Syrian government expropriates land of citizens who left the country because of war

Desde el exilio por la guerra civil que ha arrasado el país, algunos agricultores sirios están asistiendo atónitos a la incautación de sus antiguas granjas familiares por parte del Gobierno sirio, que posteriormente procede a subastarlas. 

Since the civil war that has swept the country into exile, some Syrian farmers are witnessing in astonishment the seizure of their former family farms by the Syrian government, which then proceeds to auction them off. 

The local authorities in the north-west of the country, again in the hands of the government, are responsible for organising these auctions of fertile land. 

Salman, a Syrian refugee who left the Idlib region after an offensive by the Syrian government a year ago, and who now lives in Greece, expressed his discontent to the AFP agency: "What right does anyone have to come and take it? Hope of returning to his land was dashed when he learned that the rights to cultivate it had been sold to someone else. 

It was through a social media posting that he discovered the auction of his old farm. "This land was left to us by our ancestors and we want to pass it on to our children," said the 30-year-old refugee.  

Other farmers in regions such as Hama and Aleppo, which are adjacent to Idlib, also see with dismay from a distance how they will never be able to return to their land. Through the Facebook account of the Farmers' Union, which is close to the Al-Asad government, or of acquaintances who still live nearby, they sooner or later find out about the expropriation of their plots. 

According to the Union, the seizure is justified because the holders of the original deeds were in debt to the Syrian Agricultural Cooperative Bank (SACB), which offers loans to farmers. However, all the farmers who spoke to the AFP denied having any outstanding payments and claimed that "it is just an excuse".

With this action, Damascus' aim is to boost agricultural production in the midst of an economic crisis aggravated by the sanctions it faces, taking advantage of the fact that only 235,000 of the nearly one million people who left the northwest regions have returned, according to UN data. 

Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have condemned land auctions in former rebel strongholds. Diana Semaan, an NGO researcher in Syria, said the Syrian authorities were "violating international law". 

Judge Anwar Mejni, a legal expert from the NGO Al Yum al-Tali and a member of a constitutional committee sponsored by the United Nations in the framework of negotiations for an agreed solution to the war, has also denounced these "illegal" procedures. 

He considers that "it is a violation of the right to exploitation" and that it is a matter of "reprisals against Syrians who have left their regions", in short, "a revenge against the opposition". According to the judge, if the Bank of Agricultural Credit really did organise the auctions to settle debts, they should have been supervised by the courts because "there are laws that regulate these situations".

Another farmer, Abu Adel, left Hama in 2012 when the battles in the area intensified, although he continued to visit his land sporadically until the Syrian government regained control. He hired several people to look after them, but they were eventually auctioned off to a member of the local security committee. 

This was similar to the case of Amir, a 38-year-old man living in Aleppo, whose land was given to relatives of an intelligence service member. It was no use asking a neighbour to bid on his behalf as he refused to do so out of fear.

The property law decreed by the Al-Asad government in 2018 was the starting point for these arbitrary expropriations that seek to condemn opponents to exile and leave cities and towns where they were once the majority in the hands of Damascus loyalists. 

The law stipulated a period of 30 days from 11 April 2018 to present the deeds to the properties to the municipal offices or, failing that, a relative to do so. This is complicated by the fact that due to the war these papers have been lost or destroyed. Once the deadline had passed, the state proceeded to confiscate and auction the properties. 

Many Syrians could not and could not return to their country or did not want to for fear of reprisals. Even if the deeds were presented to the municipal office, they had to be approved by security officials. This was a danger to those who did not take communion with Al Assad. 

The law was enacted after the reconquest of East Guta, a rebel stronghold on the outskirts of Damascus, and is inspired by a similar law implemented in Lebanon after the civil war.