'RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN SYRIA: CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE'

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
Religious Minorities in Syria: Caught in the Middle
Testimony
Thomas O. Melia
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
As Prepared
House Foreign Affairs Subcommittees on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations and on Middle East and North Africa
Washington, DC
June 25, 2013

Chairman Smith, Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to discuss the situation for minorities in Syria.

Syria is comprised of a rich myriad of religious and ethnic groups. Syria’s population is approximately 22.5 million, although emigration has increased due to ongoing violence, unrest, and economic hardship. According to the State Department’s International Religious Freedom report for 2012, Sunni Muslims constitute 74 percent of the population, and include: Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, Chechens, and Turkomans. The Alawis, Ismailis, and Shia constitute 13 percent. The Druze account for 3 percent. Christian groups, who have an ancient presence in Syria, constitute the remaining 10 percent, although the Christian population may be closer to 8 percent due to recent emigration due to the conflict.

Syria looks disturbingly different today than it did at the start of the revolution. What started as a peaceful demand for human rights in Deraa has turned into a devastating conflict nationwide with a growing human toll. The Assad regime continues to commit gross and systematic violations of human rights. According to the U.N., more than 93,000 Syrians have died since the beginning of the conflict and the number is rising. More than 1.6 million people have left their homes in Syria to seek refuge in another country – a number that could more than double by the end of 2013. And nearly 4.5 million Syrians are internally displaced, all out of a total population of only 20 million. The last several months have been particularly concerning. We have seen increasing sectarian undertones in the horrific massacres of Bayda, Banias, and Qusayr. Indeed, the UN Commission of Inquiry’s June 4 report underscores that crimes against humanity have become a daily reality for the people of Syria. The regime has provoked and attempted to divide Syria’s population by driving a wedge between the minorities and Sunni majority. The regime continues to target faith groups it deems a threat, including members of the country’s Sunni majority and religious minorities. Such targeting included killing, detention, and harassment. Regime attacks have also destroyed religious sites, including more than 1,000 mosques.

The attacks on Qusayr marked a dangerous new precedent of direct sectarian threats by Hizballah’s forces that are fighting at the behest of the regime. During the June session of the UN Human Rights Council session, we co-sponsored an urgent debate and resolution on the regime and Hizballah’s attack on Qusayr. Unfortunately the regime did not halt its attacks. Over 200 civilians were killed and many more wounded who now desperately need humanitarian assistance.

There are reports the regime is now moving north to Aleppo as well as calling on Shia civilians to fight against the Sunni population.

We have also seen al-Qaida-linked groups and other violent extremist groups engaged in gross human rights abuses. We have seen several reports of violent extremists conducting massacres of Shia civilians as well as destroying a Shia mosque. Many Christians have reported receiving threats on their lives if they do not join the opposition efforts against the regime, have been driven from their homes and killed in mass as presumed supporters of the regime. We have also seen increasing lawlessness in the northern areas and increasing threats to civilian security, including kidnapping, rape, and looting. Syrian Orthodox archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim and Greek Orthodox archbishop Paul Yazigi were kidnapped April 22 by persons unknown, and remain missing. The Nusrah Front has claimed responsibility for bombings across the country. A 15-year-old boy was executed for blasphemy this month by extremists in Aleppo who, reports suggest, have come from outside the country to fight the regime. As you know, the Obama administration designated the Nusrah Front in December 2012 as an alias of al-Qaida in Iraq, and supported a similar designation by the UN Security Council as well. We did that to warn others in the Syrian opposition of the risks that they take by working with the Nusrah Front.

These groups do not support the aspirations, nor do they reflect the mindset, of the vast majority of the Syrian people, or even the vast majority of the active Syrian opposition. The atrocities committed by these extremist elements should not be conflated with the efforts by the moderate opposition, including the Supreme Military Council, to seek an end to the Assad regime and to facilitate a political transition. In fact, the list of acceptable targets for these extremist groups is increasingly long, and includes Sunnis. In a recent interview with the Economist magazine, one Nusrah Front fighter stated that even Sunnis who want democracy are “unbelievers” who deserve to be punished.

