 So what does this mean after the earthquake? It means that Syrians are living in the cold, in the wintertime, in the streets, homeless, with no access to food or shelter or clothing, with a government that has very, very limited capacity. It means right after the earthquake in those first 48 to 72 hours, when it was so crucial to go dig people out of the rubble, there wasn't gasoline for the first responder vehicles to get to where they needed to go. The industrial kind of equipment that you need to actually dig through rubble like cranes and things like this were unable to function because they haven't been able to replace spare parts because of sanctions or they don't have gasoline to get to where they need to go. So people died unnecessarily. More people died in Syria as a result of these sanctions. The death toll from the horrific earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has crossed 41,000. The lives of millions of survivors have been appended. Many are left without food, without shelter, without clothing during this very harsh winter. At a time like this, at a time of crisis, one would think that the entire world would rally together, that there would be aid, there would be assistance, flowing in from all parts of the globe. There would be solidarity from everywhere. But is that what has happened? It does seem like there's a clear double standard. It does seem that the people of Syria are really suffering. You're watching People's Dispatch and we have with us Rania Khalek of Breakthrough News to take us through some of these issues. Thank you, Rania, so much for talking to us. Thanks so much for having me. Rania, so first of all, like I said, I mean, the past few days, we've seen a UN Security Council session. We've seen calls from countries across the world, especially from the global south. We've seen solidarity actions as well, aid coming as well to Syria. But the question of sanctions not really too much of an answer there. The US has given some kind of an easing of sanctions to 180-day windows, so to speak. But could you just maybe take us to what's happening right now first before going into the deeper issues around sanctions? Well, right now, you of course have this massive level of devastation across southern Turkey, across northern Syria, and also across certain Syrian government areas such as Latakia, Aleppo, where buildings have collapsed. Obviously now we're about a week out or more from the earthquake. So it's much more difficult to find survivors, if any. I mean, actually, right now the primary goal isn't necessarily to be digging under rubble anymore because anybody who was still alive a week ago is likely not anymore now. So now it's a matter of dealing with people who are now left homeless or unable to return to their homes because there's structural damage and they're concerned about going and living inside a place that could collapse. So at the moment, from what I've heard from, there's a lot of reporting on what's going on in southern Turkey because it's easily accessible. There's been quite a bit of mainstream reporting on what's going on in northern Syria in Idlib, which is opposition held area that is accessible through the Turkish border. However, we're hearing very little of what's happening in Syrian government areas because we can get more into the issue of sanctions but there's also been a bit of a media blackout on what's happening inside Syria. But I do know from my own friends on the ground that it's really a huge struggle because Syria was already struggling so much with the challenges of sanctions before this earthquake. And in the aftermath, it's made it almost impossible to send desperately needed aid to Syria. Syria's already doesn't have the capacity to deal with a crisis like this because of 10 years of war and sanctions. And now it's even more difficult and those sanctions are standing in the way of receiving basic aid. And also just a matter of, for example, right now, and like I said, it's very difficult to find survivors at this point. So it's a matter of helping deal with housing and sheltering and clothing people that are essentially living on the streets in the cold at the moment without access to any resources. Either they've been made homeless because their buildings collapsed or they're scared to return. So what's desperately needed now is engineers to come and survey structural damage and see which buildings, which structures are able to be safe for people to return to. But that's not able to happen at the moment for a number of reasons that I can get into actually related to sanctions. Adrani, of course, when you talk about sanctions, I mean, sometimes we kind of see it as an overarching concept, but I think one of the horrifying aspects of sanctions is that how they work in so many minute ways in so many aspects of day-to-day life when it comes to the essentials people deal with. I mean, the United States and its allies like to portray it as some kind of, you know, noble action they're taking to save the people, but the impact is really... So could you maybe take us through how Syria has endured sanctions over the past few years and especially right now, how are they hurting so badly? That's a great question. So prior to this earthquake, Syria is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, especially since the CSER Act went into place and the CSER Act went into place in 2019 under the Trump administration. Of course, it was bipartisan legislation so both Democrats and Republicans. Support of this legislation and the idea was basically at this point, the war between the Syrian government and various opposition groups, most of whom were armed and funded by the US and its regional allies to try to collapse the state. That conflict, once it became frozen, Syria was already dealing with sanctions that were impacting its ability to access humanitarian aid inside government areas, but the CSER sanctions were even more severe, right? The entire Syrian central bank was sanctioned, so it's impossible to do any international transactions in Syria. If you think about when you sanctioned a central bank, no bank in the world is gonna wanna get involved in potentially violating sanctions by the US Treasury Department because of the financial penalty you take from that. So even though the US government will say, oh, there's humanitarian exemptions always in place, you actually have to apply for a special license through the US Treasury