Some article about how rebel held areas are governed:
U.S. weapons reaching Syrian rebels: about Mark S. Ward, the State Department’s senior adviser on assistance to Syria, who coordinates nonlethal aid to rebels from southern Turkey. Ward’s team — working primarily out of hotel lobbies — has spent the past few months studying the demographics and dynamics of communities where extremists are making inroads. Targeted U.S. aid, he said, can be used to empower emerging local leaders who are moderate and to jump-start basic services while dimming the appeal of extremists.
See also The Delivery Man
How Syria's mould-breaking al-Nusra Front is winning hearts and minds. Guardian. 10 July 2013. About Al Nusra rule in Shadadi near Hassaka - a region rich in oil an grain.
Special Report: How Syria's Islamists govern with guile and guns Reuters, 20 June 2013
Aiding Opposition Civilian Authority in Syria; Small Wars Journal, 7 June 2013
Hassan Hassan, “All (Syrian) Politics Is Local,” ForeignPolicy.com, 20 December 2012
Karin Laub, “Syrian Rebels Struggle to Run Broke Town,” Associated Press, 17 December 2012.
Aleppo’s Winter of Discontent,” BBC News, 12 December 2012.
Ben Hubbard, “Syrian Rebels, Civilians Brace for Long Civil War,” Associated Press, 27 November 2012.
Kristin Chick, “In Rebel-Held Aleppo, Syrian Civilians Try to Impose Law Through Courts, Not Guns,” Christian Science Monitor, 3 November 2012.
Ilhan Tanir, “In the Land of the Free Syrian Army,” Sada, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 4 October 2012
The Manbij Experiment: Rebels Make a Go of Governing in Liberated City; Spiegel, 2 October 2012.
Anand Gopal, “Welcome to Free Syria,” Harper’s Magazine, August 2012.
Erika Solomon, “Aleppo Residents Have Mixed Reactions to Syria Rebels,” Reuters, 31 July 2012.
Jane Ferguson, “Inside Homs with the Free Syrian Army,” Al Jazeera, 8 February 2012.
Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Friday, May 03, 2013
The stupid chemical weapons red line for Syria
John Mueller has written an article (Erase the Red Line: Why We Shouldn't Care About Syria's Chemical Weapons) in which he discusses how (not) dangerous chemical weapons really are.
As it happened, chemical weapons accounted for considerably less than one percent of the battle deaths in the [World War I], and, on average, it took over a ton of gas to produce a single fatality. Only about two or three percent of those gassed on the Western front died. However, the British government initially exaggerated its deadliness as that proved to be a good argument to draw the US into the war.
The article also discusses Halabja. It mentions that the people visiting the city after the gas attack saw only a few hundred dead. The number of 5000 that is commonly used comes from Iranian sources and very likely includes victims from attacks with conventional weapons at the same time.
The effectiveness of poison gasses as a weapon is low: According to Iranian reports, of the 27,000 Iranians gassed through March 1987, only 262 died.. After World War I some considered it even a humane weapon as it incapacitated so many soldiers while killing so few.
The term "weapons of mass destruction" comes from an American law from 1992 (expanded in 1994) that gives a very broad definition of the term that even includes some explosives.
Postscript:
Hacked e-mails reveal 'Washington approved' plan to stage Syria chemical attack: the article talks about a hacked email account of the British private defense contractor Britam Defence. According to the article there was an offer from Qatar - that claimed to have US approval - to stage a chemical weapon incident in Syria with chemical arms from Libya. Qatar would offer lots of cash for it. Britam later forced the Daily Mail to publish that it accepted the mail (retracting a prior article) to be a fraud and to pay a damage. The mail is supposed to be a changed version of a real email.
Turkey finds sarin gas in homes of suspected Syrian Islamists – reports. Later Turkey claimed that it was antifreeze. But why would they transport antifreeze in spring?
6 December 2012: Shock Video Shows ‘Syrian Rebels’ Testing Chemical Weapons: This video claims to show rebels testing chemicals arms on rabbits.
9 December 2012: Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons:
February 2013: Syria, the Saudi connection: The Prince with close ties to Washington at the heart of the push for war: It was Prince Bandar’s intelligence agency that first alerted Western allies to the alleged use of sarin gas by the Syrian regime in February.
19 March 2013: This is the date of the Khan al-Asal attack, extensively discussed by Global Research. Carla del Ponte later concluded the attack was most likely by the rebels. Indications were that it likely was done with an improvised missile and that the sarin seemed home-made. In July Russia provided the OPCW with a 100 page report to support its claim that the rebels did it. The first US reaction was denial.
20 March 2013: Syrian Rebels Caught on Tape Discussing Chemical Weapons Attack: An alleged audio recording of a phone conversation between two members of the Free Syrian Army contains details of a plan to carry out a chemical weapons attack capable of impacting an area the size of one kilometer.
24 March 2013: Jihadists, not Assad, apparently behind reported chemical attack in Syria: Intelligence reports suggest jihadists among the Syria rebels have technical know-how to produce chemical warheads.
24 May 2013: Russian journalists have proof Syrian insurgents used chemical weapons: Russian journalists who were on assignment in Syria have handed the United Nation Secretariat videos showing chemical weapons attacks allegedly committed by opposition fighters in the vicinity of Aleppo on March 19. This was confirmed by the spokesman for the Deputy Secretary General Farhan Haq.
Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_05_24/Russian-journalists-have-proof-Syrian-insurgents-used-chemical-weapons-089/
27 May 2013: Chemical warfare in Syria: this is a much quoted article of some French journalists who were embedded with the rebel fighters for some time and say they witnessed use of chemical arms by the government.
31 May 2013: Reports claim Al Nusrah Front members in Turkey were planning sarin gas attacks
2 June 2013: Iraq claims foiling al-Qaeda nerve-gas plot: Ministry says cell working for group planned attacks with remote-controlled planes in Iraq, Europe and North America.. See also the Iraq uncovers al-Qaeda 'chemical weapons plot'
14 June 2013: U.S. Is Said to Plan to Send Weapons to Syrian Rebels: Mr. Rhodes said there was no reason to think that the resistance has access to chemical weapons. “We believe that the Assad regime maintains control of these weapons,” he said. According to a C.I.A. report, which was described by an American official who declined to be identified, the United States has acquired blood, urine and hair samples from two Syrian rebels — one dead and one wounded — who were in a firefight with Syrian government forces in mid-March northeast of Damascus. The samples showed that the rebels were exposed to sarin..
17 June 2013: Analyst: Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria now best-equipped of the group: With the growing strength and support for al-Nusra, U.S. concerns are growing about its influence to further destabilize Syria and potentially pose a greater regional threat, administration officials have told CNN. "They are making desperate attempts to get chemical weapons," the analyst told CNN, noting that in the past few weeks, security services in Iraq and Turkey arrested operatives who were "trying to get their hands on sarin."
17 June 2013: Groundwork for arming Syrian rebels began before Obama’s announcement: several weeks before the announcement there were already signs on the ground in Jordan that the US was going to arm the rebels.
20 June 2013: In Syrian chemical weapons claim, criticism about lack of transparency: Jean Pascal Zanders, who until recently was a research fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, said he has scoured the Internet for photographs, video and news reports documenting alleged nerve agent attacks in Syria. What he has seen has made him a skeptic. Few of the photographs, Zanders said, have borne the trademark symptoms of a chemical weapons attack. In a paper he presented last week to the E.U. Non-Proliferation Consortium, he compared photographs documenting Iraq’s 1998 chemical weapons attack against Kurds in the town of Halabja. The Halabja victims appeared to have died instantaneously from chemical agents, he said, and their bodies showed telltale signs of exposure to sarin: blue lips and fingertips caused by suffocation and a pink hue brought on by excessive sweating and high blood pressure. “No press reports from Syria refer to those descriptions, which is one of the reasons why I am skeptical about those reports,” he said.
10 July 2013: Russia says it has evidence that Syrian rebels used sarin gas in deadly attack: He says the inquiry has established that the rebels fired a missile containing the nerve agent sarin at the town of Khan al-Assal. The attack killed 26 people including 16 regime troops. "The results of the analysis clearly indicate that the ordnance used in Khan al-Assal was not industrially manufactured and was filled with sarin," Mr Churkin said. See also Russia Says Syrian Rebels Used Sarin Gas
16 July 2013: Syrian rebels' Damascus chemical cache found by Assad army - State TV: a rather vague story that doesn't provide more identification than that the found chemicals are "corrosive".
22 July 2013: The rebels overran Al-Assal and murdered 123 Syrians. According to some the aim was to eliminate witnesses of the chemical attack.
26 July 2013: Iraqi security shuts down al-Qaeda chemical weapons plants: Security services shut down two plants, "one in Baghdad and the other in an area near the capital," and confiscated chemicals and the equipment used to manufacture them, the ministry said.
[]
The cell had reached an advanced stage in the manufacture of extremely dangerous chemical weapons – sarin, mustard and VX nerve gases -- as well as a highly toxic, incendiary chemical liquid, al-Askari told Mawtani.
