A Fact-avoiding Mission to Syria

Officials from the Czech Republic are reportedly preparing a fact-finding mission to Syria. Their aim is to create a “safe zone” in Syria, so countries in the European Union can deport Syrian refugees there.

Let me save them the cost of their flights and the impact of their carbon footprint by giving them the facts Human Rights Watch and every other serious human rights group have already found: there is no safe area in Syria for refugees to return to.

The effort to imagine or establish such “safe zones” in Syria has a long history. It’s the politics of “let’s pretend,” dreamed up again and again, right from the earliest years of Syria’s civil war.

Countries faced with the prospect of hosting Syrian refugees wanted to believe there are parts of Syria they could send refugees back to, even when it’s clearly untrue. Turkey has tried to create a “safe zone” in Syria. It’s been one of the most dangerous places in Syria.

Governments are also ignoring the history of “safe zones” in conflicts generally. It shows a disastrously poor record in protecting civilians. Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina is only one horrific example.

Still, governments keep chasing the idea. The Czechs’ reported fact-finding mission may also involve Cyprus, another European Union member state keen on the notion of a “safe zone” in Syria.

Not that the government of Cyprus cares much about Syrian refugees being safe, of course. They’re already pushing back refugee boats to Lebanon, where security forces have a grim record of deporting Syrians over the border to Syria.

The fact-finding mission is looking at two areas – Damascus and Tartous – both under Syrian-government control.

Those who don’t need a fact-finding mission will recall this is the same Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad that caused more than half a million deaths and forcibly displaced 12 million people since the war started in 2011. It’s the same government that continues to be responsible for ongoing widespread and systematic torture.

Are EU governments backing the tried-and-failed idea of “safe zones” in Syria because they’re delusional, willfully ignorant, or arrogant? Some combination of these? Or do officials feel under pressure from those xenophobic politicians who’ve promised the public that punishing refugees will somehow make their lives better and now have to deliver some sort of punishment?

In any case, they’re living in an alternate universe.

I know facts can be deeply unpopular in some segments of European politics these days, but I’m going to tell you the facts anyway: there is no place in Syria that’s safe for refugee returns.