Sectarian based retribution plays directly into the regime’s and violent extremists’ hands. It does not move the country closer to the inclusive, post-Assad future that Syrians have been struggling to achieve. We have been very clear that all sides in this conflict must abide by international humanitarian law and we continue to urge all Syrians to speak out against the perpetration of unlawful killings against any group, regardless of faith or ethnicity. In our conversations with opposition military leaders, we have consistently urged opposition groups to respect international law and human rights , and applauded those groups that signed on to the code of conduct issued by the Free Syrian Army in the fall of 2012. We are encouraged by the actions of our political and military opposition partners to work towards and speak out in favor of these shared goals, and are working to use our assistance to improve the capacity of these proven actors.

We continue to try to help bring an end to the violent conflict in Syria by strengthening the moderate opposition, blocking the Assad regime’s access to cash and weapons, facilitating a political transition to end Assad’s rule, providing humanitarian assistance, and laying the groundwork for an inclusive democratic transition, including accountability for the egregious violations committed. We are also working closely with our allies to stem the flow of money and resources to violent extremist groups.

We believe that a political transition is the best solution for the crisis in Syria. We support the letter and intent of the June 2012 Geneva Communiqué, which calls for a transitional governing body with full executive powers and formed on the basis of mutual consent. We have been clear that there is no role for Assad in a transitional government; he has lost his credibility and must be held accountable.

Our and our partners’ efforts to strengthen the moderate opposition and change the balance on the ground include diplomatic outreach to improve the representativeness and connectedness of the opposition bodies themselves. We have repeatedly encouraged the political opposition to include grass roots activists from inside Syria, minorities, and women from all communities in their leadership. We hope that their upcoming meetings will produce more diverse and inclusive membership and leaders who reflect the diversity of Syria’s opposition.

We regularly track violations and abuses committed in Syria by all parties, and regularly reiterate our call for all parties to the conflict in Syria to protect and to respect the rights of all civilians, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or gender. We have been absolutely clear that those responsible for serious violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law must be held accountable. As we have noted at the UN, the international community must continue to support documentation and other efforts to lay the groundwork for justice and accountability processes, and to support Syrian efforts as they identify how best to bring to justice those who have committed these heinous acts. As we look toward expanding our engagement with the Syrian opposition, efforts by the United States and the international community focused on justice, accountability, and conflict resolution will be critical to ensuring the protection of human rights during Syria’s transition. By helping Syrians to accelerate their efforts to lay the groundwork for eventual criminal trials, we aim to deter current and potential perpetrators of these crimes, as well as sectarian vigilante justice or collective reprisals.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) at the State Department is supporting Syrian civil society so they can more effectively coordinate to advocate for human rights and democracy concerns. We are also bolstering efforts to lay the groundwork for future transitional justice initiatives, by supporting the documentation of violations and abuses committed by all sides of the conflict, and education about locally-owned accountability and transitional justice mechanisms. We are also promoting conflict mitigation and reconciliation by supporting positive cross-sectarian engagement, coalition building, and targeted humanitarian assistance and conflict prevention training at the local level. We support these activities by partnering with large interfaith and ecumenical non-governmental international organizations and universities with experience working in Syria. A broad range of Syrian ethnic and religious minority groups are included throughout our efforts.

We are also honoring the work of human rights activists, such as female Syrian Alawite activist Hanadi Zahlout, who recently was selected for the 2013 Department of State Human Rights Defender Award. It is critical for Syrians and the international community to understand that Syria’s minorities hold a range of political views and associations, despite the Assad regime’s efforts to act as their sole representative and protector against the Sunni majority. Not all Alawites support the regime or the abuses committed by pro-regime militias, just as not all Sunnis support the opposition. Ms. Zahlout has been active on human rights issues in Syria since before the revolution, and was a founding member of the Local Coordination Committees (LCCs) which are an integral part of the opposition infrastructure. She is providing education and messaging on antisectarianism, as well as raising awareness about current threats to the security of minority communities and concerns about their role in a future transition.