26 August 2013: Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran
29 August 2013: Verify chemical weapons use before unleashing the dogs of war: According to the doctored report, the chemical attack was carried out by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother. However, the original communication intercepted by Unit 8200 between a major in command of the rocket troops assigned to the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division, and the general staff, shows just the opposite. The general staff officer asked the major if he was responsible for the chemical weapons attack. From the tone of the conversation, it was clear that “the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions,” the former officers say. According to the transcript of the original Unit 8200 report, the major “hotly denied firing any of his missiles” and invited the general staff to come and verify that all his weapons were present. The report contains a note at the end that the major was interrogated by Syrian intelligence for three days, then returned to command of his unit. “All of his weapons were accounted for,” the report stated.
3 September 2013: Syria Defector 'Exposes Assad Chemical Attack': Abdeltawwab Shahrour, head of the forensic medicine committee in Aleppo, claims there was a chemical attack in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, on March 19, said Istanbul-based opposition coalition spokeswoman Sarah Karkour. Mr Shahrour, who has defected to Turkey, has documents proving the attack took place and eyewitness accounts from police authorities that contradicte the administration's version of events, a second opposition official said. Dr Shahrour was expected to reveal the details of the attack during a press conference in Turkey but Syrian National Council spokesperson Khaled Saleh said he was unable to appear due to "security concerns". Mr Saleh added that the national council has received information in the last few days that three government convoys were carrying chemical weapons and one had reached a military airport. He said: "We have serious concerns based on the information that we have received from sources inside the Assad army who are sympathetic to the revolution that Assad might be considering using those chemical weapons against innocent civilians."
7 September 2013: On Syria Vote, Trust, but Verify. This is an Op-Ed article written by a member of Congress: THE documentary record regarding an attack on Syria consists of just two papers: a four-page unclassified summary and a 12-page classified summary. [..] In fact, even gaining access to just the classified summary involves a series of unreasonably high hurdles. We have to descend into the bowels of the Capitol Visitors Center, to a room four levels underground. Per the instructions of the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, note-taking is not allowed. Once we leave, we are not permitted to discuss the classified summary with the public, the media, our constituents or even other members. Nor are we allowed to do anything to verify the validity of the information that has been provided. And this is just the classified summary. It is my understanding that the House Intelligence Committee made a formal request for the underlying intelligence reports several days ago. I haven’t heard an answer yet. And frankly, I don’t expect one.
7 September 2013: First on CNN: Videos show glimpse into evidence for Syria intervention: Obama is now showing Congress in closed sessions some videos. Those as shown here. The CIA should have verified them.
7 September 2013: Obama’s Battle for Syria Votes, Taut and Uphill: On the day the president is speaking, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee plans to blanket Capitol Hill with 250 advocates, having already contacted dozens of lawmakers to urge them to support a strike. The advocates will carry a simple message, according to a person involved in the effort: Syria is a proxy for Iran, and the failure to enforce Mr. Obama’s “red line” against the use of chemical weapons by Mr. Assad will be interpreted in Tehran as a sign that he will not enforce a red line against the production of nuclear weapons by the Iranian government. Israel itself is staying out of what it regards as a domestic American political debate. But Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said he was telling any lawmaker who expressed fears that Syria would attack Israel in retaliation for an American missile strike: “Don’t worry about us. We can defend ourselves.”
1 September 2013: Unwieldy For Weapons Use In Syria, Sarin Is A Bogeyman: article by Yoichi Shimatsu who previously reported about the sarin attack in the Tokyo subway. He claims it was not sarin but mustard gas. He believes sarin is much too deadly to have been used either in Tokyo or in Syria. The detected sarin traces are according to him more likely other organophosphates that are used as agricultural chemicals. If farmers have such materials, why shouldn't they use them in a war?
***********************************************************
4 November 2011: Libyan chemical weapons stockpile intact: inspectors: Libya had many chemical weapons and not all had been declared with the UN. Some may have been shipped to Syria.
The Chemical Weapons Convention dates from 1993. 189 countries have ratified it. Syria did not sign this treaty.
The Chemical Weapons Treaty of 1925 (a.k.a. Geneva Protocol) forbids the use of chemical weapons in war. It does not forbid it in civil war or when the other side uses it. Syria signed this treaty.
As it happened, chemical weapons accounted for considerably less than one percent of the battle deaths in the [World War I], and, on average, it took over a ton of gas to produce a single fatality. Only about two or three percent of those gassed on the Western front died. However, the British government initially exaggerated its deadliness as that proved to be a good argument to draw the US into the war.
The article also discusses Halabja. It mentions that the people visiting the city after the gas attack saw only a few hundred dead. The number of 5000 that is commonly used comes from Iranian sources and very likely includes victims from attacks with conventional weapons at the same time.
The effectiveness of poison gasses as a weapon is low: According to Iranian reports, of the 27,000 Iranians gassed through March 1987, only 262 died.. After World War I some considered it even a humane weapon as it incapacitated so many soldiers while killing so few.
The term "weapons of mass destruction" comes from an American law from 1992 (expanded in 1994) that gives a very broad definition of the term that even includes some explosives.
Postscript:
Hacked e-mails reveal 'Washington approved' plan to stage Syria chemical attack: the article talks about a hacked email account of the British private defense contractor Britam Defence. According to the article there was an offer from Qatar - that claimed to have US approval - to stage a chemical weapon incident in Syria with chemical arms from Libya. Qatar would offer lots of cash for it. Britam later forced the Daily Mail to publish that it accepted the mail (retracting a prior article) to be a fraud and to pay a damage. The mail is supposed to be a changed version of a real email.
Turkey finds sarin gas in homes of suspected Syrian Islamists – reports. Later Turkey claimed that it was antifreeze. But why would they transport antifreeze in spring?
6 December 2012: Shock Video Shows ‘Syrian Rebels’ Testing Chemical Weapons: This video claims to show rebels testing chemicals arms on rabbits.
9 December 2012: Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons:
February 2013: Syria, the Saudi connection: The Prince with close ties to Washington at the heart of the push for war: It was Prince Bandar’s intelligence agency that first alerted Western allies to the alleged use of sarin gas by the Syrian regime in February.
19 March 2013: This is the date of the Khan al-Asal attack, extensively discussed by Global Research. Carla del Ponte later concluded the attack was most likely by the rebels. Indications were that it likely was done with an improvised missile and that the sarin seemed home-made. In July Russia provided the OPCW with a 100 page report to support its claim that the rebels did it. The first US reaction was denial.
20 March 2013: Syrian Rebels Caught on Tape Discussing Chemical Weapons Attack: An alleged audio recording of a phone conversation between two members of the Free Syrian Army contains details of a plan to carry out a chemical weapons attack capable of impacting an area the size of one kilometer.
24 March 2013: Jihadists, not Assad, apparently behind reported chemical attack in Syria: Intelligence reports suggest jihadists among the Syria rebels have technical know-how to produce chemical warheads.
24 May 2013: Russian journalists have proof Syrian insurgents used chemical weapons: Russian journalists who were on assignment in Syria have handed the United Nation Secretariat videos showing chemical weapons attacks allegedly committed by opposition fighters in the vicinity of Aleppo on March 19. This was confirmed by the spokesman for the Deputy Secretary General Farhan Haq.
Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_05_24/Russian-journalists-have-proof-Syrian-insurgents-used-chemical-weapons-089/
27 May 2013: Chemical warfare in Syria: this is a much quoted article of some French journalists who were embedded with the rebel fighters for some time and say they witnessed use of chemical arms by the government.
31 May 2013: Reports claim Al Nusrah Front members in Turkey were planning sarin gas attacks
2 June 2013: Iraq claims foiling al-Qaeda nerve-gas plot: Ministry says cell working for group planned attacks with remote-controlled planes in Iraq, Europe and North America.. See also the Iraq uncovers al-Qaeda 'chemical weapons plot'
14 June 2013: U.S. Is Said to Plan to Send Weapons to Syrian Rebels: Mr. Rhodes said there was no reason to think that the resistance has access to chemical weapons. “We believe that the Assad regime maintains control of these weapons,” he said. According to a C.I.A. report, which was described by an American official who declined to be identified, the United States has acquired blood, urine and hair samples from two Syrian rebels — one dead and one wounded — who were in a firefight with Syrian government forces in mid-March northeast of Damascus. The samples showed that the rebels were exposed to sarin..
17 June 2013: Analyst: Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria now best-equipped of the group: With the growing strength and support for al-Nusra, U.S. concerns are growing about its influence to further destabilize Syria and potentially pose a greater regional threat, administration officials have told CNN. "They are making desperate attempts to get chemical weapons," the analyst told CNN, noting that in the past few weeks, security services in Iraq and Turkey arrested operatives who were "trying to get their hands on sarin."
17 June 2013: Groundwork for arming Syrian rebels began before Obama’s announcement: several weeks before the announcement there were already signs on the ground in Jordan that the US was going to arm the rebels.
20 June 2013: In Syrian chemical weapons claim, criticism about lack of transparency: Jean Pascal Zanders, who until recently was a research fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, said he has scoured the Internet for photographs, video and news reports documenting alleged nerve agent attacks in Syria. What he has seen has made him a skeptic. Few of the photographs, Zanders said, have borne the trademark symptoms of a chemical weapons attack. In a paper he presented last week to the E.U. Non-Proliferation Consortium, he compared photographs documenting Iraq’s 1998 chemical weapons attack against Kurds in the town of Halabja. The Halabja victims appeared to have died instantaneously from chemical agents, he said, and their bodies showed telltale signs of exposure to sarin: blue lips and fingertips caused by suffocation and a pink hue brought on by excessive sweating and high blood pressure. “No press reports from Syria refer to those descriptions, which is one of the reasons why I am skeptical about those reports,” he said.
