Syrian civil defense (white helmets)

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The Syrian Civil Defense ( English Syria Civil Defense , SCD ; Arabic الدفاع المدني السوري, DMG ad difā' al-Madanī s-Suri , also English White Helmets or German White Helmets ) is a private civil defense organization of volunteers and paid workers in Syria , which since 2013 in civil war is active in non-government-controlled parts of the country. It should not be confused with the Syrian state civil protection forces. As of April 3, 2020, the manpower is 2900.

history

Members of the White Helmets in Kafr Oweid in Idlib Governorate in November 2017

The main features of the organization were initially formed in early 2013 as spontaneous volunteer groups in the country's urban residential areas affected by the bombing war, before experts from the Turkish AKUT Search and Rescue Association in Turkey, through British mediation, in March 2013 with the qualification of initially 20 helpers in the specialty " Urban Search and Rescue ”began. The support program that was started under the leadership of the Briton James Le Mesurier trained around 1200 white helmets by 2015, according to his own statement. The support of the White Helmets (project “Batal”), coordinated with international donations by the foundation “Mayday Rescue” registered in the Netherlands, included training and equipment as well as assistance in the areas of organizational development, involvement of local communities and lobbying.

It was only when representatives of several dozen local rescue groups agreed on a joint declaration of principles in autumn 2014 that the Syrian Civil Protection Organization was formally founded, which subsequently became internationally known as the White Helmets. In October 2014, the elected head of the White Helmets was the former electronics retailer Raed Saleh, who as a representative of the group was heard by the UN Security Council in June 2015 . The organization meanwhile operated a "headquarters" with a small management team in the northern Syrian town of Sarmada and a representative office in Gaziantep, Turkey . The group consisted of up to 3,300 volunteers in 169 regional centers nationwide.

As a result of the recapture of large parts of southwest Syria by the warring factions loyal to Assad, the White Helmets, as a group declared by the government to be terrorists on several occasions, came under considerable pressure there until the summer of 2018. In July 2018, in close political coordination with the USA, Canada, France, Great Britain and Jordan, soldiers of the Israeli armed forces evacuated a total of around 422 volunteers from the organization and their family members from Syria near the border with the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967, and brought them by bus to Jordan . Several Western countries agreed to take in the evacuees, including Germany promised to take in around 47 people. On this occasion, the Syrian government stated that the White Helmets were first responders from a front organization for terrorists and puppets from foreign governments.

In autumn 2018, the members were still present in the northern Syrian city of Idlib, which is held by opponents of the government, where, since the ceasefire in September, they have devoted themselves to reconstruction measures to repair the civil infrastructure instead of rescue missions.

In the predominantly Kurdish areas of the country controlled by the SDF , the use of white helmets was stopped by Kurdish authorities in 2015 and a request to help with fire-fighting was rejected in 2019, because the Kurdish population perceived the organization as pro-Turkish and associated with extremist organizations will.

financing

Government grants

The largest state donor was Great Britain in the initial phase. The country subsidized the training and equipment of members with £ 15 million through Mayday Rescue between 2012 and November 2015 and increased the support to £ 32 million by October 2016.

The largest donor of the White Helmets in 2016 was the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In the entire period from 2013 to 2018, the sum increased to 32 million US dollars. In March 2018, US President Donald Trump ordered all humanitarian aid to Syria to be frozen, including the White Helmets. About a third of the organization's budget consisted of US donations. On June 14, 2018, the US State Department announced that the US President had ordered that US $ 6.6 million be made available.

Other state sponsors (as of 2016) were Canada , Denmark , Germany (a total of around 12 million euros by 2018), Japan , the Netherlands , and New Zealand . According to the Foreign Office, the foreign donations were used in 2016 to finance an individual expense allowance for the White Helmets of around $ 175 a month.

Private donations

The group has been supported since 2014 by the aid organization “The Syria Campaign” (registered in Great Britain under the name “The Voices Project”), which operated the crowdfunding website “WhiteHelmets.org” for the benefit of the White Helmets and did not accept any government grants . According to its own statement, the organization also supported the realization of the documentary film Die Weißhelme (see below). According to the company, the White Helmets were also financed in 2016 by Chemonics , a private development aid organization from the USA .

Mayday Rescue Foundation financial affair

In July 2020 the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant published extensive research results on a fraud affair at the Mayday Rescue Foundation . Accordingly, its founder James Le Mesurier informed the donor countries three days before his death that he had embezzled donations. The journalists uncovered that the supporters of the White Helmets, including the German federal government, subsequently agreed to keep the fraud case secret.

