Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II told the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, DC, last week that Christians remain apprehensive about the new jihadi regime in Damascus, but they hope to play a “vital and pivotal role” in rebuilding their homeland.
Much of the patriarch’s presentation was taken from a joint statement released in late December by the patriarchs and church leaders of Syria. The statement called on Christians, and the many other religions and sects of Syria, to work together on rebuilding after the long and brutal Syrian civil war.
“We recognize that our spiritual, moral, and national responsibility compels us to always raise the voice of truth, defend human dignity under all circumstances, and strongly strive to support the path of democracy, freedom, independence, and peace, which ensures the rights and dignity of all Syrians,” the statement said.
“The ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity that has characterized Syria’s local communities is a source of its wealth and strength,” the joint statement said hopefully.
Patriarch Aphrem seconded the joint statement’s call for the world to lift economic sanctions that were imposed against dictator Bashar Assad, who lost his vicious fourteen-year struggle to retain power in December when his weakened and distracted patrons in Russia and Iran could not protect him against a lightning-fast rebel offensive.
Syria’s Christian leaders said the sanctions have “negatively impacted the local community in Syria and neighboring communities, which were also affected by migration.”
“Hence, we call upon the international community to act swiftly to lift these unjust sanctions, support the path of reconstruction and economic recovery, and create job opportunities,” they said.
Lifting the sanctions has been a tough call because the new bosses in Damascus might not be much of an improvement on the old boss. Assad was overthrown by a jihadi coalition led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda that has been attempting to distance itself from its bloodthirsty parent organization. The leader of HTS and now “interim” president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, worked for both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in the past, under the alias Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
Sharaa reinvented himself from a warlord in fatigues to a secular official in a business suit, making copious promises that while his government would be unmistakably Islamist in character, he would protect the rights of religious minorities.
“We take pride in our culture, our religion and our Islam. Being part of the Islamic environment does not mean the exclusion of other sects. On the contrary, it is our duty to protect them,” Sharaa said a few weeks after toppling Assad.
For much of the international community, the jury is still out on whether Sharaa will keep those promises or not – and no one wants to inadvertently support a tyrant. Aphrem and his fellow patriarchs, on the other hand, have decided to take a leap of faith and trust Sharaa because they doubt Syria can rebuild under the crushing weight of international sanctions.
Sharaa’s government – which is, for the moment, a junta making the same promises to hold elections someday as every other junta – argued on Monday that keeping sanctions in place would unfairly compromise the human rights of the Syrian population.
“Sanctions have stopped everything. Right now, they are primarily on the Syrian people and are increasing their suffering,” said Ayman Hamawiye, who was appointed to director of the Syrian Investment Agency after the fall of Assad.
Hamawiye said he is receiving “dozens of requests per day” from Syrian, Turkish, Gulf Arab, and even European businesses looking to invest in Syrian reconstruction projects, but they all complain that investing is difficult because “the banking sector remains under sanctions.”
“You can’t show up with millions of euros in your suitcase. That is not a way to do business in today’s world,” he noted.
Another call for lifting sanctions came last Thursday from Farid Nada al-Madhan, a former Syrian military officer who defected from the Assad regime in 2013 with documentation on the torture and murder of thousands of civilians. Madhan worked as a military photographer, so he snapped many of the photos he would later present to the world as evidence of Assad’s brutality.
Madhan said lifting sanctions was crucial to getting Syria back on its feet and to give Sharaa’s government a chance to be anything better than a crude and desperate junta. He hinted that Sharaa’s government might clear the path for lifting sanctions by holding “national courts that will prosecute and hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable.”
The U.S. and European Union (EU) have already issued limited and temporary sanctions waivers, mostly to facilitate humanitarian operations and the repair of basic infrastructure, but Hamawiye argued those waivers were “inadequate.”
“In my opinion, everyone has an interest in these transactions going through a banking system with oversight and transparency rather than through informal transfer networks,” he said.
One reason Syrian Christians remain nervous about their future under the HTS junta is that some other Syrians saw the Christian community as allies of the hated Assad regime. International observers sometimes gave Assad credit for at least protecting Syrian Christians from persecution, even if his protection was largely transactional because Christians gave him little trouble and he coveted their political support.
Independent reporter Nuri Kino argued in a Newsweek op-ed last week that these impressions of Assad as a patron of Christians were false and the regime could be quite brutal toward Christians who did not toe its line.
Kino noted that many Christians fled Syria to get away from Assad, as well as hideous jihadi groups like the Islamic State. Others formed opposition parties and joined insurgent groups.
“Christian leaders like Greek Orthodox Archbishop Paul Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim were abducted in Aleppo, and their fate still remains uncertain. I have written about that; they were abducted by terrorists. Did the regime have something to do with that? Both had been vocal in their opposition to the regime,” Kino pointed out.
