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Sanctions on Hezbollah Can Fight Poverty

sanctions on hezbollah
On July 22, the House of Representatives voted 404-0 to pass legislation that would introduce sanctions on Hezbollah and its foreign assets. Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States since 1995, and operates out of Lebanon. The sanctions aim to financially cripple the group, in turn protecting the Lebanese people from further poverty.

Hezbollah has played a critical role in the conflict in Syria. In April of 2014, the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, boldly stated that the war had essentially ended. He asserted that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria had regained control of the country and had won.

Nasrallah spoke as Hezbollah continued to intensify involvement in the conflict, fighting for Assad’s continued reign.

The reaction in Lebanon to Hezbollah’s involvement has been tense, as many fear it may carry the conflict back to Lebanon.

Even without the war taking place in Lebanon, the people feel the effects of the Syrian conflict. As hundreds of thousands of refugees pour into Lebanon, the economy is slipping.

“For each of the conflict years, we found that growth has been 2.9 percent lower than [had the conflict not happened]” Eric Le Borgne, lead Lebanon economist for The World Bank, explains.

IRIN reported in 2013 that 170,000 Lebanese were in danger of falling into poverty for reasons caused by the Syrian conflict. Lebanon is a small country, with a population of only four million, and cannot withstand the surge of 800,000 refugees.

The Syrian conflict, which has generated poverty and destruction outside its borders, not only in Lebanon, but also in other refugee-host countries, such as Afghanistan, has been escalated by foreign involvement. Hezbollah is one of the main contributors to the violence.

Furthermore, Hezbollah is known to be in close alliance with the Iranian government. Recently, Iranian news agency, Fars, published an article titled Iran Urges Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese Resistance Groups to Ink Defense Pact.

Effectively, this means that an attack on one of the groups from Israel would constitute an attack on all of them. The defense pact would heighten tensions in the region, and any attack on one group would involve multiple countries.

Analyzing the effects of the conflict in Syria on Lebanese poverty alone provides reason enough to avoid inflaming conflict.

The new sanctions passed in the House are an important step against poverty. The sanctions would specifically target Hezbollah’s foreign finances by allowing the Department of the Treasury to deny payable-through accounts in the U.S. through foreign financial institutions connected to Hezbollah activity.

The legislation would also allow the President to officially categorize Hezbollah as a foreign narcotics trafficker and transnational criminal organization in addition to its terrorist organization designation.

“Today we have the opportunity to place a critical blow to Hezbollah,” said Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the bill’s sponsor. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., compared these sanctions to the ones placed on Iran over its nuclear weapons development. Engel proposed that the current negotiations with Iran are happening because of the international sanctions.

“This can be done with Hezbollah. This is what we’re trying to do today,” he says, providing a beacon of hope for further peace in the region.

– Julianne O’Connor

Sources: The Algemeiner, IRIN, The Guardian, The Hill
Photo: NYTimes

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Report Seeks End to AIDS Epidemic

aids epidemic
Recent statistics released in a new report by UNAIDS show that the number of new HIV/AIDS cases have been decreasing steadily. This new data shows that for every 10 percent increase in treatment coverage, there is a one percent decline in new infections among those living with HIV. However, the report also noted that far more international effort was needed because this current pace is insufficient to completely end the AIDS epidemic.

In 2013, 2.1 million new HIV/AIDS cases were recorded, down from 3.4 million new cases in 2001. 2013 also saw an additional 2.3 million people gain access to the life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART), which is a drug that substantially suppresses many of the symptoms of AIDS and increases life spans. This means that a grand total of 13 million people have previously had or currently have access to ART. AIDS-related deaths have fallen by one-fifth in the past three years.

The most headline-grabbing piece from the report came from Michael Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, who said, “If we accelerate all HIV scale-up by 2020, we will be on track to end the epidemic by 2030.”

However it is important to know that while there has been significant improvement, considerable work still needs to be done. Sidibé went on to say that if we don’t continue to scale up efforts, then we would “[add] a decade, if not more” to the 2030 goal.

Only 15 countries account for more than 75 percent of the 2.1 million new HIV infections in 2013. In Sub-Saharan Africa the countries of Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda account for 48 percent of all new HIV infections in the region. Fewer than four in 10 people currently with HIV lack the ART necessary to survive. HIV prevalence is estimated to be 12 times higher in sex workers, 19 times higher among gay men, 28 times higher in drug injectors and up to 49 times higher among transgender women. Sub-Saharan adolescent girls and young women account for one in four new HIV infections.

While there are a tremendous amount of fascinating statistics on the matter, it’s important to not get lost in them. This new report from UNAIDS shows that progress is being made, but an even stronger effort is needed in order to end the AIDS epidemic in a timely fashion and save millions more lives.

– Andre Gobbo

Sources: BBC, UNAIDS 1, UNAIDS 2
Photo: New America Media

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Sectarian Clashes Rock Northern Lebanese City

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The violence and sectarian clashes emanating from Syria’s three-year long civil war continued to spill over the border into neighboring Lebanon this week, as the death toll from clashes between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the northern port city of Tripoli rose to nearly two dozen. Seven people were killed Friday, bringing the death toll to at least 21 since the sectarian-tinged fighting erupted last week.

Since the conflict broke out in neighboring Syria, there have been on-and-off clashes between residents of Tripoli’s Sunni district of Bab al-Tabanneh (which supports the Sunni insurgents battling the Syrian government) and the Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen (which backs Assad’s Alawite-dominated regime). The latest bout of fighting was sparked on March 21, when gunmen shot and killed a Sunni man who lived in an Alawite neighborhood and had Alawite relatives.

During Friday’s violence four civilians including an elderly man were gunned down by snipers, while eleven others were wounded. About 150 people have been wounded since the latest round of violence between the Sunni and Alawite neighborhoods erupted last week. Three people injured in earlier clashes also died Friday.

The Syrian civil war–which pit rebels from Syria’s Sunni majority against a government controlled by the country’s Alawite minority and supported by Shia Iran–has stoked Sunni-Shia tensions across the Middle East, and particularly in the sectarian tinderboxes of Iraq and Lebanon.

Shia Iran and its Lebanese proxy force Hezbollah have backed Assad, a longtime ally of both Tehran and Hezbollah, while Sunni gulf states and Turkey have supported the Sunni insurgents, buttressing the rebels through the provision of light weapons and cash.

The crackdown on the largely Sunni rebels by Assad’s security forces, who are supported in their campaign by Shia fighters from Hezbollah, Iran and Iraqi militias, has enraged the insurgents’ Sunni brethren in Lebanon and across the region. This anger reached a fever pitch last May, when Hezbollah, or Party of God, openly joined Assad’s campaign to crush the rebellion.

Hezbollah’s overt intervention in the Syrian civil war on the side of Assad’s regime began when the Iranian-backed Shia group sent fighters across the border to help the Syrian government retake the strategic border town of Qusair, which had been under the control of rebel forces since early 2012. Assad’s security forces, aided by Shia fighters from Hezbollah, were able to seize control of Qusair in early June following a three-week battle that enraged the Shia groups’ Sunni opponents in Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria’s sectarian conflict ushered in a violent period in Lebanon, as militant Sunni groups unleashed a wave of bombings against Hezbollah and Shia targets.

– Eric Erdahl

Sources: Reuters, Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera
Photo: Naharnet