Sir, – Your editorial "Russian atrocities in Ukraine: Bucha must be a turning point" (April 5th) crystallised the huge moral question facing the EU and Ireland: "If the evidence of apparent war crimes committed in Ukraine is not sufficient to justify the harshest possible measures, including a block on Russian gas and an EU embargo on oil and coal exports, what is?"
Even more importantly you drew attention to the fact that we ignored Vladimir Putin’s equally egregious crimes in Syria and Chechnya, though I would argue the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria gave the Russian leader the confidence to believe he could get away with literally anything in Ukraine.
This is because we spent three years making the feature documentary Bringing Assad to Justice researching some of the most horrific crimes committed against civilians in Syria by President Bashar al-Assad with President Putin to ensure the former held on to onto power and violated every norm of civilisation. The Russian leader saw clearly that Assad held on to power through torture prisons and massacres and the unimaginable cruelty involved in that from of governance drew nothing but a pathetic response from the EU and US.
Leading Syrian human rights lawyers like Anwar al-Bunni and Mazen Darwish, who were themselves tortured brutally and imprisoned by Assad, told me their pursuit of accountability was not just about Syria. Watching the same savagery visited daily on Ukraine that was inflicted on the Syrian people for the last 11 years it is very painfully clear if accountability was pursued in Syria the horror being inflicted on Ukrainians could have been averted. After years of hard work by these amazing Syrian human rights defenders it is possible to deter atrocities and influence the calculations of Russian commanders, who gained their experience committing atrocities in Syria, by showing them there will be accountability for crimes in Ukraine by pursuing accountability in Syria now, given “more evidence than the Allies had at Nuremberg”. – Yours, etc,
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RONAN TYNAN,
Director,
Bringing Assad to Justice,
Esperanza Productions,
East Wall,
Dublin 3.
Sir, – I have heard for weeks now the words “war in Ukraine” but it is more telling to say “war on Ukraine” and indeed war on the people of Ukraine. Perhaps it will help in clearly focusing on the perpetrators of the war: Putin and Russia. – Yours, etc,
AIDAN RODDY,
Cabinteely,
Co Dublin.