In this episode, host Gwyneth Shaw talks to Farouq Habib, a founding member and Deputy General Manager for External Affairs for the White Helmets, a grassroots humanitarian organization of ordinary Syrians who came together to save lives amid the devastation of the Syrian Civil War, and Betsy Popken, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law.
Habib and colleague Raed al Saleh were at Berkeley Law recently to talk about the White Helmets and their role in pushing for justice and accountability in Syria.
The White Helmets, formally known as the Syrian Civil Defense and recognizable for their namesake headgear, provide critical emergency services such as medical care, ambulances, firefighting, early warning alerts, unexploded ordnance removal, and search and rescue operations. They also work to document and archive military attacks and coordinate with international agencies and nongovernmental organizations scrutinizing the situation in Syria.
The Human Rights Center, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, uses the levers of science, technology, and law to pursue justice. The center researches and investigates war crimes and human rights violations, develops standards for policymakers and practitioners, and trains investigators, students and advocates.
Visit the White Helmets’s website to learn more about their work and how to support it, and explore the Human Rights Center’s website to understand the broad scope of its mission.
About:
“Berkeley Law Voices Carry” is a podcast hosted by Gwyneth Shaw about how the school’s faculty, students, and staff are making an impact — in California, across the country, and around the world — through pathbreaking scholarship, hands-on legal training, and advocacy.
Production by Yellow Armadillo Studios.
Episode Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] GWYNETH SHAW: Hi, listeners. I’m Gwyneth Shaw and this is Berkeley Lab Voices Carry, a podcast about how our faculty, students, and staff are making an impact through pathbreaking scholarship, hands-on legal training and advocacy.
I’m joined by some very special guests for this episode, Farouq Habib, a founding member and deputy general manager for external affairs for the White Helmets, a grassroots humanitarian organization of ordinary Syrians who came together to save lives amid the devastation of the Syrian Civil War, and Betsy Popken, executive director of the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law.
Habib and colleague, Raed al-Saleh, were at the law school recently, to talk about the White Helmets and their role in pushing for justice and accountability in Syria. The White Helmets, formerly known as the Syrian Civil Defense and known for their namesake headgear, provide critical emergency services such as medical care, ambulances, firefighting, early warning alerts, unexploded ordnance removal, and search and rescue operations. They also work to document and archive military attacks and coordinate with international agencies and non-governmental organizations, scrutinizing the situation in Syria.
The Human Rights Center, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, uses the levers of science, technology and law to pursue justice. The center researches and investigates war crimes and human rights violations, develops standards for policymakers and practitioners, and trains investigators, students and advocates.
Popken has a long and deep knowledge of the conflicts in Syria. Before joining the Human Rights Center, she worked on United Nations mediated peace and ceasefire negotiations in Darfur, Syria, and Yemen through the Public International Law and Policy Group, and led the group’s work supporting the Syrian opposition negotiation team in UN mediated peace negotiations in Geneva, funded by the US State Department, UK Foreign and Commonwealth office, and global Affairs Canada.
She teaches technology and human rights and international peace negotiations at Berkeley Law, and is a renowned expert in how to mitigate the human rights issues raised by emerging technologies. I’m really delighted to have you both here, Farouq and Betsy.
BETSY POPKEN: Thank you. I’m delighted to be here.
FAROUQ HABIB: Thank you. Likewise.
GWYNETH SHAW: Let’s start with you, Farouq. Can you talk about how the White Helmets were founded and a little bit about the work you do? What are some of the challenges that you face?
FAROUQ HABIB: Well, Thank you very much for hosting us. I’m glad to be here in California. And this is the first time we come here. And it was really inspiring to see how people here are so much interested about human rights topics and feel their values and responsibilities toward the world.
And the story of the White Helmets actually summarize the story of the Syrian people. We are from the people born during the Syrian uprising, when the Syrian people marched in the streets and wanted reforms and wanted to rebuild their countries.
