As the bombardment of Homs continued in early December and casualties rose nationwide as a result of the Assad regime’s ongoing crimes against the Syrian people, Canada’s largest petroleum producer, Alberta-based Suncor Energy, quietly issued a press release stating that the corporation was finally leaving Syria “as a result of sanctions on Syria announced by the European Union.”

The Dec. 11 release, an otherwise dry financial statement that positioned the move as a business measure, failed to state that the oil giant -- known in Syria by the name Petro-Canada --could no longer operate in a nation that for the past year had escalated the scale and brutality of the violence it had inflicted on its citizens for decades. Rather, it repeated the same pithy concern for the safety and security of the Syrian people that had been its line throughout a year when the corporation was forced to respond directly to the human rights questions raised by grass roots activists here in Canada.

Indeed, it was significant that an email/phone campaign, combined with some scattered information pickets and modest media attention, forced Suncor’s PR department into high spin during the summer doldrums, producing YouTube puff pieces with platitudes about human rights and corporate responsibility, posting a special Syria page on their website, and trotting out their CEO to speak on CBC’s The Current.

“Suncor has a corporate responsibility to respect human rights and to ensure that we are not complicit in human rights abuses,” read a hastily prepared Aug. 2011 Suncor “Policy Statement” that also talked about “honoring the spirit of international human rights principles”

It is unclear, however, how Suncor could claim to operate in any universe governed by such principles with respect to Syria. Although Suncor left Libya soon after the crackdown on protests there, for almost all of 2011, the oil giant refused to leave Syria despite a mounting toll of detention, torture, and death, with well-publicized reports by the UN, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch that used the gravest of language to describe unfolding events: crimes against humanity.

Worse, still, it appeared that Suncor’s operations financially supported the Syrian regime.

According to Human Rights Watch, “Under Syrian law the government is the major shareholder in the oil and gas sector through its ownership of the Syrian National Gas and Syrian National Oil companies [now replaced by the General Petroleum Corporation (GPC)]. These two companies have a 50 percent share in every oil and gas project in Syria.”

In March 2010, the International Monetary Fund estimated that the Syrian government earns around €2.1 billion (about CND$3 billion) from oil and gas per year.

Given that 50 per cent of all profits from oil and gas operations in Syria are shared with the Syrian regime, it could be argued that Suncor/Petro-Canada’s continued presence there was a major vote of confidence in a regime inflicting torture and mass murder. This despite the company’s claim that “we need to consider our values and the social responsibility we have in operating in an area affected by conflict.”

Asked about the role that Suncor was playing in Syria’s brutal repression, CEO Richard L. George told CBC Radio on Aug.19: “We’re actually not connected to the Assad regime in any way. ... We operate with a partner in Syria, the General Petroleum Corporation, which is a state corporation.”

That state corporation reports directly to the Syrian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Sufian Allaw, and, in any event, there is no effective distance between state, regime and government in Syria.

In a response to a question posted on the Suncor website about whether the corporation was producing profits for the regime, Mr. George said no, but remarkably added: “The Syrian government actually pays us for cost recovery of our initial investment and for our share of the natural gas profits each month.”

The other share, to which he did not refer, was the GPC.

The partnership was also symbolized in a photo of Mr. George seated with former Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otri. A large portrait of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad -- omnipresent in Syria -- hangs over their heads.

More compromising still, an advertisement for Suncor and Petro-Canada featuring President Bashar al-Assad in a construction helmet talking to what appears to be a Petro-Canada technician could still be found on the pro-regime Syrian Oil and Gas News website a month after Suncor announced its pullout. Suncor does not appear to have publicly taken any steps to have it removed.

Earlier in the fall, when Canada announced sanctions that targeted the oil and gas sector, natural gas (the kind of plant operated by Suncor at its $1.2 billion Ebla facility) was not included. Speculation that Suncor, the largest tar sands producer and a natural ally of the Harper Conservatives, was the main reason that the exception could not be overlooked.

Those who wrote to Suncor received a standard reply that referenced their own FATQ (Frequently Asked Tough Questions), which repeatedly claimed the situation there was “complicated,” and that in addition to human rights concerns, there was “our original investment and contractual obligations.”

That Suncor could operate so long in Syria is not surprising. Just as the corporation appeared to look the other way while the dictatorship in Libya carried on its own torture, so it was silent when Canadians such as Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin, and Ahmad El Maati were being tortured in Damascus.

Suncor’s 2011 report on sustainability states that the company “recognizes that operating in politically sensitive jurisdictions can involve higher security, human rights and business risks. We continually review those risks and our efforts and ability to mitigate them.”  But it is not clear how any abuses were “mitigated” during Suncor’s lengthy stay.

In the meantime, while the energy giant has apparently left — it is unclear what will happen to the Ebla infrastructure and whether by some labyrinthine manner Suncor will continue to operate the facility via proxy – there remain other outstanding issues for Canadians concerned about the fate of the Syrian people as the repression intensifies.

While John Baird declares that Assad’s “disgusting brand of violence must stop and come to an end”, his government refuses to apologize for the torture inflicted on the Canadian citizens listed above, carried out via the relationship between Syrian Military Intelligence and Canada’s spy agencies, CSIS and the RCMP.

Indeed, given the close relationship between Canadian and Syrian spy agencies, serious questions arise: while sanctions are tightened, why has the Canadian government been silent on security agreements between the two nations, and why has CSIS not formally declared it will no longer deal with the regime in Damascus?

Has Canada’s spy agency, under the cover of “assisting” those Syrian Canadians who have been monitored and harassed by the Syrian embassy, actually been sharing information with the Syrian Military Intelligence which in turn is being used against family members back home?

Perhaps some of the popular pressure that led to Suncor’s exit from Syria may produce answers to these questions as well.

Ottawa based activist, Matthew Behrens, is the Coordinator of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada. ■