing the likelihood of a cultural conflict between the Arab-Islamic world and Western-Christian world.”

In his 1967 encyclical letter, Populorum Progressio (People’s Programmes), Pope Paul VI espoused that peace was possible only where each person pursued the order God wills. Above all he said, peace could never flourish unless all people recognised that each and every person is responsible for promoting it.

Stopping conflicts begins with planting in one’s heart, the roots of individual peace, the pope held. “Peace, as structured into society, is actualised by men as they aspire for greater justice.” And justice in these cases, would be to stop the conflict in Somalia, as well as come to the rescue of Syrians, who strive for regime change for their perceived national betterment, albeit against a sharply divided international community.