Other U.S. backed transition assistance programs are helping to provide vital services such as food, water and electricity to local community groups, which help establish credible alternatives to new extremist elements among opposition groups. We supplied over 6,000 major pieces of equipment, including communications gear, to enable activists to coordinate their efforts. We boosted radio signals, extending the reach of broadcast on FM stations, and funded media outlets. We then used those media platforms to address sectarian violence and issue public service messages on chemical weapons exposure.

We also have trained and equipped thousands of local leaders and activists – including women and minorities – from over 100 Syrian opposition provincial councils. These graduates are empowering local committees and councils from Damascus to Dayr az Zawr to Idlib to better provide for the needs of all members of their communities. And we are looking to improve civilian security through training and some non-lethal equipment to opposition police and judges. This is critical to addressing the security vacuum in liberated areas easily exploited by extremists.

Finally, to ensure that our assistance reaches its intended targets and does not end up in the hands of extremists, we will continue to vet recipients using the formal processes that have been established across various government agencies.

The United States stood with the Syrian people at the outset of this conflict, beginning with U.S. support for activists and civil society during the early protest movement. We stand with the Syrian people today, with ongoing and increasing efforts to strengthen the opposition and civil society. And we will continue to stand with them going forward, until the day that we can together welcome a new Syria, one where the Syrian people can enjoy a free, stable, and democratic country without Assad.

We look forward to working with Congress toward this goal. Thank you again for the invitation to testify before your committee today. I am happy to take any questions you might have.

DOD'S ROLE IN GLOBAL HEALTH

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DOD Plays Supporting Role in U.S. Global Health Efforts
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2013 - The Defense Department supports U.S. global health activities because such efforts as preventing and containing lethal outbreaks align with DOD's mission to help ensure geopolitical stability and security, a senior defense official said here today.

Kathleen H. Hicks, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, discussed DOD's role in global health here before an audience at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a private health-policy analysis and research organization.

"DOD performs an important role in supporting the U.S. interagency response to human-made and natural disasters. ... In such situations, our military draws upon its incredible logistical capabilities -- providing air and sea transport for medicines, equipment and personnel," Hicks said.

DOD also serves the public health mission by maintaining an international network of laboratories and technologies, therapies and medical expertise, she added, all of which can be used in support of public-health efforts in the United States and abroad.

In its support of global public health activities, Hicks said, DOD must recognize the roles of federal agencies such as the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and recognize the importance of helping partner countries take the lead in protecting the health of their own people.

"We at DOD need templates to understand how to best engage with our fellow government agencies and our foreign partners in the complex and vital work of protecting public health in actual and potential crisis situations," Hicks noted.

Four years ago, Hicks and two colleagues published an analysis of DOD's global health engagement activities. It addressed DOD's role in global health, including the effect of the department's health activities on national and regional security, the principal deputy undersecretary said.

"That paper's recommendations included creating a strategy for global health engagement [and] a health-security cooperation plan to guide our efforts to build the public health and medical capacity of partner militaries," she said.

Above all, Hicks added, "our analysis underscored the importance of ensuring that we do a better job of synchronizing our efforts, not only with our fellow government agencies but also among our own commands and components worldwide."

Since the study was published, she said, there have been improvements in DOD coordination with the State Department and USAID, coordination within DOD, and incorporating humanitarian and global health scenarios in military exercises.

Over the past year, Hicks added, the department has made significant strides in establishing measures of effectiveness for its global-health-related activities.

"Already in 2013," she added, "there have been at least two noteworthy examples of how we used global-health engagement to help partner nations address an urgent health need."

The first occurred after a January nightclub fire in Santa Maria, Brazil, that killed 241 people, the principal deputy undersecretary said.

Brazil's Ministry of Health put out an urgent request to the U.S. government for medicine kits that could treat victims suffering from cyanide toxicity due to inhaling fumes from burning acoustic foam.

After determining that no other agency could respond in time to help, she said, U.S. Southern Command coordinated transport of the medication from St. Louis to Brazil via Miami by working with Miami-Dade aviation officials, the Transportation Security Administration and American Airlines, which flew the medicine to Brazil free of charge.