Department to get that exemption and it can take months. And then even on top of that, there's something called a chilling effect. So even if there's exemptions in place, banks will just say, no, if the word Syria's on it, we won't do it and end of story. Nothing goes beyond that because they just don't wanna get in trouble, they don't wanna risk it because it takes like a team of lawyers and accountants to make sure that you're not violating sanctions. So it's not even worth it. But with the CSER Act, it also sanctions Syria's ports of entry. So they've been deemed like terrorist hubs. So Syria's ports of entry, whether we're talking about a ship coming into the country or an airplane coming into the country or trucks coming into the country, they can't get insured. It's really important to be able to get insurance as an airline or a shipping company to have your vehicle enter a country at any port. And so without insurance, nobody's gonna bother coming into Syria, which is why, so if you planes come into Syria, so if you ships come into Syria, mostly you'll just see Iranian and Russian ships, mostly Iranian ships bringing fuel. Syria's entire petroleum industry is sanctioned and Syria's ability to buy petroleum products is sanctioned. So Syria on top of having a collapsed currency can't purchase fuel. Also the US on top of this is occupying itself that the US military along with its allies are occupying Syria's oil fields in the northeast of the country. And it's most fertile land where most of its wheat is grown. So Syria's not able to access its own oil or wheat. It doesn't have money to buy oil. It mostly cannot purchase oil because it's a sanctioned country. So as a result, Syria has been dealing with these horrible gasoline and fuel shortages and has almost no electricity. So this is all before the earthquake. Also Syria used to have one of the best medical sectors in the entire region that has become one of the worst medical sectors. It's completely hollowed out. There's a joke you'll often hear that a Lebanese ambulance has more equipment than a Syrian hospital these days. Syria's own hospitals aren't receiving enough fuel to have electricity all day. You can imagine how horrible that is if you have surgeries or dialysis or anybody who needs treatment at a hospital. Like that's an important building and important service that needs to have 24 hour electricity in Syria. They do not right now. There's food insecurity in Syria now. It used to be one of the most food secure countries in the region. Today, more than, I mean, a majority of the population is food insecure. A lot of children are eating only one meal a day. I mean, it goes on and on and on. Syria used to make all its own medications except for a few rare ones that they had to buy from outside. It's medical, you know, it's pharmaceutical factories are all gone now and it doesn't have the capacity to open new ones or build new ones. And one of the point, the whole purpose of the Caesar Act and American officials have admitted this is to prevent Syria from reconstruction, right? To try to use the issue of Syria's rubble post-war as so-called leverage against the government. So imagine before this earthquake, Syria already cannot import products to build, to rebuild. After an earthquake that just did more devastation to infrastructure, it's gonna be that much more difficult to rebuild. Also an important component of the Caesar sanctions that makes them quite unique is that they are not just sanctions on Syria. They have attached them the threat of secondary sanctions on any countries that do any economic transactions with Syria, meaning Syria's neighbors, which are weak countries like Lebanon and Iraq are more hesitant to do any business with their own neighbor to any trade with their own neighbor out of fear that they will open themselves up to sanctions. And these are countries with very fragile economies, very fragile in general because of like decades of war, thanks in large part to the United States that they're not willing to risk that. So the Caesar sanctions, in the aftermath of this earthquake, like I had a lot of organizations and individuals reaching out to me asking, how can we help Syria? We wanna raise money for Syria. Who should we donate to? And it was impossible because of these sanctions. It was impossible to find a way to do anything that would actually have any impact. And the only thing that I could find that you can do in the aftermath of this earthquake is send money to individuals or so the supplies to individuals in Lebanon and Iraq and then they have to individually in person bring stuff into Syria, which is actually what's been happening. However, this is not enough for a disaster like this. So what does this mean after the earthquake? It means that Syrians are living in the cold in the wintertime in the streets, homeless with no access to food or shelter or clothing with a government that has very, very limited capacity. It means right after the earthquake in those first 48 to 72 hours, when it was so crucial to go dig people out of the rubble, there wasn't gasoline for the first responder vehicles to get to where they needed to go. The industrial kind of equipment that you need to actually dig through rubble like cranes and things like this were unable to function because they haven't been able to replace spare parts because of sanctions or they don't have gasoline to get to where they need to go. So people died unnecessarily. More people died in Syria as a result of these sanctions. It's just completely catastrophic right now. I have friends who were just recently on the ground in Aleppo and they're just in a civilian car and they told me driving on the street just waves of people are like coming and begging them. Do you have money? Do you have food? Do you have water? They're living outside in the freezing cold unable to return to their homes and just wondering where's the aid? Where's the aid? So that's a situation in Syria right now. Absolutely. And Rani, it's also like you said, the 180 day window given by the United States, the key point for many people who might want to, institutions at least who might want to give aid is the fact that they know that they'll be identified in 180 days later. Many might be worried about the chilling effect you were talking about also. I inquired about this to friends, I know who work in the humanitarian sector who are on the ground in Syria because what you're talking