And they were oppressed and faced by aggressions and violence and detention by the dictatorial regime. The communities and areas out of control of the regime lacked access to services, and they were subject to collective punishment.
So in different villages and towns, local youth volunteers from various different backgrounds, including former firefighters, nurses, paramedics, doctors, teachers, taxi drivers, I was a banker, Raed was a trader, so people from different backgrounds formed what we called, at that time, local coordination committees, to try to provide essential services to these vulnerable communities, and mobilize the youth there.
In my time, these local coordination committees grow up. At some points, they were provincial and local civil defense teams. This is what the Syrian people call them, who provide the ambulance, the emergency medical services, the evacuation services for people.
But back from 2012 until 2013, those teams did not meet each other. And they were not aware of the existence of many of each other, until we had the first chance in October 2014 to organize the first meeting for leaders from all different areas of Syria.
And when people met, they realized that they work for the same objective, and they share the same values. And they decided to be united under one national umbrella, which was called the Syria Civil Defense.
Gradually, we extended the scope of our work, the services we provide. We worked a lot, not only on saving lives, but also on institutional building to present a model of how the Syrian people are able to build organizations and run their civilian services by themselves.
And it’s now an organization of more than 3,000 volunteers in Syria, and 200 staff in Syria and abroad, working together to save lives, enhance community resilience, and hoping to be able to extend help also to communities elsewhere, wherever there are people in need.
GWYNETH SHAW: Betsy, just so our listeners have some background on the Human Rights Center, how do you work with and support groups like the White Helmets and organizations like it? What are some of the many tools that you and your colleagues have at your disposal?
BETSY POPKEN: One of the things we do is to provide substantive experience and expertise to peace negotiators to help resolve the underlying conflict. When I graduated from law school in 2010, I went to work for the Public International Law and Policy Group, and they specialize in assisting parties in peace negotiations, constitution drafting and transitional justice processes.
I, initially, was working on the Darfur peace negotiations mediated by the UN, at that time, in Doha. And then in 2011, the Arab Spring started. That summer, I began working very closely with opposition activists in Syria.
Again, as Farouq said, people just on the ground, doctors, civil society members, journalists who were opposed to the attacks of the Assad regime on the Syrian people and were committed to bringing peace to the country of Syria.
I’ve worked, for years, with the negotiation team to support their work on helping them understand what goes into a constitution, how to draft and negotiate a ceasefire, and what governance structures may look like.
I was based in Istanbul for two years, working out of the opposition’s offices, teaching and training them on different substantive issues in Riyadh before negotiations, and traveling regularly to Doha for meetings with the delegation leadership.
We were also on the ground in Geneva to help throughout the nights to prepare for negotiations the next day. So when I came to the Human Rights Center, I brought that experience with me. And here, at the Human Rights Center, we have worked to support Ukrainians who may be involved in future negotiations with Russia.
We were hired by the UN Institute on Training and Research to conduct a training for women leaders on international frameworks that support the involvement of women in peace processes. And we also collaborated with PILPG to develop briefing materials for Ukrainians on the substantive issues that will be at play in negotiations with Russia.
So that’s one thing, is providing support to current and future peace negotiators to resolve the underlying conflict. Another thing we do at the Human Rights Center, is we have a robust, open source investigations practice.
And our team partnered with a number of civil society organizations like the White Helmets, to conduct open source investigations into potential war crimes committed in Syria. And part of what we collected, in terms of the evidence, went into evidence dossiers that supported universal jurisdiction cases in different countries in Europe.
Just earlier this year, one of the cases our evidence dossiers supported, resulted in an arrest warrant for Assad, the president of Syria, as well as some of his comrades, and that was a French arrest warrant. So we’re very proud to have contributed a small piece to that success.
And then third, we try to amplify the voices of organizations like the White Helmets. And that’s something that we’ll be doing later today through our event at Berkeley Law.