10 July 2013: Russia says it has evidence that Syrian rebels used sarin gas in deadly attack: He says the inquiry has established that the rebels fired a missile containing the nerve agent sarin at the town of Khan al-Assal. The attack killed 26 people including 16 regime troops. "The results of the analysis clearly indicate that the ordnance used in Khan al-Assal was not industrially manufactured and was filled with sarin," Mr Churkin said. See also Russia Says Syrian Rebels Used Sarin Gas
16 July 2013: Syrian rebels' Damascus chemical cache found by Assad army - State TV: a rather vague story that doesn't provide more identification than that the found chemicals are "corrosive".
22 July 2013: The rebels overran Al-Assal and murdered 123 Syrians. According to some the aim was to eliminate witnesses of the chemical attack.
26 July 2013: Iraqi security shuts down al-Qaeda chemical weapons plants: Security services shut down two plants, "one in Baghdad and the other in an area near the capital," and confiscated chemicals and the equipment used to manufacture them, the ministry said.
[]
The cell had reached an advanced stage in the manufacture of extremely dangerous chemical weapons – sarin, mustard and VX nerve gases -- as well as a highly toxic, incendiary chemical liquid, al-Askari told Mawtani.
26 August 2013: Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran
29 August 2013: Verify chemical weapons use before unleashing the dogs of war: According to the doctored report, the chemical attack was carried out by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother. However, the original communication intercepted by Unit 8200 between a major in command of the rocket troops assigned to the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division, and the general staff, shows just the opposite. The general staff officer asked the major if he was responsible for the chemical weapons attack. From the tone of the conversation, it was clear that “the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions,” the former officers say. According to the transcript of the original Unit 8200 report, the major “hotly denied firing any of his missiles” and invited the general staff to come and verify that all his weapons were present. The report contains a note at the end that the major was interrogated by Syrian intelligence for three days, then returned to command of his unit. “All of his weapons were accounted for,” the report stated.
3 September 2013: Syria Defector 'Exposes Assad Chemical Attack': Abdeltawwab Shahrour, head of the forensic medicine committee in Aleppo, claims there was a chemical attack in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, on March 19, said Istanbul-based opposition coalition spokeswoman Sarah Karkour. Mr Shahrour, who has defected to Turkey, has documents proving the attack took place and eyewitness accounts from police authorities that contradicte the administration's version of events, a second opposition official said. Dr Shahrour was expected to reveal the details of the attack during a press conference in Turkey but Syrian National Council spokesperson Khaled Saleh said he was unable to appear due to "security concerns". Mr Saleh added that the national council has received information in the last few days that three government convoys were carrying chemical weapons and one had reached a military airport. He said: "We have serious concerns based on the information that we have received from sources inside the Assad army who are sympathetic to the revolution that Assad might be considering using those chemical weapons against innocent civilians."
7 September 2013: On Syria Vote, Trust, but Verify. This is an Op-Ed article written by a member of Congress: THE documentary record regarding an attack on Syria consists of just two papers: a four-page unclassified summary and a 12-page classified summary. [..] In fact, even gaining access to just the classified summary involves a series of unreasonably high hurdles. We have to descend into the bowels of the Capitol Visitors Center, to a room four levels underground. Per the instructions of the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, note-taking is not allowed. Once we leave, we are not permitted to discuss the classified summary with the public, the media, our constituents or even other members. Nor are we allowed to do anything to verify the validity of the information that has been provided. And this is just the classified summary. It is my understanding that the House Intelligence Committee made a formal request for the underlying intelligence reports several days ago. I haven’t heard an answer yet. And frankly, I don’t expect one.
7 September 2013: First on CNN: Videos show glimpse into evidence for Syria intervention: Obama is now showing Congress in closed sessions some videos. Those as shown here. The CIA should have verified them.
7 September 2013: Obama’s Battle for Syria Votes, Taut and Uphill: On the day the president is speaking, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee plans to blanket Capitol Hill with 250 advocates, having already contacted dozens of lawmakers to urge them to support a strike. The advocates will carry a simple message, according to a person involved in the effort: Syria is a proxy for Iran, and the failure to enforce Mr. Obama’s “red line” against the use of chemical weapons by Mr. Assad will be interpreted in Tehran as a sign that he will not enforce a red line against the production of nuclear weapons by the Iranian government. Israel itself is staying out of what it regards as a domestic American political debate. But Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said he was telling any lawmaker who expressed fears that Syria would attack Israel in retaliation for an American missile strike: “Don’t worry about us. We can defend ourselves.”
1 September 2013: Unwieldy For Weapons Use In Syria, Sarin Is A Bogeyman: article by Yoichi Shimatsu who previously reported about the sarin attack in the Tokyo subway. He claims it was not sarin but mustard gas. He believes sarin is much too deadly to have been used either in Tokyo or in Syria. The detected sarin traces are according to him more likely other organophosphates that are used as agricultural chemicals. If farmers have such materials, why shouldn't they use them in a war?
***********************************************************
4 November 2011: Libyan chemical weapons stockpile intact: inspectors: Libya had many chemical weapons and not all had been declared with the UN. Some may have been shipped to Syria.
The Chemical Weapons Convention dates from 1993. 189 countries have ratified it. Syria did not sign this treaty.
The Chemical Weapons Treaty of 1925 (a.k.a. Geneva Protocol) forbids the use of chemical weapons in war. It does not forbid it in civil war or when the other side uses it. Syria signed this treaty.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Dealing with Al-Nusra
The designation of Jabhat Al-Nusra as a terrorist organization by the US doesn't convince me. The Obama administration had known for a long time what kind of guys these are and they had done nothing. Recent news reports in which Al-Nusra openly showed off its Al Qaeda ancestry left Obama no choice. Another reason may have been some agreement with Russia about solving Syria. But it is only an empty show. There will be no pressure on the Gulf States and Turkey to isolate Al-Nusra and it is not unlikely that in a later stage Al-Nusra will be rehabilitated - as happened with the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq. The US was also happy to support former members of Al Qaeda related LIFG in the Libyan uprising.
It looks like militarily there is no real alternative for Al-Nusra. The FSA has never become the centralized command that it was supposed to be and with the recent military successes its associated militias are increasingly inundated with opportunists and outright criminals. The consequence is increasing misbehavior and corruption. As a consequence its popularity with the population is sinking.
So a military victory for the rebels looks unlikely without the contribution of Al-Nusra. Thanks to that and to the presence of a multitude of other Jihadi rebel organizations many rebel fighters in Syria have condemned their designation by the US as a terrorist organization.
It seems unlikely that the rebel supporters in Washington, Ankara, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are prepared to give up on the rebels because of Al-Nusra. If they might isolate Al-Nusra anyway - because popular indignation in the West became too high - they would likely appoint another of the many Jihadi rebel organizations in Syria to take over its functions.
In the mean time Al-Nusra has recognized that it has an image problem and is trying to improve that. Until recently its fighters lived isolated from the population in training camps, tried to limit contact with the outside world and refused interviews. Now they have given their first interview and in that interview the downplayed their connections with Al Qaeda - that they had previously flaunted. They are also getting more involved with their surroundings - a.o. organizing food distribution.
Yet Al-Nusra bodes ill for the future of Syria. Unlike what many Syrian rebels like to believe Jihadi's don't believe in democracy and tend to be serious about establishing an Islamist state. And they won't have any qualms about blowing up moderate Sunni politicians when they think it might further their case.
In the mean time the Jihadi's keep expanding and their next target may be Lebanon.
This article in Spiegel claims that Al-Nusra doesn't exist as a central organization. Al Nusra first became public with some bomb attacks in Damascus that some claimed were done by Assad supporters to turn the population against the rebels. According to the article some local rebel cells have taken up this name to radiate strength. It seems to more probable that the journalist has fallen for some rebel propaganda that tries to counter the damage of the terrorist designation. The rest of the article looks at the situation in Syria with a very rosy look of the rebels.
Quilliam Foundation has published a study about Al-Nusra: Jabhat al-Nusra: A Strategic Briefing. Here is a summary. Quilliam is a counter-extremism think tank, founded by former ideologues of UK-based extremist Islamist organizations.
Some reporting about Al Nusra in After Assad, is strict Islamic rule ahead for Syria?: One former member, Abu Osama, said he left the group after it tried to get him to sign an oath pledging to fight with the group anywhere in the world. [..] The group, which forbids tobacco use, has also been known to pull cigarettes out of the mouths of smokers going through their checkpoints.
Here is a BBC interview with an Al Nusra member and some related reporting.
According to Syria Deeply: Analysts say Jabhat al Nusra’s success in battle comes from having experienced fighters. Activists tell Syria Deeply that up to 20% of the group’s ranks are foreign fighters, coming from Libya, Iraq, and other Arab countries.
