[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 11 (Thursday, January 18, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H479-H480]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SYRIA: ENOUGH ALREADY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to condemn in the strongest 
possible terms the ongoing, unrelenting attacks against civilians in 
Syria committed by the barbaric, lawless regime of Bashir al-Assad, 
with Russian backing.
  We have all heard the statistics over and over again like a broken 
record: as many as half a million people killed since the armed 
conflict began in March 2011, tens of thousands of them civilians; tens 
of thousands more detained, disappeared, and perhaps, or even likely, 
dead, directly at the hands of the regime; more than 11 million people 
displaced once and again, inside and outside of Syria's borders, the 
largest single refugee crisis the world has seen since 1945. More than 
half of those displaced are children and youth.
  Last summer, much was made of the cease-fire agreement that the Trump 
administration reached with the Russian Government to establish 
``deescalation zones'' to stabilize Syria, while keeping the Assad 
regime in power.
  We were told the agreement would save lives. Trump said: ``. . . all 
of a sudden, you are going to have no bullets being fired in Syria. . . 
.''
  Well, that has turned out not to be true. The deescalation zones are 
not deescalating.
  As of late December, more than 400,000 people remain trapped, 
besieged by regime forces in eastern Ghouta, one of the deescalation 
zones, only half an hour's drive from Damascus.
  As U.N. Special Adviser on Syria Jan Egeland said last December: 
``There is no deescalation zone, there is only escalation in this 
deescalation zone.''
  Idlib, another ``deescalation area,'' suffered a dramatic increase in 
air attacks last September against armed groups not covered by the 
cease-fire agreement. In late December, airstrikes and shelling against 
a hospital, a medical warehouse, and a vegetable market killed, 
injured, and displaced scores of people.
  The U.S. Government heralded the military defeat of ISIS in Syria in 
November. But the defeat of ISIS has not and will not end the Syrian 
conflict; and Russia has not succeeded in pressuring Assad to end the 
conflict, nor in restraining Assad's attacks on civilians as he has 
gone after rebel forces.
  Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Syria deteriorates each and 
every day. World Vision estimatesthat 5.6 million people are in need of 
acute humanitarian assistance. The U.N. says a total of 13.1 million 
people need some form of assistance. That is 3 million more than at the 
end of 2016. The situation is worse today, after months of 
deescalation, than it was a year ago.
  Of those 13 million, 3 million are trapped in besieged and hard-to-
reach areas. That is 4\1/2\ times the population of Boston or 
Washington, D.C.

[[Page H480]]

  Humanitarian access to those areas is not guaranteed by the regime, 
nor by its backers; international law and obligations be damned.
  Some of the most heartbreaking news out of Syria has to do with the 
crisis in healthcare. The ``weaponization'' of healthcare in Syria is 
not new, but the depravity of it all still shocks me. According to a 
recent report by researchers at the American University in Beirut, 
``Syria has become the most dangerous place on earth for healthcare 
providers.''
  According to the International Rescue Committee, in 2011, there was 
one doctor per 600 people in Syria. But now, in east Ghouta, there is 
only one doctor per 3,600 people.
  Medical supplies are not allowed into besieged areas and terribly ill 
patients are not allowed out.
  What military or political purpose is served by denying medical 
evacuation to women and children suffering from heart disease, cancer, 
kidney failure, and blood diseases?
  Mr. Speaker, current policy is not working to end the crisis in 
Syria. It is time to change course, not by sending more Special Forces 
troops there without any authorization, nor by promising to keep them 
there indefinitely to fight against the next iteration of ISIS.
  What we need is to reassert American diplomatic leadership and exert 
real pressure to end the war. We need a plan to transition Assad out of 
power. We need to pass H. Res. 632, condemning the senseless attacks on 
hospitals and medical personnel in Syria.
  We need to shame Russia for its failure to ensure humanitarian 
access. We need to increase our contributions to humanitarian 
assistance for Syria and make full use of the option of cross-border 
assistance.
  We need to open our hearts to the Syrian refugees and welcome more of 
them to our country. We need to do everything in our power to lay the 
groundwork to ensure accountability for Assad's victims. That includes 
funding the international, impartial, and independent mechanism to 
assist in the investigation and prosecution of war crimes.
  The Syrian conflict has gone on far too long. The horror of it all 
can be mind-numbing, but we must not lose our outrage. Now is the time 
to reenergize our efforts and find a way to end the suffering.

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