GWYNETH SHAW: Farouq, what are some of the threats that you and your colleagues have faced doing this work? I mean, I think, anyone who’s familiar with what’s been happening in Syria for many, many years can imagine. But I’d love to hear some details from you about what this experience has been like for you and other folks in the White Helmets.
FAROUQ HABIB: Well, all the Syrian people face threats. Even those who have escaped to neighboring countries, they also still face threats. But, particularly, the moderate civil society faced specific threats because most parties of the conflicts have no interest to see a moderate alternative built by the Syrian people.
It’s a joint interest between the dictatorial regime and the extremists, who claim a narrative that the world and the people, the civilians, have to choose between them. But actually, the people wanted to present their own model.
And that was the reason why civil society groups, especially the vocal ones like the White Helmets, faced increasing attacks by different actors, but primarily by the Syrian regime and the Russians. It aimed to eliminate, as I said, any people [INAUDIBLE] moderate people.
It aimed to kill the hope of the Syrian people that they can run their affairs themselves, and build their own governance by themselves. It’s aimed to send a message to the international community that they have to choose between two devils, between extremists and dictatorship.
So that was a general threat on all civil society groups. But there was a more specific threats against the White Helmets, including double tap airstrikes, when the Russians bombed the same area. And after a few minutes, when the rescue workers arrived, they bombed it again, to cause the highest number of casualties.
And we believe one of the main reason for this specific targeting by the regime and the Russians and sometimes ISIS, against the White Helmets, in addition to the general threats against civil society, is our role in documenting war crimes.
Because the first responders are the first witnesses to these attacks. And by time, we learned how much valuable is the evidence, the footage, which comes from the GoPro cameras on the helmets of those rescuers, in addition to many other sources of evidence and information we face.
And that was, we believe, the reason for the disinformation war against the White Helmets. So we are not only targeted physically on the ground, our centers are damaged, our ambulances and fire trucks are targeted.
We lost 310 of our colleagues, who died in the line of duties. In addition, we face the disinformation war, which aims to kill the truth and undermine the credibility of the witnesses of these war crimes.
GWYNETH SHAW: Betsy, you mentioned already, that one of the things you do at the Human Rights Center, is to help collect and verify information that’s coming from people like the White Helmets, people who are seeing those events for themselves, recording them, able to talk about them.
How has that helped shape some of these investigations and allegations, when you get into the human rights community, and the governance of that? How important is it to have someone with a camera on a helmet who’s able to give you a visual or give you a recording of something that’s happened rather than, in the past, perhaps that’s someone’s word against someone else’s?
BETSY POPKEN: It is so important to have on the ground, digital evidence of crimes being committed, that can be verified. So what our team does, is they take photos or videos, recordings of things happening on the ground, and use a combination of information found online, geospatial recognition to verify that those things have happened.
And in many cases, we have seen that evidence, then brought to court. I mentioned earlier, that one of the cases we participated in, resulted in an arrest warrant for Assad and some of his partners in the crimes against Syrians. And having that evidence on the ground is very important to contributing to successful cases.
GWYNETH SHAW: What else can international agencies and NGOs do to support groups like the White Helmets and the people, both, inside Syria and those displaced by this violence?
BETSY POPKEN: So international agencies can provide funding to the White Helmets. You heard from Farouq, all of the personnel that they have on board to do the amazing work they do, they need funding to support that.
They can also help with diplomatic efforts if necessary, when operating on the ground in different locations. NGOs can do a combination of the things that I mentioned the human Rights Center does.
So supporting efforts on the ground to resolve underlying conflicts, providing, partnering with organizations like the White Helmets to identify evidence and bring that evidence to court, and to also amplify their voices through events and other means.
GWYNETH SHAW: How can NGOs and international groups support the displaced people from this conflict? Because that is such a huge issue as well. Not just from Syria, of course, there are plenty of other communities affected in other parts of the region. But what are some of the ways that humanitarian agencies can help with that?