It looks like militarily there is no real alternative for Al-Nusra. The FSA has never become the centralized command that it was supposed to be and with the recent military successes its associated militias are increasingly inundated with opportunists and outright criminals. The consequence is increasing misbehavior and corruption. As a consequence its popularity with the population is sinking.
So a military victory for the rebels looks unlikely without the contribution of Al-Nusra. Thanks to that and to the presence of a multitude of other Jihadi rebel organizations many rebel fighters in Syria have condemned their designation by the US as a terrorist organization.
It seems unlikely that the rebel supporters in Washington, Ankara, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are prepared to give up on the rebels because of Al-Nusra. If they might isolate Al-Nusra anyway - because popular indignation in the West became too high - they would likely appoint another of the many Jihadi rebel organizations in Syria to take over its functions.
In the mean time Al-Nusra has recognized that it has an image problem and is trying to improve that. Until recently its fighters lived isolated from the population in training camps, tried to limit contact with the outside world and refused interviews. Now they have given their first interview and in that interview the downplayed their connections with Al Qaeda - that they had previously flaunted. They are also getting more involved with their surroundings - a.o. organizing food distribution.
Yet Al-Nusra bodes ill for the future of Syria. Unlike what many Syrian rebels like to believe Jihadi's don't believe in democracy and tend to be serious about establishing an Islamist state. And they won't have any qualms about blowing up moderate Sunni politicians when they think it might further their case.
In the mean time the Jihadi's keep expanding and their next target may be Lebanon.
This article in Spiegel claims that Al-Nusra doesn't exist as a central organization. Al Nusra first became public with some bomb attacks in Damascus that some claimed were done by Assad supporters to turn the population against the rebels. According to the article some local rebel cells have taken up this name to radiate strength. It seems to more probable that the journalist has fallen for some rebel propaganda that tries to counter the damage of the terrorist designation. The rest of the article looks at the situation in Syria with a very rosy look of the rebels.
Quilliam Foundation has published a study about Al-Nusra: Jabhat al-Nusra: A Strategic Briefing. Here is a summary. Quilliam is a counter-extremism think tank, founded by former ideologues of UK-based extremist Islamist organizations.
Some reporting about Al Nusra in After Assad, is strict Islamic rule ahead for Syria?: One former member, Abu Osama, said he left the group after it tried to get him to sign an oath pledging to fight with the group anywhere in the world. [..] The group, which forbids tobacco use, has also been known to pull cigarettes out of the mouths of smokers going through their checkpoints.
Here is a BBC interview with an Al Nusra member and some related reporting.
According to Syria Deeply: Analysts say Jabhat al Nusra’s success in battle comes from having experienced fighters. Activists tell Syria Deeply that up to 20% of the group’s ranks are foreign fighters, coming from Libya, Iraq, and other Arab countries.
Monday, June 04, 2012
Are the Christians in Homs persecuted?
There are strongly conflicting reports on the Internet about the fate of the Christians in Homs. It is clear that many have left, specially in last February and March. But reports differ on now many and how they left.
On the numbers the figures differs quite a lot. Some report that Homs once contained 160,000 and that now about 1000 are remaining. Others that 50,000 have left and 1000 are remaining. Yet others that 90% of 80,000 have left. Mainstream media ignore the issue and most reporting is in religious publications.
Sources from the Syrian Orthodox Church report that: the city [Homs] has been emptied of almost 90% of its Christians. It is expected that a complete "cleansing" of buildings owned by Christians will occur within a matter of days or weeks by armed men from the Wahhabi "Faruq Brigade."
A source in the Orthodox metropolitan's office told al-Haqiqa that armed men from the Faruq Brigade went to the homes of the Christians, house by house, in the neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan el-Diwan, informing them that they must immediately leave their homes and the city of Homs. [...] The church sources said that the armed men informed the owners of the homes before they departed that if they did not leave immediately they would be shot and pictures of their corpses would be sent to al-Jazeera with the message that the government had killed them. The source emphasized that all those who were expelled "were not allowed to take any of their possessions with them, not even extra clothes. Immediately after they left their homes, the buildings were occupied by armed men who considered it 'war-booty from the Christians!'" It should be noted that the Faruq Brigade is operated by armed elements from al-Qaeda and various Wahhabi groups and it includes mercenaries from Libya and Iraq. Last month they destroyed two churches with rocket fire, burning one and severely damaging the other.
However, the Roman Catholic Church, while first republishing the reports from the Orthodox, then came with reports from local clerics that the departure from Homs had been voluntary and due to the violence. Britain used this even as an argument to increase the aid to the rebels.
Interestingly more recently the Roman Catholic Fides came with a report about what looks like a clear case of ethnic cleansing: A disturbing news reaches Fides from the province of Hama, in the north of Homs: armed men have expelled all Christian families in the village of Al Borj Al Qastal, in the province of Hama. The news, spread by some international agency, is confirmed to Fides by local Church sources. The sources said that armed groups – of the militias of the composite Syrian Liberation Army - have penetrated into the village, driving out all Christian families, taking possession of homes and turning the Church in the area in military headquarters. The village of Al Borj Al Qastal is in the province of Hama, and welcomed about 10 Christian families, now displaced, innocent victims of conflict. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 12/5/2012)
So what is true? My guess is that the Orthodox and the Alawites are the primary targets for the rebels and seen as allies of Assad while the Roman Catholics are seen as a bit more connected to the West that supports the uprising.
Another factor that may play a role is follow-up cleansing. It has been reported that Baba Amr, the heavily contested quarter of Homs, has been largely deserted by its inhabitants. The question is where these people have gone. It wouldn't surprise me if they had gone elsewhere in the city and driven out people who they felt were connected with the regime in order to get a house. In this context one may remember that something similar was done in the early 1990s by Croats who had been driven from the Krajna by Serb separatists.
A third factor is hope for the future. Christians are afraid that painting this as a conflict between them and Sunni's will only further polarize the situation and lead to it that they will even more be targeted. Polarization might also make it more difficult to return once the conflict is over.
A fourth factor is that it is also official government policy not to publicly distinguish people by sect or religion.
Problem is that now even cities like Qusair - with 50% Christians - are targeted by the rebels and that the US is supporting them in that.
Postscripts:
16 June 2012: This article ("Syrian Islamist opposition casts out Christians") tells that Christians in Qusair are forced to leave. David Enders of McClatchy claims that there is no persecution: The group also has been accused of targeting Christians in Homs. But interviews with Syrian Christian refugees who’d fled to Lebanon from Homs and Qusayr uncovered no evidence that Christians were targeted because of their religion. Rather, Christian refugees from Qusayr said that a Christian man and 16 others working with government security forces in Qusayr had been captured by Farouq fighters in March, prompting some Christians to flee. Members of Farouq confirmed the story, as well as the arrests..
26 June 2012: This article (Weeks spent with Syrian rebels reveal a force of Sunni Muslim civilians) mentions that Christians make up about 10 percent of Syria’s population. While they have participated in the demonstrations against Assad, they have preferred to flee rather than take up arms.. The article mentions that many people participate in the uprising because of family relations. Another article (Rebel-held town in northern Syria struggles to keep army out, avoid sectarian strife) tells how the uprising leads to rising tensions between ethnic groups.
On the numbers the figures differs quite a lot. Some report that Homs once contained 160,000 and that now about 1000 are remaining. Others that 50,000 have left and 1000 are remaining. Yet others that 90% of 80,000 have left. Mainstream media ignore the issue and most reporting is in religious publications.
Sources from the Syrian Orthodox Church report that: the city [Homs] has been emptied of almost 90% of its Christians. It is expected that a complete "cleansing" of buildings owned by Christians will occur within a matter of days or weeks by armed men from the Wahhabi "Faruq Brigade."
A source in the Orthodox metropolitan's office told al-Haqiqa that armed men from the Faruq Brigade went to the homes of the Christians, house by house, in the neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan el-Diwan, informing them that they must immediately leave their homes and the city of Homs. [...] The church sources said that the armed men informed the owners of the homes before they departed that if they did not leave immediately they would be shot and pictures of their corpses would be sent to al-Jazeera with the message that the government had killed them. The source emphasized that all those who were expelled "were not allowed to take any of their possessions with them, not even extra clothes. Immediately after they left their homes, the buildings were occupied by armed men who considered it 'war-booty from the Christians!'" It should be noted that the Faruq Brigade is operated by armed elements from al-Qaeda and various Wahhabi groups and it includes mercenaries from Libya and Iraq. Last month they destroyed two churches with rocket fire, burning one and severely damaging the other.
However, the Roman Catholic Church, while first republishing the reports from the Orthodox, then came with reports from local clerics that the departure from Homs had been voluntary and due to the violence. Britain used this even as an argument to increase the aid to the rebels.
Interestingly more recently the Roman Catholic Fides came with a report about what looks like a clear case of ethnic cleansing: A disturbing news reaches Fides from the province of Hama, in the north of Homs: armed men have expelled all Christian families in the village of Al Borj Al Qastal, in the province of Hama. The news, spread by some international agency, is confirmed to Fides by local Church sources. The sources said that armed groups – of the militias of the composite Syrian Liberation Army - have penetrated into the village, driving out all Christian families, taking possession of homes and turning the Church in the area in military headquarters. The village of Al Borj Al Qastal is in the province of Hama, and welcomed about 10 Christian families, now displaced, innocent victims of conflict. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 12/5/2012)
So what is true? My guess is that the Orthodox and the Alawites are the primary targets for the rebels and seen as allies of Assad while the Roman Catholics are seen as a bit more connected to the West that supports the uprising.