Until the end of 2019, the Mayday Rescue Foundation in Amsterdam was the European donor for the White Helmets. Western governments donated tens of millions to the foundation. The Netherlands alone contributed 12.5 million euros. The Dutch Foreign Ministry ended support in 2018, just before Le Mesurier reported the fraud. The problems with the foundation became known in November 2019 when a Dutch accountant visited the Mayday office in Istanbul. He discovered false receipts showing that $ 50,000 had disappeared. Le Mesurier admitted to the accountant that he had paid the money intended for the White Helmets to himself. Le Mesurier took sole and full responsibility. Later audits could not find any evidence of further embezzlement. But since most of the financial accounting is missing, some of the larger transactions can no longer be audited.

The auditing firm SMK identified a number of other problems in November 2019. Such was Mayday not only a non-profit Dutch foundation, but also had trade offices in Turkey and Dubai. There was no board of directors so that the administrators around Le Mesurier could set their own salaries, which in some cases amounted to 26,000 euros per month. These figures are above the approved salary cap for a subsidized organization in the Netherlands. In addition, Le Mesurier, his wife - also one of the administrators - and a third administrator paid out lavish cash bonuses in addition to their salaries. Le Mesurier's successor Cor Vrieswijk called the salaries "excessive" and at the same time stated: "But the donor countries knew about it and had given their approval."

activities

The organization provides humanitarian aid to the victims of the war. The German Foreign Office attributed the organization's involvement in the rescue of 90,000 victims and called the White Helmets a “symbol of hope and moral courage”. In addition, the members document their operations; this active public relations work in the social media and the press is cited by the Russian media as “proof of the propaganda function”. The organization emphasizes that it motivates donations by depicting the suffering of the civilian population.

Jean-Pierre Filiu wrote in October 2016 that the organization's centers around Aleppo had been systematically bombed by Russian fighter jets and that at least 141 helpers had been killed since 2013.

Awards

controversy

The East StratCom Task Force of the European External Action Service of the European Union , which is responsible for investigating and countering international disinformation campaigns , has documented numerous cases in which the White Helmets were the subject of false reports that served to discredit them. A “smear” and disinformation campaign with many false reports launched or spread was carried out by Russian state media such as RT or Sputnik , but also by the Russian Ministry of Defense and diplomatic missions abroad.

The white helmets wore cameras on their bodies during their rescue operations and "documented one thing above all: the brutality of the Assad regime and the Russians allied with it," which was the cause of both the Swiss news program Echo der Zeit and the Süddeutsche Zeitung in July 2018 called the violent reactions of the Syrian government. In turn, Russian sources came from “a large part of the videos that are distributed in a campaign on social media and discredit the White Helmets as Islamist terrorists.” In spring 2018 , the Russian state broadcaster Rossija 1 distributed recordings showing an (actual) film set and published corresponding Facebook posts, with the claim that it was a Hollywood production of White Helmets, with which Syria and Assad should be demonized. However, the images could actually be assigned to a film set of the Syrian state-sponsored film Revolution Man , which was directed by the speaker of the Syrian parliament.

Previously in 2016 a video of White Helmets was actually produced in Aleppo to take part in a social media challenge , for which the organization apologized. CNN wrote that Russian media had expressed doubts about other videos based on this video.

The British daily The Guardian wrote in 2017 that the controversy was being actively fueled by a campaign backed by Russia and that it was a case study for an information war . Previously unknown bloggers are from RT been interviewed as "experts" and a study which examined the tweets that were directed against the White Helmets, found 6,000 accounts that were noticed in other Russian campaigns, and some which a Russian directly Troll factory were assigned . Fictitious reports are said to have predominated in their sheer mass on Google, YouTube and Twitter, with accounts sending hundreds of tweets within a few hours.

James Le Mesurier , head of the training and support program for the White Helmets launched in 2013, was referred to in reports from Russian-controlled media as well as from other media as a “former intelligence officer” or “intelligence officer”. However, in a correction to an earlier article in August 2018 , the UK Guardian clarified that the former British Forces officer had an intelligence role only in 1999 as part of a year-long deployment on a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. Le Mesurier died on the morning of November 11, 2019 in Istanbul in front of his home. After a suspected fall from the balcony, he was found with broken legs and skull. Representatives of the White Helmets considered an accident impossible and suspected that “a state actor” was behind it.

Movie

Netflix released the short documentary film Die Weißhelme (The White Helmets) by director Orlando von Einsiedel on September 16, 2016 . At the 2017 Academy Awards , the film was awarded the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film.