Because I think, I’m about to ask Farouq, in a little bit, how people can support the White Helmets. But I think anyone who’s listening to this, and knows something about what’s going on, their mind is going to turn to some of the refugees and folks who are displaced as well.
BETSY POPKEN: So I guess I’ll start first with what countries can do. And I don’t how many people making immigration decisions on behalf of countries are listening to this podcast, but I do think there are certain states that provided an admirable example of taking in refugees from the conflict in Syria.
So I think that’s something for countries to be looking themselves at what they can do to bring in more people. And for international agencies dealing with refugees, to be prepared for influxes that come as a result of conflict.
And I think what we can do as civilians, is welcome people into our communities and help them understand what it’s like to live in our communities, and to support them as they transition to life in a new area.
GWYNETH SHAW: Looking at some of the work that the White Helmets have been doing, I see that unexploded weapons are a huge issue, as they often are in places where there’s been long-term conflict. What are some of the tactics that your folks are using for this and how risky is this work?
FAROUQ HABIB: The UXO, the unexploded ordinance represent a big threat to the civilian life, to access to schools and facilities, to food security because the cluster munition are heavily used by the regime on agricultural lands to increase the suffering of the people, and prevent any hope or alternative.
And we’ve been working on survey and clearance of unexploded ordnance for years. We received training and equipment from our partners. We have been doing a lot of work to clear unexploded ordnance and remove the remnants of weapons from these areas.
We are trying to use advanced technologies and AI to help us do this mission. We worked on a pilot project to use drones to help us to identify this [INAUDIBLE]. But it continues to present a big challenge, as I said, to restore normal life in some of these areas near the borders, where there are now more than 4.5 million people trapped in Northwest Syria, and areas out of control of the government, but still subject to siege and bombardment.
GWYNETH SHAW: And how can people around the world support your work? What are your greatest needs and where should people go if they want to try and help?
FAROUQ HABIB: Well, first thing we need is to raise awareness, to demand the politicians that the suffering continue there, and it will not end without addressing the root causes. You spoke about aid to refugees, which we, as Syrian people, are very much grateful for the support the refugees receive.
But to tell the truth, what we ask is, to help us to go back home. This is our dream. So we need help to have peace in our country, and to be able to live in dignity back in our towns and villages. This is what we ask the world to help us.
And how to do that, it’s primarily a political solution. Currently, the political process is in a stalemate. And we don’t see Syria on the priority list of the US administration. So we need to pay more attention and focus through diplomatic means to push that process.
And we need more support for the moderate civil society on the ground. We need support for education, primarily. We have a lost generation. We have currently more than 500,000 children out of schools. And definitely, we need help to continue our life saving work, that’s financially and politically.
With the private sector, we need partnerships to build capacity of the local groups. We did not plan to be in this place. We responded to the crisis. And we came from different backgrounds. And we continue to learn and develop our techniques every year.
So we need technology, we need research, we need partnerships with universities and with the private sector. And of course, we need the donations from individuals, people who believe in humanity and are prepared to support. So please go to the White Helmets website and donate what you can, to help us to continue our mission.
GWYNETH SHAW: And I’ll include a link to that in the show notes, so that people have an easy way to get to that website.
FAROUQ HABIB: Thank you.
GWYNETH SHAW: I’d like to hear each of you answer this question. I’ll start with you, Betsy. Farouq, you just alluded to this a little bit. Is there a path to peace and rebuilding in Syria? What needs to happen? I heard Farouq say, Syria doesn’t seem to be on the priority list for the American administration at this moment. But what are some other things that need to happen in order to help bring this to a close?
BETSY POPKEN: Yes, there is a path to peace for Syria. When I was working on the Darfur negotiations mediated by the UN in Doha, one of the primary blocks to peace in the Doha region, was the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, who had an ICC arrest warrant out against him.