Another factor that may play a role is follow-up cleansing. It has been reported that Baba Amr, the heavily contested quarter of Homs, has been largely deserted by its inhabitants. The question is where these people have gone. It wouldn't surprise me if they had gone elsewhere in the city and driven out people who they felt were connected with the regime in order to get a house. In this context one may remember that something similar was done in the early 1990s by Croats who had been driven from the Krajna by Serb separatists.
A third factor is hope for the future. Christians are afraid that painting this as a conflict between them and Sunni's will only further polarize the situation and lead to it that they will even more be targeted. Polarization might also make it more difficult to return once the conflict is over.
A fourth factor is that it is also official government policy not to publicly distinguish people by sect or religion.
Problem is that now even cities like Qusair - with 50% Christians - are targeted by the rebels and that the US is supporting them in that.
Postscripts:
16 June 2012: This article ("Syrian Islamist opposition casts out Christians") tells that Christians in Qusair are forced to leave. David Enders of McClatchy claims that there is no persecution: The group also has been accused of targeting Christians in Homs. But interviews with Syrian Christian refugees who’d fled to Lebanon from Homs and Qusayr uncovered no evidence that Christians were targeted because of their religion. Rather, Christian refugees from Qusayr said that a Christian man and 16 others working with government security forces in Qusayr had been captured by Farouq fighters in March, prompting some Christians to flee. Members of Farouq confirmed the story, as well as the arrests..
26 June 2012: This article (Weeks spent with Syrian rebels reveal a force of Sunni Muslim civilians) mentions that Christians make up about 10 percent of Syria’s population. While they have participated in the demonstrations against Assad, they have preferred to flee rather than take up arms.. The article mentions that many people participate in the uprising because of family relations. Another article (Rebel-held town in northern Syria struggles to keep army out, avoid sectarian strife) tells how the uprising leads to rising tensions between ethnic groups.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Give talks in Syria a real chance
Annan has now been more than a month in Syria but peace seems still far away. Annan and his staff remain optimistic and like to point to out that violence has diminished. And they proclaim the hope that with more observers the violence will be further reduced.
Annan’s Six Point Plan is based on a series of assumptions about the Syrian situation. Whether it will work out and result in peace depends to a large extent on the correctness of those assumptions
Assessing the situation
The Plan assumes that there is a democratic opposition that is in its heart peaceful. Confronting that it sees a regime that can only survive with brute violence. It sees the present violence by the opposition as a natural reaction to this government violence. If just the government would stop its violence then the opposition would revert to its prior peaceful nature too. At that point negotiations could be started and Assad would soon realize that he is outdated dictator and would transfer power to democracy as embodied by the opposition or to some interim figure appointed in a collaboration between the government and the opposition. After a short period elections might be held. Result should be a more prosperous and stable Syria.
Nearly all these assumptions are wrong.
Syria’s opposition was never really peaceful. Its idea of peaceful protesting was to organize ever larger demonstrations that should end with an overrunning of the parliament and the presidential palace. The opposition has the ample financial means that enable it to keep the momentum in this process with a large amount of propaganda. This is the scenario of the color revolutions. No self respecting government that is aware of this scenario will let it happen.
Many security people had been trained under the more ruthless rule of the present president’s father. Confronted with sudden demonstrations in Daraa they reacted in the way they were used to. But that doesn’t mean that – given enough time – they couldn’t have learned to react more peacefully. Assad has introduced some reforms since the start of the uprising. He might well have reformed here too but he never had a chance as the opposition used the event as an excuse to start a violent uprising.
It looks highly unlikely that the opposition will lay down its arms when the government does. What we see instead is that as soon as the government withdraws the armed opposition moves in. Given that a considerable part of the armed opposition was also involved in the armed resistance against the father of the present president in the 1970s and 1980s this is not surprising.
The opposition is also far from democratic. The core of Sunni fundamentalists aims for a religious state rather than democracy. The problems of the opposition in working together are well known and bode ill for the tolerance of diversity after the opposition has won.
Assad is also far from a lonely dictator. Before the present uprising started he was widely supported – even by many who now support the opposition. And although his support has fallen due to the violent way he has tried to suppress the uprising he has still considerable support, specially among the Alawites, Christians and parts of the Sunnites.
The road towards peace
Taking this into account much of the Annan Six Point Plan as it is implemented seems wrong:
There is no sign that the opposition is serious about the armistice as an opportunity to start a political process. Some follow the truce at least with words to avoid international condemnation. Others see it mainly as an opportunity to rearm and according to some news reports they have succeeded to a considerable extent. Some smaller segments of the opposition have openly rejected the truce and continue their attacks.
Given this situation the demand for withdrawal of Syrian troops from population centers becomes unrealistic. A withdrawal should serve to create a neutral space where everyone can breath freely, not to allow the opposition to advance. This is even more acute as some of the areas that the opposition would overrun are pro-Assad and it is well known that the opposition is not very friendly towards Assad supporters – expelling or even killing them.
In this climate it is also highly unlikely that elections can be held. Very likely the opposition will contest the results from government held territories and the Assad supporters those from the opposition held territories. We have seen this scenario in Ivory Coast. Democracy is not the dictatorship of the majority. It can only exist on the basis of a good constitution in which the main parties have worked out how they want to live and work together.
What Syria needs are talks. Talks that build trust between Alawites, Sunnites, Kurds, Christians and other groups and lead to a consensus on how Syria should develop towards more freedom, openness, human rights and democracy..
But until now Annan has done very little to achieve such talks. There are no local talks to achieve at least locally held armistices that could serve as building blocks for a wider truce. The opposition hasn’t appointed representatives and Annan hasn’t pressured them to do so.
Annan seems to believe that first peace must be established before talks can be held. There is no sign that this will work. He needs to work the other way: establish trust with talks so that the truce can hold.
Unfortunately the Western countries have unlearned the art of negotiations with the end of the Cold War. What goes under the name of “negotiations” is nowadays heavily contaminated with Western wishes, “principles” and demands. It is an attitude that did much to worsen the situation in former Yugoslavia and Ivory Coast. The question is whether we are prepared now to allow and support negotiations where the accent is on improving human rights and freedom and building trust between Syria’s groups rather than on the removal of Assad. Such negotiations may take months or even years. But it is the only way towards real freedom.
It’s about the economy …
The economies of the Arab world were growing fast before the Arab Spring started. So the oft mentioned assumption that the uprisings were caused by economic mismanagement don’t hold. Supporters of this theory sometimes want to save their position by claiming that all the benefits of the growth went to a small elite but there is little proof for that assumption: Middle Eastern countries score rather low on Gini index for inequality. It seems rather that the revolutions were a combination of long held discontent over non-elected leaders, rising food prices and a series of rather accidental events.
Tunisia’s regime had been weakened by the Wikileaks cables about the extravagancies of its leadership and the revelation of the critical way the US looked at them. Then came the uprising and president Ben Ali – an old man of 74 – preferred to leave rather than to engage a long fight. This gave the uprising momentum and led to similar uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world. These probably wouldn’t have lasted long if it hadn’t been for support from the US, Turkey and the Gulf States.
For much of the population of Tunisia and Egypt the revolution has become a disappointment as it destroyed the economy. The violence drove away the tourists and the many strikes damaged existing businesses and drove away potential investors. In both cases it is doubtful whether this will be repaired soon. The violence of the government may have stopped but it is doubtful whether the Salafi violence against liquor shops and their pressure on women to wear scarves will do much to bring back the tourists.
… and stability
It is well known countries need a middle class and a certain level of wealth before they can become really democratic. A middle class with a source of income that is independent of the government puts the right kind of demands on a government while a certain level of wealth makes that people have the time and education to make an educated choice between the candidates. Only Tunisia comes close to that threshold while the prospects for democracy in Egypt, Syria and certainly dirt poor Yemen seem poor.
If poorer countries are democratic it is often in a rather dysfunctional way. Often they have a one or two party system and when politicians are voted out they tend to come back four years later. Corruption tends to be high. Political discussion in poorer countries tends to be about zero-sum issues like the division of wealth while in richer countries it is usually about common goals like economic growth, law and order and foreign policy. Zero-sum issues like division of wealth and the relative power of ethnic, religious or other interest groups tends to be solved in richer counties by consensus and is sometimes laid down in the constitution.
Recently it has become in fashion to sell democracy as a solution to all problems. This has been times and again a resounding failure but thanks to gracious funding from Western countries it keeps popping up. The “democratic” secessions from Yugoslavia ended mostly in bloody wars thanks the refusal from the Western countries to admit that such secessions should happen in mutual agreement – what can take years. With the sorry excuse that Yugoslavia was falling apart the Helsinki Accords and the Yugoslav constitution were blatantly ignored. Later on we saw the color revolutions: Thanks to the skills of Western PR agencies they initially generated great enthusiasm – of which nothing is left. Instead the color revolutions caused mainly chaos and stagnation. But the democracy promoters marched on and found their next big project in the Arab Spring. The disappointment in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya is already quite common but that doesn’t stop them from targeting Syria as their next big project.
