Amnesiac and Blind Amnesty International

Update (October 25, 2022): If you view Amnesty's introduction to its Lebanon page on its website (https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/lebanon/), you'll read this:

Authorities [Lebanese] continued to deport Syrian refugees back to Syria, despite risks of egregious human rights abuses there [by the Syrian Assad regime]. Allegations of torture of Syrian refugees [in Lebanon] documented since 2014 were still not investigated, even when raised in courts.

If Syrian refugees are tortured by the security services in both Lebanon and Syria, then why do Amnesty and other caring Mother-Teresa-like organizations insist on keeping the refugees in Lebanon? If the refugees are exposed to the same risks in either Lebanon or Syria, what advantage is there therefore to insist on keeping them in Lebanon?

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In its October 14, 2022 statement [see: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/10/lebanon-stop-the-so-called-voluntary-returns-of-syrian-refugees/], Amnesty International calls on Lebanon to stop its program of returning the Syrian refugees back to their home country.

Here are Amnesty's main arguments:

1- "... it is well established that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are not in a position to take a free and informed decision about their return... due to restrictive government policies on movement and residency, rampant discrimination, lack of access to essential services as well as unavailability of objective and updated information about the current human rights situation in Syria."

-Iznogood replies: It is well established that Syrian refugees illegally cross the border by the thousands on a daily basis, transporting goods, drugs, weapons, potential terrorists and money. They siphon precious dollars from the Lebanese economy by buying subsidized fuel, flour, medicines and other items, smuggling them into Syria, and selling them there for a profit. Is Amnesty condoning these violations of international law? Does Amnesty have any means at its disposal able to alter this situation?

2- Amnesty says, "...the Lebanese authorities are knowingly putting Syrian refugees at risk of suffering from heinous abuse and persecution upon their return to Syria."

-Iznogood replies: The Syrian "refugees" are not refugees. They are economic migrants at best and illegal invaders at worst. The proof is that during Muslim high days (Adha, Ramadan etc.) these "refugees" travel from Lebanon to Syria through illegal ports of entry, celebrate in Syria with their families, then return to Lebanon. How can these people be refugees? They apparently have no fear of the Syrian government which benefits from the money and goods these "refugees" smuggle back and forth across the border.

The Lebanese have themselves long suffered from the brutality, persecution and heinous abuse of the Syrian regime before, during, and after its 30-year long occupation of Lebanon. The Syrian refugees who are today in Lebanon are themselves (or the progeny of) the barbaric soldiers and intelligence services that killed, kidnapped, forcibly disappeared, tortured, shelled, assassinated with complete impunity hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens. In its cold, faceless, inhumane detachment from reality, Amnesty's "objective" approach to large-scale horrendous actions contributes to further alienating people from rallying themselves to Amnesty's mission. By ignoring the root causes of what makes people flee and become refugees, by ignoring the tremendous pain, despair and fear that the Lebanese feel about their country's future, by ignoring the vast and deep reservoir of hatred that exists in Lebanon on account of what Syria had done to Lebanon for decades - including refusing the very right of Lebanon to exist as an independent nation - Amnesty is laying the ground for another war in Lebanon. It behooves Amnesty to learn lessons from the Palestinian refugee saga and the tragedies it caused in Lebanon. How can Amnesty not understand the psychological traumas that drive the Lebanese to take action today before it is too late? If Amnesty refuses to consider the political factors behind the causes it claims to blindly defend, it becomes a willful accomplice to the crimes against humanity it decries. 

3- Amnesty says, "Amid the country’s [Lebanon] spiralling economic crisis, the international community must continue to support more than one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon to prevent a further rise in unsafe returns."

-Iznogood replies: There may be up to 1 million Syrian refugees (at least those registered with UNHCR), but estimates of the Lebanese government bring the number of Syrians currently on Lebanese soil at 2.5 million. Which means that there are 1.5 million Syrians illegally present on Lebanese soil, who take jobs away from the Lebanese, who commit untold numbers of petty crimes, who smuggle money and goods across the border, and who hide behind legitimate refugees. The best way for the international community to support the refugees is to militarily ENSURE their safe return to Syria. Establish safe corridors, create protected safe zones inside Syria where the refugees can reestablish their camps, no-fly zones, issue credible threats to the Syrian regime and/or give it financial incentives, cut off diplomatic relations, remove Syria from all international/UN instances, etc. Ultimately, the use of military force against the Syrian regime, a mini-me of the Putin regime, must be considered. Why is it that the international community has taken immediate and concerted action against mighty Russia's rape of Ukraine, yet it allows a vulgar tyranny like the Syrian regime to go on raping Lebanon unchecked for more than 50 years? 

4- Amnesty says, "As per the bilateral agreement, the Lebanese General Security also sends lists of names of registered refugees to the Syrian government for pre-approval before their return to Syria."

- Iznogood replies: If the pro-Syrian government of Michel Aoun and his security services are in agreement with the Syrian regime over repatriation modalities, Amnesty should encourage and incentivize such bilateral cooperation instead of complaining and wailing about the anxiety Amnesty might suffer should the refugees return home and leave Amnesty without a job.

5- Amnesty says, "For the return of refugees to their country of origin to be truly voluntary, it must be based on their free and informed consent. However, the dire conditions in Lebanon raise doubts about the ability of Syrian refugees to provide truly free consent."

- Iznogood replies: Are the terms of "free and informed consent" well defined? Many of the Syrian refugees are poor rural illiterate people who can't even read and understand what informed consent is. Is Amnesty reducing a decision with enormous consequences to millions of Lebanese and Syrian people to a bureaucratic procedure like a patient's informed consent for enrolling in an experimental drug trial? This cold detachment from the harsh reality of people's lives and the future of nations smacks of totalitarianism. In contemplating Amnesty's approach to these matters, I would never want to live in a world governed by Amnesty International's Kafkaesque bureaucrats.

In conclusion, Amnesty needs to understand that the Syrian refugees, if allowed to remain permanently in Lebanon, will eventually with their prolific demographics and high birth rates overcome the native Lebanese population, thus destroying the very foundation of the country. Unless, of course, in its absolutist ideology, Amnesty International believes that nation-states are an aberration and should be freely tampered with and dismantled.

Amnesty should lobby countries of traditional immigration into accepting and resettling the Syrian refugees. A few million refugees over populations in the hundreds of millions are easily assimilated. But 2 million refugees over the country's population of 4 million is a recipe for future heartache and war. Perhaps Russia, a very friendly country with the Assad regime and a huge territory with large Muslim populations, should take the Syrian refugees. Many Syrians in fact do love Vladimir Putin and are actually fighting on his behalf in Ukraine.

Relative to the 4 million strong Lebanese population, a refugee cohort of 1.5 - 2 million Syrians will undeniably and inevitably alter the very nature and identity of Lebanon. Is Amnesty willing to accept this probability? Lebanon is not Germany, France, Italy or the Americas or any of the democracies in which Amnesty thrives, with their vast territories and large yet aging populations. The capabilities - and demographic needs - of these countries make them much better candidates for a permanent re-settlement of the Syrian refugees than Lebanon. Why is Amnesty so determined to settle the Syrian refugees a mere few meters away from their home country? Why doesn't it call on the governments of its own countries of operation (UK, US, Europe, Australia...) to take the refugees, thus sparing the Near East several more decades of catastrophes and wars?