And we thought there was no way he would ever step aside. He refused. And then several years later, protests erupted again, and he stepped aside. Now what needs to happen and what we need to continue to do and partner with the Syrians to do, is to prepare for that day that will eventually come, when Assad and his comrades step aside.
And so really, it’s being prepared for what we call the day after. And so I think there is a path to peace in Syria. I think, right now, the biggest blockage to that is the leadership in Syria. And I think that there needs to be continuous preparation by those who want to play a role in bringing peace to Syria, to continue to shape and think about what they want that governance structure to look like when he’s gone.
GWYNETH SHAW: Yeah, Farouq, what would you say about that? Is that work happening now as part of what you’re doing?
FAROUQ HABIB: We need to make it happen. What Betsy said, it’s very important to be prepared for the day after. But what’s more important for us is to make this day after, happen, to turn on a new page. And we cannot do that alone.
Currently, it’s not a Syrian war. It’s a regional war. It’s an international war. There are troops from everywhere in Syria, from Iran, from Russia, from Turkey, from the United States, from Israel. Everybody is bombing each other on our ground.
We cannot end this war alone, by ourselves. So we need a political process. And we need to deter the Iranian and the Russian intervention in Syria. This is what could help us to turn on a new page. But as long as these Iranian backed militias continue to kill people and strengthen their infrastructure, we will not reach the day after.
So we need the political process, definitely. And until the day after comes, as Betsy said, we need to be prepared for that day, and we need to survive until that day. We need support to be able to continue to support community resilience, continue to save lives, continue to provide health care, continue to provide education, and at the same time, continue our human rights work.
Because on the long term, there can’t be a sustainable peace without justice. We cannot dream of any stability in the region if the same warlords will be in power. For those who perpetrated war crimes, from all parties, should be held accountable.
And, therefore, support to human rights work, to the documentation of atrocities, to the investigation, to advocacy and research work should continue. Its must, and it’s very needed, to build a sustainable peace in the future.
GWYNETH SHAW: Betsy, I mentioned at the top, that the Human Rights Center is celebrating its 30th anniversary. And that kind of work has been a hallmark of the Human Rights Center. As you move forward, not just in Syria, but all over the world, what are some of the priorities for continuing to build that momentum, for bringing justice to the people who’ve experienced conflict and experienced human rights violations? Because I’m really struck by what Farouq said.
FAROUQ HABIB: Well, if I may, I believe what happened in Ukraine is a great lesson to the world. Because the lack of accountability for the war crimes in Syria encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine and do what it’s doing now.
And this will continue. If there is no deterrence in Ukraine, it will not stop there. There will be other countries threatened. We face a global threat with the chemical attacks, with these threats of nuclear tactical weapons, with the disinformation war. We don’t see strong will to deter these harmful actions.
And the very important lesson that if you don’t deter the criminal after the first crime, they will continue and they will encourage other people to commit crimes. So we need accountability first.
BETSY POPKEN: I agree with Farouq, that we need accountability. And the Human Rights Center will continue to support accountability in the three ways mentioned earlier. We’ll continue to provide support to help fill the gaps of peace negotiators around the world, who we think, are fighting on the right side of history.
We will also continue to partner with organizations like the White Helmets to uncover evidence of war crimes that can then be used to bring accountability against bad actors in those conflicts. And we also will continue to amplify and uplift the voices of organizations like the White Helmets. So accountability is key, not just in Syria, but around the world, to keep bad actors at bay, and protect civilians around the world.
GWYNETH SHAW: Well, many thanks to both of you for this fascinating discussion. And I’m really happy that we were able to make this work, because I think this is a really powerful message, especially from you, Farouq, about what’s going on. And I’m really hopeful that our listeners will be moved to help when they hear it.
FAROUQ HABIB: Thank you very much.
BETSY POPKEN: Thank you.
GWYNETH SHAW: To learn more about the White Helmets and the Human Rights Center, please check out the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and be sure to subscribe to Voices Carry wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, I’m Gwyneth Shaw.
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