But Syria doesn’t need democracy now. Even in the best circumstances that would hardly work as the country is too poor and too divided. What Syria needs is more national consensus and for that extensive negotiations are needed. It needs to find a consensus where Brotherhood people can live together in peace with Alawites and Christians. It needs a consensus where most of the Syria’s refugees – who often have been living outside the country for decades – can return safely but where they will also promise not pursue armed struggle that upsets the country.
From that perspective Annan’s mission in Syria until now has been a resounding failure. Under the pretext that first violence should end he has refused to take even a single step towards negotiations between Assad and the opposition. He refuses to see that for violence to stop there has to be trust and that can only be created with negotiations.
… but not about bad guys
Western diplomacy likes us now to believe that all problems are caused by just a few bad guys. Nowadays the removal of Assad seems to be the priority for Washington.
Both Tunisia and Egypt would have been better off if those countries hadn’t had revolutions but instead had gone through the same steps as Western countries do when there are heavy protests: a give-and-take between government and protesters that ends with some kind of compromise. In the process they might have fired some corrupt officials, abolished a few corrupt monopolies and become a bit more open for dissent. The only problem is that such compromises don’t deliver the scalps that Western foreign policy nowadays seems to need to appear successful to its home audience.
This trophy hunting has already led to excesses, like the murder of a head of state in the case of Libya and the largely symbolic replacement of the president of Yemen by his deputy. It gives the West a special – dysfunctional – interest in what is going on the Arab countries.
Assad is now sold to us as the bad guy. But before the uprising started he enjoyed considerable popularity among Syrians who saw him as a reformer and modernizer. It is easy to discard him because of all the blood that has been shed. But it is also dishonest. Assad simply inherited the security system. One can blame him for not reforming it fast enough but that raises the question whether one shouldn’t blame as well the opposition with its refusal to compromise. And that raises the question whether their supporters in the West may be not so innocent as they pretend to be.
Singling out Assad as the only one responsible absolves the opposition from its responsibility. So far from ending the violence easing out Assad would encourage the opposition and increase their violence. Real peace for Syria can only start with the recognition that the parties there have to find a way to live together. That means negotiations and compromise.
Annan’s Six Point Plan is based on a series of assumptions about the Syrian situation. Whether it will work out and result in peace depends to a large extent on the correctness of those assumptions
Assessing the situation
The Plan assumes that there is a democratic opposition that is in its heart peaceful. Confronting that it sees a regime that can only survive with brute violence. It sees the present violence by the opposition as a natural reaction to this government violence. If just the government would stop its violence then the opposition would revert to its prior peaceful nature too. At that point negotiations could be started and Assad would soon realize that he is outdated dictator and would transfer power to democracy as embodied by the opposition or to some interim figure appointed in a collaboration between the government and the opposition. After a short period elections might be held. Result should be a more prosperous and stable Syria.
Nearly all these assumptions are wrong.
Syria’s opposition was never really peaceful. Its idea of peaceful protesting was to organize ever larger demonstrations that should end with an overrunning of the parliament and the presidential palace. The opposition has the ample financial means that enable it to keep the momentum in this process with a large amount of propaganda. This is the scenario of the color revolutions. No self respecting government that is aware of this scenario will let it happen.
Many security people had been trained under the more ruthless rule of the present president’s father. Confronted with sudden demonstrations in Daraa they reacted in the way they were used to. But that doesn’t mean that – given enough time – they couldn’t have learned to react more peacefully. Assad has introduced some reforms since the start of the uprising. He might well have reformed here too but he never had a chance as the opposition used the event as an excuse to start a violent uprising.
It looks highly unlikely that the opposition will lay down its arms when the government does. What we see instead is that as soon as the government withdraws the armed opposition moves in. Given that a considerable part of the armed opposition was also involved in the armed resistance against the father of the present president in the 1970s and 1980s this is not surprising.
The opposition is also far from democratic. The core of Sunni fundamentalists aims for a religious state rather than democracy. The problems of the opposition in working together are well known and bode ill for the tolerance of diversity after the opposition has won.
Assad is also far from a lonely dictator. Before the present uprising started he was widely supported – even by many who now support the opposition. And although his support has fallen due to the violent way he has tried to suppress the uprising he has still considerable support, specially among the Alawites, Christians and parts of the Sunnites.
The road towards peace
Taking this into account much of the Annan Six Point Plan as it is implemented seems wrong:
There is no sign that the opposition is serious about the armistice as an opportunity to start a political process. Some follow the truce at least with words to avoid international condemnation. Others see it mainly as an opportunity to rearm and according to some news reports they have succeeded to a considerable extent. Some smaller segments of the opposition have openly rejected the truce and continue their attacks.
Given this situation the demand for withdrawal of Syrian troops from population centers becomes unrealistic. A withdrawal should serve to create a neutral space where everyone can breath freely, not to allow the opposition to advance. This is even more acute as some of the areas that the opposition would overrun are pro-Assad and it is well known that the opposition is not very friendly towards Assad supporters – expelling or even killing them.
In this climate it is also highly unlikely that elections can be held. Very likely the opposition will contest the results from government held territories and the Assad supporters those from the opposition held territories. We have seen this scenario in Ivory Coast. Democracy is not the dictatorship of the majority. It can only exist on the basis of a good constitution in which the main parties have worked out how they want to live and work together.
What Syria needs are talks. Talks that build trust between Alawites, Sunnites, Kurds, Christians and other groups and lead to a consensus on how Syria should develop towards more freedom, openness, human rights and democracy..
But until now Annan has done very little to achieve such talks. There are no local talks to achieve at least locally held armistices that could serve as building blocks for a wider truce. The opposition hasn’t appointed representatives and Annan hasn’t pressured them to do so.
Annan seems to believe that first peace must be established before talks can be held. There is no sign that this will work. He needs to work the other way: establish trust with talks so that the truce can hold.
Unfortunately the Western countries have unlearned the art of negotiations with the end of the Cold War. What goes under the name of “negotiations” is nowadays heavily contaminated with Western wishes, “principles” and demands. It is an attitude that did much to worsen the situation in former Yugoslavia and Ivory Coast. The question is whether we are prepared now to allow and support negotiations where the accent is on improving human rights and freedom and building trust between Syria’s groups rather than on the removal of Assad. Such negotiations may take months or even years. But it is the only way towards real freedom.
It’s about the economy …
The economies of the Arab world were growing fast before the Arab Spring started. So the oft mentioned assumption that the uprisings were caused by economic mismanagement don’t hold. Supporters of this theory sometimes want to save their position by claiming that all the benefits of the growth went to a small elite but there is little proof for that assumption: Middle Eastern countries score rather low on Gini index for inequality. It seems rather that the revolutions were a combination of long held discontent over non-elected leaders, rising food prices and a series of rather accidental events.
Tunisia’s regime had been weakened by the Wikileaks cables about the extravagancies of its leadership and the revelation of the critical way the US looked at them. Then came the uprising and president Ben Ali – an old man of 74 – preferred to leave rather than to engage a long fight. This gave the uprising momentum and led to similar uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world. These probably wouldn’t have lasted long if it hadn’t been for support from the US, Turkey and the Gulf States.
For much of the population of Tunisia and Egypt the revolution has become a disappointment as it destroyed the economy. The violence drove away the tourists and the many strikes damaged existing businesses and drove away potential investors. In both cases it is doubtful whether this will be repaired soon. The violence of the government may have stopped but it is doubtful whether the Salafi violence against liquor shops and their pressure on women to wear scarves will do much to bring back the tourists.
… and stability
It is well known countries need a middle class and a certain level of wealth before they can become really democratic. A middle class with a source of income that is independent of the government puts the right kind of demands on a government while a certain level of wealth makes that people have the time and education to make an educated choice between the candidates. Only Tunisia comes close to that threshold while the prospects for democracy in Egypt, Syria and certainly dirt poor Yemen seem poor.
If poorer countries are democratic it is often in a rather dysfunctional way. Often they have a one or two party system and when politicians are voted out they tend to come back four years later. Corruption tends to be high. Political discussion in poorer countries tends to be about zero-sum issues like the division of wealth while in richer countries it is usually about common goals like economic growth, law and order and foreign policy. Zero-sum issues like division of wealth and the relative power of ethnic, religious or other interest groups tends to be solved in richer counties by consensus and is sometimes laid down in the constitution.
Recently it has become in fashion to sell democracy as a solution to all problems. This has been times and again a resounding failure but thanks to gracious funding from Western countries it keeps popping up. The “democratic” secessions from Yugoslavia ended mostly in bloody wars thanks the refusal from the Western countries to admit that such secessions should happen in mutual agreement – what can take years. With the sorry excuse that Yugoslavia was falling apart the Helsinki Accords and the Yugoslav constitution were blatantly ignored. Later on we saw the color revolutions: Thanks to the skills of Western PR agencies they initially generated great enthusiasm – of which nothing is left. Instead the color revolutions caused mainly chaos and stagnation. But the democracy promoters marched on and found their next big project in the Arab Spring. The disappointment in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya is already quite common but that doesn’t stop them from targeting Syria as their next big project.