In 2017, the documentary The Last Men of Aleppo was released at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was named “Best Documentary” in the World Cinema Documentary category. The film accompanies a group of young white helmets at work. The film was criticized, among other things, in the Frankfurter Rundschau , for the fact that the director Feras Fayyad was not on location during the shooting and that all the recordings were made by local journalists who were consistently close to the Syrian opposition. Fayyad complained that the Russian and Syrian “propaganda” were more interested in attacking the White Helmets than the other terrorist groups.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.syriacivildefence.org/en/who-we-are/an-introduction-to-the-white-helmets/
  2. ↑ James Le Mesurier. In: Crisis Response Journal , accessed on November 23, 2018.
  3. ↑ Maria Jan: "Q&A: Syria's White Helmets" In: Al Jazeera from August 21, 2015, accessed on November 23, 2018 (English).
  4. ↑ Our Work. Mayday Rescue website, accessed November 23, 2018.
  5. ↑ Areeb Ullah: 'We dream of justice,' says leader of Syrian White Helmets. In: Middle East Eye, July 13, 2016, accessed November 23, 2018.
  6. ↑ Somini Sengupta and Anne Barnard: Leader of Syria Rescue Group, Arriving in US for Award, Is Refused Entry. In: The New York Times of April 20, 2016, accessed November 23, 2018.
  7. ↑ Biography. Brief description of the organization on the Right Livelihood Award website , accessed on November 23, 2018.
  8. ^ Robin Wright: The White Helmets - Syria's Noble Rescuers - Have to Be Rescued by Israel. In: The New Yorker, July 23, 2018, accessed November 23, 2018.
  9. ↑ Syria calls the White Helmet Rescue "criminal action". In: Deutsche Welle . July 22, 2018, accessed July 23, 2018 .
  10. ^ Israel Evacuates Hundreds of Members of White Helmets Rescue Group From Syria. In: Haaretz . July 22, 2018, accessed on July 22, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Emma Graham-Harrison: Millions of Syrians at risk if Idlib truce fails, White Helmets warn. In: The Guardian of November 3, 2018, accessed November 23, 2018.
  12. ↑ Wladimir van Wilgenburg: Kurds say White Helmets not welcome to help fight fires in northeast Syria, Kurdistan 24, 14 June 2019 , last accessed on 16 November 2019 (English)
  13. ^ Richard Spencer: As the West drops demand for Assad to go, meet the group the UK funds to support his victims . In: Daily Telegraph , September 27, 2015. Retrieved September 22, 2016. 
  14. ↑ Interview with Syria Civil Defense: how the UK helps civilian search and rescue teams. UK Helps (on YouTube), October 30, 2014, accessed November 23, 2018 .
  15. ^ Providing non-humanitarian assistance in Syria . Foreign & Commonwealth Office. December 1, 2015. Accessed October 6, 2016.
  16. ^ Conflict, Stability and Security Fund . In: House of Lords Hansard . UK Parliament. November 2, 2016. Column 720. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  17. ↑ 2010 to 2015 government policy: peace and stability in the Middle East and North Africa - GOV.UK . Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  18. ^ Mark C. Toner: Daily Press Briefing - April 27, 2016 . United States Department of State. April 27, 2016. Archived from the original on December 4, 2016. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 22, 2016: "we provide, through USAID, about $ 23 million in assistance to them" @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.state.gov
  19. ↑ Justin Salhani: US Denies Entry To Syrian Aid Worker Who Came To Receive Humanitarian Award . ThinkProgress. April 20, 2016.
  20. ^ WHY USAID / OTI IS IN SYRIA. USAID, February 28, 2018, accessed May 7, 2018 .
  21. ↑ US freezes funding for Syria's “White Helmets” ". CBS Interactive Inc., May 3, 2018, accessed on May 7, 2018 (English).
  22. ↑ Qatar and Turkey step in - USA freeze payments to White Helmets. In: n-tv. n-tv Nachrichtenfernsehen GmbH, May 5, 2018, accessed on May 8, 2018 .
  23. ↑ Syria - USA support "White Helmets" again. Deutschlandfunk, accessed on June 17, 2018 .
  24. ^ Modification - Nobel Peace Prize nominees White Helmets to visit five Canadian cities . Government of Canada. December 6, 2016. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
  25. ^ The Government launches a new stabilization support package to Iraq and Syria . Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. October 18, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  26. ↑ Denmark donates DKK 20 million to Syria's 'White Helmets' . reliefweb. December 5, 2016. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  27. ↑ Susanne Knaul: Helpers in Southern Syria Distress: Israel saves 800 White Helmets. In: taz.de from July 22, 2018, accessed on November 23, 2018.
  28. ^ Train Urban Search and Rescue Teams . Analysis, Research and Knowledge. Archived from the original on January 18, 2016. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  29. ↑ Donors . Mayday Rescue. Archived from the original on June 27, 2017. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 22, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.maydayrescue.org