"This was a great example of public and private collaboration," Hicks said, "exactly the kind of collaboration we are likely to need as we continue to respond to urgent crises of all kinds."

In April, another health emergency occurred after a measles outbreak in Georgia. Responding to a request from that nation's Health Ministry to the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, the Defense Department funded 75,000 emergency vaccinations. UNICEF handled the procurement and the Georgian National Center for Disease Control distributed the vaccine, she said.

"While we need to continue to work with our partners to hone our responses to such crises, we also need to plan for future challenges," Hicks said, adding that an excellent example is an upcoming event sponsored by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.

The Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief/Military Medicine Field Training Exercise will take place in June in Brunei and include 18 countries from Southeast Asia and elsewhere, including the United States.

It also will include an exchange of U.S. and Chinese medical officers, she noted. Hicks said three U.S. officers will spend the exercise aboard a Chinese ship, and three Chinese medical officers will be assigned to a U.S. medical treatment facility, "[working] together in advancing a global good: the health of the world's citizens."

To counter diseases and other threats to public health, Hicks said, the United States teams with countries worldwide.

The Defense HIV/AIDS Prevention Program, for example, is a military-to-military health-engagement program with a direct effect on security, she said.

Over the past four years, Hicks added, in collaboration with the Naval Medical Center San Diego and partner universities, the program has trained providers in 50 militaries around the world and helped strengthen HIV-prevention programs in the trainees' home countries.

Last summer the program hosted a major international military HIV/AIDS conference, bringing together military representatives from 75 countries, along with many government agencies and international organizations, she said.
The focus on infectious diseases has been a hallmark of DOD international public-health efforts over the past decade, Hicks said, but the department should consider expanding its efforts to include health concerns like malnutrition and disrupted access to clean water.

"The expertise and responsibility for dealing with these conditions obviously falls well outside the Department of Defense," she said. "However, we at the Pentagon do have a legitimate interest in the degree to which these conditions impair the security and stability of key countries."

Hicks said a 2008 National Intelligence Council study found that while noninfectious conditions may not present direct threats to U.S. interests, they can have wide-ranging effects on global health.

According to the study, she said, the United States should expand the focus of its global health program to include noncommunicable diseases, neglected tropical diseases, malnutrition and maternal and child health and mortality.

"Shifting DOD's global health engagement activities more in favor of building the public health capacity of partner nations' militaries, and toward synchronizing our efforts with the State Department and its health diplomacy and USAID's health development efforts," Hicks added, "would create a synergy beneficial to global health and potentially beneficial to global and national security."

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND BIOSURVEILLANCE STRATEGY

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
This electron micrograph shows virus particles called virions from an H1N1 flu sample. The virus was first detected in people in the United States in April 2009. On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization signaled that a pandemic of 2009 H1N1 flu was under way. Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention


DOD Has Running Start on Biosurveillance Strategy
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2012 - The White House has issued the first U.S. National Strategy for Biosurveillance to quickly detect a range of global health and security hazards, and the Defense Department has a running start in implementing the new plan, a senior defense official said.

Andrew C. Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, told American Forces Press Service that many of the activities described in the strategy are ongoing at DOD.

Such efforts, he said, "have been a little bit siloed."

"So much of what we're doing is integrating the efforts and working hard on the overlap between global security and global health, in what [President Barack Obama] refers to as global health security," he said.

Biosurveillance is defined as data gathering, analysis and interpretation of data related to disease activity and threats to human and animal health to achieve early warning, detection and situational awareness.

In a letter that introduces the new strategy, Obama said the United States "must be prepared for the full range of threats, including a terrorist attack involving a biological agent [and] the spread of infectious diseases and food-borne illnesses."

The strategy calls for a coordinated approach involving federal, state, local and tribal governments; the private sector; nongovernmental organizations; and international partners.

"It challenges us," the president wrote, "to take full advantage of the advanced technologies, new vaccines, the latest science, and social media that can help keep our citizens safe. It describes the core functions and critical capabilities we need to succeed."

Within 120 days, the White House will complete a strategic implementation plan that lays out the required actions and responsibilities of all partners in the mission, Obama said.