But Syria doesn’t need democracy now. Even in the best circumstances that would hardly work as the country is too poor and too divided. What Syria needs is more national consensus and for that extensive negotiations are needed. It needs to find a consensus where Brotherhood people can live together in peace with Alawites and Christians. It needs a consensus where most of the Syria’s refugees – who often have been living outside the country for decades – can return safely but where they will also promise not pursue armed struggle that upsets the country.
From that perspective Annan’s mission in Syria until now has been a resounding failure. Under the pretext that first violence should end he has refused to take even a single step towards negotiations between Assad and the opposition. He refuses to see that for violence to stop there has to be trust and that can only be created with negotiations.
… but not about bad guys
Western diplomacy likes us now to believe that all problems are caused by just a few bad guys. Nowadays the removal of Assad seems to be the priority for Washington.
Both Tunisia and Egypt would have been better off if those countries hadn’t had revolutions but instead had gone through the same steps as Western countries do when there are heavy protests: a give-and-take between government and protesters that ends with some kind of compromise. In the process they might have fired some corrupt officials, abolished a few corrupt monopolies and become a bit more open for dissent. The only problem is that such compromises don’t deliver the scalps that Western foreign policy nowadays seems to need to appear successful to its home audience.
This trophy hunting has already led to excesses, like the murder of a head of state in the case of Libya and the largely symbolic replacement of the president of Yemen by his deputy. It gives the West a special – dysfunctional – interest in what is going on the Arab countries.
Assad is now sold to us as the bad guy. But before the uprising started he enjoyed considerable popularity among Syrians who saw him as a reformer and modernizer. It is easy to discard him because of all the blood that has been shed. But it is also dishonest. Assad simply inherited the security system. One can blame him for not reforming it fast enough but that raises the question whether one shouldn’t blame as well the opposition with its refusal to compromise. And that raises the question whether their supporters in the West may be not so innocent as they pretend to be.
Singling out Assad as the only one responsible absolves the opposition from its responsibility. So far from ending the violence easing out Assad would encourage the opposition and increase their violence. Real peace for Syria can only start with the recognition that the parties there have to find a way to live together. That means negotiations and compromise.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The Houla hype
It has been silent for a while but now it looks like the interventionist are making a new attempt to get their way with Syria. This time they try to abuse the massacre in Houla as an excuse.
What happened was that there was first a battle between the army and the FSA in which the army used artillery. Then the FSA - that had been hiding among the civilians - temporarily left Houla to attack army posts. While they were away some militias used the opportunity to commit a massacre.
The Security Council took the opportunity to condemn Assad for using artillery. But using artillery is just the way the Syrian army fights. It causes occasional civilian deaths because the FSA likes to hide among civilians but it is not the main cause of civilian deaths. In Houla less than 20 of the death are from shelling and it is likely that at least part of them are opposition fighters.
When problems started in Syria the US at first attempted to have resolutions that condemned the Syrian army for using violence but left the opposition off the hook. They didn't get their way with that but in the end they got a clause on using artillery (that the FSA doesn't have) in the Annan plan. It is hypocrisy: all fighters should stay away from civilian centers, not just those from army.
What we really need to know is the answer to two questions:
- what was the fighting in Houla about? Who started it and what were the goals of both parties? With both Sunni and Alawite villages in the area and the FSA having a reputation for ethnic cleansing of such villages it is not hard to see potential for conflict.
- Who were the militia's who committed the massacre? Did they have a motive? Was this a revenge for something else?
As I have written often before: when will Annan finally get serious about negotiations? That is the only way out. And you can't wait until the violence has stopped: negotiations are needed to create the trust that is needed for violence to stop.
Postscript: there are at least some answers: according to Human Rights Watch, as cited in the WSJ, at least 62 of the casualties are from one family (the Abdul Razak family in Taldou). According to the WSJ article "One resident said the attacks on Friday might have been to avenge a rebel assault on a nearby Alawite village a day earlier. Rebel fighters also admitted putting up a stronger fight with government forces on Friday than had been claimed initially. That fighting appeared to be what the government blamed for its artillery barrage."
Postscript 2: Here you can find the complete text of the press conference in which the Syrian government denies responsibility for the Houla massacre.
Postscript 3: This article ("I saw massacre of children, says defecting Syrian air force officer") contains a summary of an interview with Major Jihad Raslan, an air force officer who was on leave in Houla when the killings happened and later defected. His account is not very informative. He reports that the massacre has led to an increase in defections.
Postscript 4: This article (The Houla massacre: reconstructing the events of 25 May) tries to reconstruct what happened. A fragment: Maysara, a local elder who doubles as a leader in the Syrian Revolutionary Council, said the shelling lasted for about three hours. "Just as we were getting ready to start the demonstration, the shelling started," he said. [..] The people of Houla had been attacked before, but [...] the [intensity of the] shelling was unusual," said a second local, Abu Aruba. [..] The barrage was followed by a movement of security forces, according to Maysara. "The regime army was gathering near the water plant [on the southern outskirts of town]," he said. "We knew they were planning something big."
Abu Aruba estimated that around 300 men gathered at a Syrian military depot near the water plant. According to several accounts, the Shabiha and regime troops rallied after members of the Free Syria Army attacked a checkpoint earlier in the day. The men at the water plant were a mix of security forces and the feared loyalist Shabiha militia that has been at the vanguard of the 16-month nationwide crackdown on dissent.
The homes of the Abdul Razziq family were the first that the militias reached when they approached Taldou. More than 60 of the massacre victims are thought to have belonged to this single extended family.
The Shabiha approached from the south-east – from the direction of Foulah and Qabou, according to numerous local accounts. "The Shabiha took advantage of the fact that there was no one there to protect them," Abu Aruba said. "There was no one there on the outskirts. They just slaughtered everybody." By early evening, much of the killing had stopped, the witnesses say. According to the residents of Houla, most of the militiamen had returned to Foulah and Qabou. A small group, however, remained behind. It is this group which is believed to have gone looking for the Sayed family at about 3am on Saturday morning.
There are some inconsistencies in this report. Outside the Abdul Razziq and the Sayed family and the victims of the shelling only about 10 people were killed. This suggests targeting, not random killing. So why does the opposition deny that? The other inconsistency is that the opposition first claimed that all the casualties were due to shelling and later changed that story.
Postscript 5: Here is a report from a pro-Assad site: [The witness] said that the victims belong to the family of al-Sayed, with Muawiya al-Sayed being a police officer who didn't defect and was always in danger, along with two other al-Sayed households who are related to Meshleb al-Sayed who recently became Secretary of the People's Assembly.
The witness added that another family that was targeted is Abdelrazzaq family which consists of four household and supports the government, noting that the houses belong to al-Sayed family are located next to the houses of gunmen and their relatives, wondering how the gunmen's children weren't killed if the attack had been perpetrated by "Shabiha" as some claim?
She added that another family that was untouched is that of Faour, and that all the members of this family are armed and one of whom acts as a cameraman for al-Jazeera, wondering how none of these people died when their houses were full at the time of the massacre.
About the perpetrators another witness said according to this report: He explained that the group led by one Haitham al-Housan hated al-Sayed family, and that they're killers, not revolutionaries, and their trade is abduction, murder and theft through which they amassed millions, adding that this group didn't even fire at the detachment but rather at the house where Okba al-Sayed, his brother, his sister-in-law and their children were, killing them.
Postscript 6: ANNA News Journalist Marat Musin about Houla Massacre from Syrianews add other details: In the weekend of May 25, 2012, at about 2 PM, big groups of fighters attacked and captured the town of Al – Hula of the Homs province. Al-Hula is made up of three regions: the village of Taldou, Kafr Laha and Taldahab, each of which had previously been home for 25-30 thousand people.
The town was attacked from the north-east by groups of bandits and mercenaries, numbering up to 700 people. The militants came from Ar-Rastan (the Brigade of al-Farouk from the Free Syrian Army led by the terrorist Abdul Razak Tlass and numbering 250), from the village of Akraba (led by the terrorist Yahya Al-Yousef), from the village Farlaha, joined by local gangsters, and from Al Hula.
The city of Ar-Rastan has long been abandoned by most civilians. Now Wahhabis from Lebanon dominate the scene, fueled with money and weapons by one of the main orchestrators of international terrorism, Saad Hariri, who heads the anti-Syrian political movement “Tayyar Al-Mustaqbal” (“Future Movement”). The road from Ar-Rastan to Al-Hula runs through Bedouin areas that remain mostly out of control of government troops, which made the militant attacks on Al Hula a complete surprise for the Syrian authorities.
When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children. Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of the AbdulRazak. Many of those killed were “guilty” of the fact that they dared to change from Sunnis to Shiites.
[...]
Note that once, the exactly same provocation failed at Shumar (Homs) and 49 militants and women and children were killed, when it was organized just before a visit of Kofi Annan. The last provocation was immediately exposed as soon as it became known that the bodies of the previously kidnapped belonged to Alawites. This provocation also contained serious inconsistencies – the names of those killed were from people loyal to the authorities, there were no traces of bombings, etc.
Postscript 7: Here is the translated transcript of a Russian TV documentary with some video fragments.
