Refugees gather in Beirut for their journey back home to Syria on September 4, 2018. AFP archives)
Prior to the summit, Aoun and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil frequently voiced the opinion that the return of refugees could not wait for a political solution in Syria and instead should take place as soon as possible because Lebanon could no longer bear the weight of hosting displaced Syrians.
The new message from the Moscow summit marks a significant departure from Aoun and Bassil’s previous position. It was stated in a joint press release following Aoun’s meeting with Putin, which Bassil also attended, and represents a turn towards realpolitik that is likely the result of Russian pressure. In the press release, Aoun and Putin “reiterated their support for efforts aiming at implementing the Russian initiative for the return of refugees, believed that solving this problem was directly linked to creating favorable conditions, namely social and economic ones, in Syria, through national reconstruction”. The two presidents also called on the international community and humanitarian organizations to help support this process.
The position put forward in the press release is nothing new for Moscow. From the beginning, the Russians have connected their initiative to repatriate large numbers of refugees to the launch of reconstruction work, hoping that it will help raise funds for the reconstruction effort. But the statement indicates that the Russians finally pressured the Lebanese to “get in touch with reality” regarding refugee returns, according to Ziad Sayegh, an expert on politics and refugees. Despite the new tone internationally, Sayegh does not expect Aoun and Bassil’s discourse inside of Lebanon to change.
Aoun’s circles sought to downplay the statement in Moscow, saying that it should not be interpreted as a shift in previously asserted positions by Aoun and Bassil. “Linking the return [of refugees] to reconstruction does not imply a mandatory political solution,” a source from the Presidential Palace said.
The press release should not be taken literally, the source said, because it “includes general chapter headlines”. The source added that the Russians agreed to support “the gradual return of the refugees, launched by the General Security with the active participation of the Russians, on one hand, and the Syrians, on the other”.
It is unclear how many refugees have returned to Syria through General Security’s voluntary repatriation program. Lebanese government sources says that 178,000 people have returned since last May.
Sources close to President Aoun’s office sometimes suggest that the mass return of refugees initially planned by Moscow hasn’t happened because of financial problems. For that reason, the process shifted to a more gradual return focusing on people who want to go back and whose names are first submitted to the Syrian government for screening before they are given the green light to cross the border.
Despite the apparent lack of money, officials in Lebanon and Russia are reluctant to say that the reconstruction process, which relies on donors from the West and the Gulf, remains closely linked to a political solution. But the consensus among experts is that the countries that have the financial resources to support the return of refugees and reconstruction are unwilling to do so until a political solution to the Syrian crisis is reached.
“For the West to accept to finance, it should first trust the political process set in place. However, a diagnosis of the current situation shows that the post-war geography is not conducive to any reconstruction, even less to a return of the refugees,” said Nasser Yassin, a professor and research director at the Issam Fares Institute.
The war in Syria has destroyed 30 percent of the houses and 60 percent of the hospital in the country. Fifty-two percent of schools are being used to house internally displaced people, and a significant amount of infrastructure has also been damaged. Despite this, no real reconciliation mechanism has been put in place to encourage refugees who are hesitant to return, and there hasn’t been any serious discussion of a political solution, according to Yassin. “We are in a true vicious circle, and no reconstruction can be possible without being translated into politics,” he said.
Hanin Ghaddar, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in the United States, said that the Syrian crisis has reached a stalemate. “It is actually meant to last as long as Syria, Iran and the Syrian regime are showing their unwillingness to negotiate a compromise. This is all while knowing that, in the absence of a compromise, there will neither be a political solution in sight nor financing, and this is a means of pressure that the United States and Europe will continue to manipulate in order to reach their objectives,” Ghaddar said.
(This article was originally published in the 29th of March)