As the strategy is released, 43 U.S. states have reported West Nile virus infections in people, birds and mosquitoes, and about 700 cases and 26 deaths have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The virus was first isolated from a feverish woman in the West Nile District of Uganda in 1937, and from there it spread to Egypt, Israel, France and, in 1999, to the United States. According to CDC, the virus's spread in the U.S is a milestone in its evolving history.

Monitoring and understanding infectious disease always has been a DOD priority, Weber said, "because for much of our history we've been a global force, and we've had to understand what we call exotic infectious diseases."

Defense Department researchers developed many of the vaccines that protect against malaria, dengue fever and other diseases, he said, "and [Army Maj. (Dr.)] Walter Reed in the 19th century did groundbreaking work on the yellow fever virus."

The renewed focus on biosurveillance speeds up the convergence of traditional battlefield biodefense and health surveillance, Weber said.

"It's all about saving lives," he added. "The sooner you recognize that a biological event is happening, the greater your ability to isolate it, contain it and prevent it from spreading around the world, like H1N1," the novel swine flu virus whose spreading infections the World Health Organization announced as a pandemic on June 11, 2009.

Many DOD components have long been directly involved in global biosurveillance. These include Weber's office, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System Operations, called GEIS, which is part of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center.

"Through our Armed Forces Health Surveillance Network and our Medical Research and Materiel Command," Weber said, "we have a network of three U.S. Army and three U.S. Navy laboratories in places like Cairo, Egypt; Lima, Peru; Nairobi, Kenya; Bangkok, Thailand; and now in Tbilisi, Georgia."

Last week Weber, along with Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, rededicated a central public health reference laboratory in Tbilisi built with funding from the Pentagon's Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

"This is a partnership with the government of Georgia, the Walter Reed Institute of Research and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that will provide a regional biosurveillance hub linked to the World Health Organization so we can map, detect and understand infectious diseases circulating in the South Caucasus and the Black Sea regions," Weber said.

The other six GEIS laboratories focus on human health and disease carriers, or vectors, like birds and mosquitoes, he added, but the Georgia center will be different.

"From the beginning on the Georgian side, [work on the center's mission] includes their agricultural ministry, their health ministry and their national center for disease control," Weber said.

"On the U.S. side, we have participation from different parts of DOD, including the GEIS program and the Medical Research and Materiel Command, as well as other U.S. government partners like [CDC]."

Internationally, he added, "we're working with OIE -- the World Organization for Animal Health. ... We're also working with the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, and ... we're discussing a new partnership with FAO as well as WHO, both their headquarters in Geneva and their regional offices, including the European regional office based in Copenhagen, Denmark."

With the government of Kazakhstan, he added, "we are building a similar laboratory capability in Almaty. When it's complete, the project will involve on ... [Kazakhstan's] side the animal health authorities and their agriculture ministry, their ministry of education and science on the research side and the health ministry. On the U.S. side, the Centers for Disease Control will be a strategic partner."

Much of the DOD global network was developed in response to the outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 -- which spread rapidly westward in wild birds from Qinghai Lake, China, in 2005 -- and later, the H1N1 swine flu outbreaks, Weber said.

"There was a lot of one-time funding for pandemic flu that we were able to build on and broaden beyond the focus on one infectious disease," he added.

Weber said DOD's preparedness domestically and globally increased as a result of its response first to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in 2002, but especially to H5N1 avian flu three years later.

"What was important about both outbreaks is that they helped give birth to the 'One Health' concept," he said. "Because H5N1 was a poultry disease that jumped species to humans, it got the veterinarian community, the animal health community and the human health community to work together."

One Health is an international effort by veterinarians, physicians and other health professionals to integrate health care for people, animals, agriculture and the environment.

"Biosurveillance is about early detection and prediction of biological events no matter what their cause," Weber said, "so we can save lives, so we can continue military operations, and protect American citizens and our forces and families around the world."

The new strategy and the implementation plan that will come out of it, he added, "will help us improve integration, accelerate activities and increase resources to make it an even higher priority."