  30. ^ Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken: Dutch support for Syrian rescue workers ( en-GB ) Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  31. ↑ Janene Pieters: Netherlands to give € 4 million to Syria rescue workers . In: NL Times , November 22, 2016. Retrieved November 24, 2016. 
  32. ↑ Sam Sachdeva: NZ Fire Service to train Syria's 'White Helmets' civil defense volunteers . In: stuff , October 26, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2016. 
  33. ↑ The tragic everyday war life of the Syrian white helmets. Federal Foreign Office website of December 16, 2016, accessed on November 23, 2018.
  34. ↑ About The Syria Campaign , website of The Syria Campaign , accessed on November 23, 2018.
  35. ^ The White Helmets, website operated by The Syria Campaign (English and Arabic).
  36. ^ Janine di Giovanni: Why Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets. In: The New York Review of Books October 16, 2018, accessed November 23, 2018.
  37. ↑ Impact. The Syria Campaign website , accessed November 23, 2018.
  38. ↑ Our Partners . Syrian Civil Defense. Retrieved October 16, 2016.
  39. ^ Ana van Es, Anneke Stoffelen: Founder of Foundation behind White Helmets Admits Fraud. July 17, 2020, accessed on July 23, 2020 (nl-NL).
  40. ↑ The heroic work of the White Helmets of Aleppo. In: Der Tagesspiegel. 15th March 2017
  41. ↑ Our job is to save lives , SRF News, January 20, 2017.
  42. ^ The role of the White Helmets in Syria , mdr, February 22, 2018.
  43. ↑ White Helmets or Vladimir Putin? In: Der Tagesspiegel. 4th October 2016
  44. ↑ Alternative Nobel Prize for Syrian White Helmets. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . 22nd September 2016.
  45. ↑ tagesschau.de: Alternative Nobel Prize goes to “Weißhelme” and “Cumhuriyet”. In: tagesschau.de. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  46. ^ Disinformation Cases. In: EU vs Disinfo , accessed on November 23, 2018.
  47. ↑ Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts: Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-19-092364-8 , p. 244 “White Propaganda, Gray Propaganda and Useful Idiots”.
  48. ↑ Filth campaign against civilian rescuers in Syria continues. In: EU vs Disinfo , accessed November 23, 2018.
  49. ↑ Josie Ensor: Russian misinformation about 'imminent' White Helmets chemical attack could spell start of Idlib siege. In: The Telegraph. September 2, 2018, accessed November 23, 2018.
  50. ↑ a b Susanne Brunner: The White Helmets in Syria - Rescuers or Terrorists? In: srf.ch . July 23, 2018, accessed on November 11, 2019 (from echo of the time of the same day).
  51. ↑ a b Helpless helpers. In: sueddeutsche.de . July 30, 2018, accessed on November 11, 2019 : “They distribute photos and videos of air strikes or suspected chemical weapons attacks via the Internet. That is the main reason for the Russo-Syrian propaganda war against them. "
  52. ↑ Releasing the “Revolution Man” movie with a special display by Syriatel , media release by the sponsor Syriatel on the film produced by the Ministry of Culture
  53. ^ Propaganda in Syria: Between Fiction and Reality. In: tagesschau.de. Retrieved April 18, 2018 .
  54. ↑ Syria's White Helmets apologize for Mannequin Challenge video , CNN, November 25, 2016
  55. ↑ How Syria's White Helmets became victims of an online propaganda machine , Guardian, December 18, 2017; "The way the Russian propaganda machine has targeted the White Helmets is a neat case study in the prevailing information wars."
  56. ↑ Christoph Reuter: Disinformation as a weapon of war: Russia's perfidious campaign against the truth. In: Spiegel Online . December 21, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2018 .
  57. ↑ Jürgen Cain Külbel: Exclusive: A British secret service colonel as a connecting element between Skripal and Syria. In: RT Deutsch from April 17, 2018, accessed on November 23, 2018.
  58. ↑ Patrick Wintour: UK agrees to take in some White Helmets evacuated from Syria by Israel. In: The Guardian. July 22, 2018, correction of August 3, 2018, retrieved on November 23, 2018.
  59. ↑ Istanbul: Weisshelme founder perished. In: tagesschau.de . Retrieved November 11, 2019 .
  60. ↑ Fall from the balcony: Was Weisshelm founder Le Mesurier murdered? In: wp.de . November 11, 2019, accessed on November 11, 2019 (German).
  61. ↑ Netflix to Unveil Four Original Documentaries at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival
  62. ↑ Netflix: White Helmets / Official Trailer [HD] / Netflix. In: YouTube . YouTube, LLC, September 7, 2016, accessed July 22, 2018 .
  63. ↑ Netflix's 'The White Helmets' takes home the company's first Oscar win , CNN, February 27, 2017.
  64. ↑ The Last Men of Aleppo - Synopsis. Retrieved June 7, 2017 .
  65. ↑ The last men of Aleppo in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  66. ↑ TV review: “The Last Men of Aleppo”: The rescuers are also a party . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . ( fr.de [accessed on April 18, 2018]).
  67. ^ The story behind Russia's smear campaign against Syria's White Helmets. Businessinsider, March 13, 2018.