about is this general license that days, like I mean, almost a week after this earthquake, the US Treasury Department issued this general license which is kind of an umbrella exemption for humanitarian aid for Syria. Now, of course, what's interesting about this is you'll often hear US officials make the argument that sanctions don't obstruct humanitarian aid. So if that's the case, why did you have to issue a general exemption for humanitarian aid if it's true that sanctions don't obstruct humanitarian aid? Obviously you know it's not true. But this exemption itself, I actually reached out to people to see what has been so far at least, has it alleviated the problem in terms of getting stuff into the country? And most people I talked to framed it as, yes, it makes it easier to donate to certain international organizations, but as far as actually getting the money and aid inside Syria, you still have the same problems as before because banks still don't want to abide by a humanitarian exemption because they don't wanna get involved in Syria because the chilling effect is still in place. This is a temporary exemption. Like you said, 180 days, it's six months. That's it, after six months, it goes away. And the other issue too is, it's be seen more as a PR move because the US government faced a lot of backlash in the aftermath of this earthquake because it became so clear. I mean, even the New York Times, despite later change in the language, had to admit that sanctions were obstructing aid. And so, but as far as it's impact on the ground, so far that hasn't really been seen. Right, and I guess the important aspect also is the refusal of the Western powers to really acknowledge the Syrian government. We've seen this issue with the delivery of aid to opposition controlled areas, even before we've had this big debate about this. And I think it's continued even now because there's barely been any, except for Italy, I believe there's barely been any offers of aid or anything substantial from the West. Exactly, I mean, so far, anything that's gone to the Syrian government side has come, as far as countries are concerned, has come from, I think the Emirates sent some aid. The Iraqis have sent some trucks. And I think Lebanon maybe sent some, like some first responders to help. But as far as Western countries are concerned, it's, they're making the argument that somehow sending aid after an earthquake is just gonna be used to strengthen Assad. I mean, that's all they care about. All they still care about in Syria is regime change. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Syrians live in government-held areas, right? You have, I mean, the UN claims that there's about three to four million people in Idlib. That might also be an overestimate, I'm not sure. And of course, aid should flow freely into Idlib that people there were completely devastated by this earthquake as well. However, there's a Turkish border that the Turks control that they can open for aid access. And there are organizations operating in Idlib that have been able to receive millions of dollars in aid and donations. You can do a GoFundMe for anything, for these groups in opposition-held areas and these NGOs. You can't do the same thing for Syria. And that is the government of the country that the West still refuses to recognize. But that is the government that you have to deal with if you wanna help people in this country, but the US, the Europeans, the Canadians, they've decided that all of Syria is Assad. That is what they've decided. Every Syrian inside government-held areas of Syria is reduced to Bashar al-Assad. And they're all gonna be treated as such. So they've really decided to sanction the Syrian people inside government areas as a whole. And it's really, I mean, it's really disgraceful. It's disgraceful. It's shameful. And you have this disinformation really in the mainstream media in the US that's trying to blame the Syrian government when in fact it's the fault of US unilateral sanctions on this country that's been so devastated and now people have died under rubble unnecessarily. And everybody just kind of shrugs their shoulder. And you would think that the way the Americans talk about it you would think that Assad did the earthquake. Absolutely. But it's inspiring to see on the other hand that for instance, China, Venezuela, Cuba, many of these countries have actually delivered it. Their experts have already reached on the ground. So that's at least one bright hope that's there. Of course, yeah. I mean, you have had support. Of course, the reason that Syria is even still standing and even has any electricity at all actually has been because of Iran. Iran sends fuel to Syria. That gives it the few hours a day that it gets at the hospitals and in homes and at schools. And of course that solidarity and that support has continued. But of course, these are also sanctioned in weak countries minus maybe China that are only able to help so much. And the China I think donated something like $4.4 million in aid I would love to see that go up a few notches. But China has also been really helpful in Syria in terms of a lot of Syria's electricity infrastructure was built using German equipment but a lot of German companies because the sanctions haven't been honoring their contracts to for replacement parts, you constantly need spare parts and you constantly need to be maintaining power stations and these kinds of things. And if you can't get that equipment then it's not gonna last. So a lot of Chinese companies have come in and really filled that gap. And so much of Syria's electricity infrastructure has over time become actually Chinese based. So definitely because of these countries, Syria is able to continue to like survive but people should not have to be living in destitution like this with no potential like future hopes everyone's trying to leave the country. There's been a huge brain drain as a result of this. It's absolutely horrible. Thank you so much Rania for speaking to us for giving us a very clear picture, a very grim picture unfortunately of what's happening on the ground in Syria. It's essential that more people talk about these issues especially in the West that they ask their governments these hard questions about what have been the policy frameworks over the past many years. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back in the future with more such videos until then keep watching People's Dispatch.