New Caritas Lebanon Chief: end Syrian conflict, help refugees now

(Vatican Radio) The new President of Caritas Lebanon has launched an appeal to the international community to work harder for the “common good,” seek an end to the conflict in Syria and do more to help millions of refugees who have fled to neighboring countries like Lebanon.

47 year old Fr. Paul Karam is no stranger to humanitarian and development issues. Formerly, he was national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Lebanon. Nonetheless, we asked him if he is at all daunted by the prospect of bringing aid to the more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees now in Lebanon.

Listen to Tracey McClure’s interview with Fr. Paul Karam:

“First of all, we are priests; we are the servants of the Gospel and the Word of God so I don’t have fear. I have confidence in God’s will,” says Karam. He considers his appointment by the Assembly of the Maronite Patriarch and bishops of Lebanon a vote of confidence in his ability to meet the challenges of his new job and expresses hope that he will be up to the task.

Karam admits the needs surrounding his new job are “very huge.” He notes Lebanon, a small nation of some four million, is struggling to absorb the Syrian refugees who have flooded across the border. He points out that Lebanon already hosts 500,000 Palestinian refugees in camps and some 300,000 foreign workers. The influx of Syrian refugees, he says, has posed existential social, political and humanitarian questions for Lebanon.

The number of refugees, he notes, equals almost one-third of Lebanon’s own population. “So how can the infrastructures absorb (them) at the economic level?” he wonders. “ These are very big problems for Lebanon. That’s why it is very urgent now, not tomorrow, and not after tomorrow, to see how we can resolve this problem.”

While Karam says the refugees are the responsibility of the Lebanese government, he stresses the government, on its own, cannot meet all their needs. Lebanese communities across the country, he adds, “until now” have done their best to make room for the refugees and welcome them, but they cannot continue to do it alone.

“It is the big, and the first responsibility of the international community,” he says, which should share a large part of the burden.

Asked if Russia’s controversial annexation of Crimea has taken attention away from the conflict in Syria, Fr. Paul shies away from the political, but suggests the world might be a better place if people put “common interests” before “personal interests.” He urges the international community to “transform its interests into true service to human kind with a focus on human rights.”

He admits building peace will not be easy – especially given the strong divisions between opposition groups fighting in Syria: “How can we build peace? By war or by negotiations?” Pressure, he says, must be put “on all those who are in power to go ahead and finish this conflict which affects not only Lebanon but also affects all the Middle East. But the one (country) who is paying (the highest price) is Lebanon.”

He appeals in particular, to powers like the U.S. and Russia to put greater pressure on all sides in the Syrian conflict to “go to a real peace process in order to avoid more casualties, more injured, more refugees, more destruction.”

“Let us build a peace process; let us build human rights, sovereignty; Let us build dignity and not build hate and wars,” he says.

Karam is concerned the violence in Syria has spilled over into Lebanon, raising tensions further between Sunnis, who support the Syrian opposition, and Shiites, who back Syrian President Bashar al Assad. The Shiite militant group Hezbollah has sent fighters to assist Assad’s troops in neighboring Syria.

In recent months, clashes have erupted in Lebanon between supporters of the two sides and a series of car bombs have targeted Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

“Let us believe in peace!” Karam affirms. “Let those who are in power in the international community say, ‘we need to build peace.’” And, he asks, “how can you find (huge sums of) money to give weapons and bombs (to each side in the Syrian conflict) and we don’t find, for example, money to feed people?”