Postscript 8: In the mean time the Guardian reports on 4 June that UN investigators have said their evidence supported the claims of witnesses and defecting Syrian office that the Houla killings were carried out by a regime-controlled militia, the shabiha. Unfortunately it looks like the UN is only relying on opposition sources.
Postscript 9: National Review has article in which it cites German and Dutch sources. Some quotes: [...]the massacre occurred after rebel forces attacked three army-controlled roadblocks outside of Houla. The roadblocks had been set up to protect nearby Alawi majority villages from attacks by Sunni militias. The rebel attacks provoked a call for reinforcements by the besieged army units. Syrian army and rebel forces are reported to have engaged in battle for some 90 minutes, during which time “dozens of soldiers and rebels” were killed.
According to eyewitness accounts [...] the massacre occurred during this time. Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities. Over 90% of Houla’s population are Sunnis. Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator. Immediately following the massacre, the perpetrators are supposed to have filmed their victims and then presented them as Sunni victims in videos posted on the internet.
Already at the beginning of April, Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James Monastery warned of rebel atrocities’ being repackaged in both Arab and Western media accounts as regime atrocities. She cited the case of a massacre in the Khalidiya neighborhood in Homs. According to an account published in French on the monastery’s website, rebels gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya and blew up the building with dynamite.
Postscript 10: The FAZ article was retorted by an article ("Assad’s Houla Propaganda"). Given that the article made outrageous claims like that the victims were Alawi and Shiites this doesn't surprise. Here is a reaction by FSA activists from Houla.
Postscript 11: Here is the deathlist of Houla - as published on the site of the SNC.
Postcript 12: The wiki website A Closer look on Syria has a special section in hwich it tries to sort out the diverse allegations that have been made regarding the Houla massacre.
Postscript 13: Here is the UN report that declares the Syrian government and the shabiha responsible. The report contains 102 pages but less than one and a half page in the main text and four pages in Appendix IV is devoted to providing arguments for its conclusion. They mostly depended on interviews by others - partly because the government refused access. All interviews they saw supported the rebel version, except for the two mentioned in the government report. They tried to interview those two but didn't get access. Their evidence is rather circumstantial: the government had some positions that gave it considerabel control over the area and survivors fled to opposition controlled areas. What misses is an effort to reconstruct the situation and give an account of who did what and why.
Postscript 14: Here are interviews with witnesses from Houla on the Spiegel website.
Postscript 15: A closer look on Syria found more witnesses supporting the version that the rebels did it.
Postscript 16: Syria : One Year After the Houla Massacre. New Report on Official vs. Real Truth analyzes the unreliability of the UN report. Its source is Official Truth, Real Truth, and Impunity for the Syrian Houla Massacre of May 2012. Seven Essays By: Marinella Correggia, Alfredo Embid, Ronda Hauben, Adam Larson., a 79 pages long article.
What happened was that there was first a battle between the army and the FSA in which the army used artillery. Then the FSA - that had been hiding among the civilians - temporarily left Houla to attack army posts. While they were away some militias used the opportunity to commit a massacre.
The Security Council took the opportunity to condemn Assad for using artillery. But using artillery is just the way the Syrian army fights. It causes occasional civilian deaths because the FSA likes to hide among civilians but it is not the main cause of civilian deaths. In Houla less than 20 of the death are from shelling and it is likely that at least part of them are opposition fighters.
When problems started in Syria the US at first attempted to have resolutions that condemned the Syrian army for using violence but left the opposition off the hook. They didn't get their way with that but in the end they got a clause on using artillery (that the FSA doesn't have) in the Annan plan. It is hypocrisy: all fighters should stay away from civilian centers, not just those from army.
What we really need to know is the answer to two questions:
- what was the fighting in Houla about? Who started it and what were the goals of both parties? With both Sunni and Alawite villages in the area and the FSA having a reputation for ethnic cleansing of such villages it is not hard to see potential for conflict.
- Who were the militia's who committed the massacre? Did they have a motive? Was this a revenge for something else?
As I have written often before: when will Annan finally get serious about negotiations? That is the only way out. And you can't wait until the violence has stopped: negotiations are needed to create the trust that is needed for violence to stop.
Postscript: there are at least some answers: according to Human Rights Watch, as cited in the WSJ, at least 62 of the casualties are from one family (the Abdul Razak family in Taldou). According to the WSJ article "One resident said the attacks on Friday might have been to avenge a rebel assault on a nearby Alawite village a day earlier. Rebel fighters also admitted putting up a stronger fight with government forces on Friday than had been claimed initially. That fighting appeared to be what the government blamed for its artillery barrage."
Postscript 2: Here you can find the complete text of the press conference in which the Syrian government denies responsibility for the Houla massacre.
Postscript 3: This article ("I saw massacre of children, says defecting Syrian air force officer") contains a summary of an interview with Major Jihad Raslan, an air force officer who was on leave in Houla when the killings happened and later defected. His account is not very informative. He reports that the massacre has led to an increase in defections.
Postscript 4: This article (The Houla massacre: reconstructing the events of 25 May) tries to reconstruct what happened. A fragment: Maysara, a local elder who doubles as a leader in the Syrian Revolutionary Council, said the shelling lasted for about three hours. "Just as we were getting ready to start the demonstration, the shelling started," he said. [..] The people of Houla had been attacked before, but [...] the [intensity of the] shelling was unusual," said a second local, Abu Aruba. [..] The barrage was followed by a movement of security forces, according to Maysara. "The regime army was gathering near the water plant [on the southern outskirts of town]," he said. "We knew they were planning something big."
Abu Aruba estimated that around 300 men gathered at a Syrian military depot near the water plant. According to several accounts, the Shabiha and regime troops rallied after members of the Free Syria Army attacked a checkpoint earlier in the day. The men at the water plant were a mix of security forces and the feared loyalist Shabiha militia that has been at the vanguard of the 16-month nationwide crackdown on dissent.
The homes of the Abdul Razziq family were the first that the militias reached when they approached Taldou. More than 60 of the massacre victims are thought to have belonged to this single extended family.
The Shabiha approached from the south-east – from the direction of Foulah and Qabou, according to numerous local accounts. "The Shabiha took advantage of the fact that there was no one there to protect them," Abu Aruba said. "There was no one there on the outskirts. They just slaughtered everybody." By early evening, much of the killing had stopped, the witnesses say. According to the residents of Houla, most of the militiamen had returned to Foulah and Qabou. A small group, however, remained behind. It is this group which is believed to have gone looking for the Sayed family at about 3am on Saturday morning.
There are some inconsistencies in this report. Outside the Abdul Razziq and the Sayed family and the victims of the shelling only about 10 people were killed. This suggests targeting, not random killing. So why does the opposition deny that? The other inconsistency is that the opposition first claimed that all the casualties were due to shelling and later changed that story.
Postscript 5: Here is a report from a pro-Assad site: [The witness] said that the victims belong to the family of al-Sayed, with Muawiya al-Sayed being a police officer who didn't defect and was always in danger, along with two other al-Sayed households who are related to Meshleb al-Sayed who recently became Secretary of the People's Assembly.
The witness added that another family that was targeted is Abdelrazzaq family which consists of four household and supports the government, noting that the houses belong to al-Sayed family are located next to the houses of gunmen and their relatives, wondering how the gunmen's children weren't killed if the attack had been perpetrated by "Shabiha" as some claim?
She added that another family that was untouched is that of Faour, and that all the members of this family are armed and one of whom acts as a cameraman for al-Jazeera, wondering how none of these people died when their houses were full at the time of the massacre.
About the perpetrators another witness said according to this report: He explained that the group led by one Haitham al-Housan hated al-Sayed family, and that they're killers, not revolutionaries, and their trade is abduction, murder and theft through which they amassed millions, adding that this group didn't even fire at the detachment but rather at the house where Okba al-Sayed, his brother, his sister-in-law and their children were, killing them.
Postscript 6: ANNA News Journalist Marat Musin about Houla Massacre from Syrianews add other details: In the weekend of May 25, 2012, at about 2 PM, big groups of fighters attacked and captured the town of Al – Hula of the Homs province. Al-Hula is made up of three regions: the village of Taldou, Kafr Laha and Taldahab, each of which had previously been home for 25-30 thousand people.
The town was attacked from the north-east by groups of bandits and mercenaries, numbering up to 700 people. The militants came from Ar-Rastan (the Brigade of al-Farouk from the Free Syrian Army led by the terrorist Abdul Razak Tlass and numbering 250), from the village of Akraba (led by the terrorist Yahya Al-Yousef), from the village Farlaha, joined by local gangsters, and from Al Hula.
The city of Ar-Rastan has long been abandoned by most civilians. Now Wahhabis from Lebanon dominate the scene, fueled with money and weapons by one of the main orchestrators of international terrorism, Saad Hariri, who heads the anti-Syrian political movement “Tayyar Al-Mustaqbal” (“Future Movement”). The road from Ar-Rastan to Al-Hula runs through Bedouin areas that remain mostly out of control of government troops, which made the militant attacks on Al Hula a complete surprise for the Syrian authorities.
When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children. Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of the AbdulRazak. Many of those killed were “guilty” of the fact that they dared to change from Sunnis to Shiites.
[...]
Note that once, the exactly same provocation failed at Shumar (Homs) and 49 militants and women and children were killed, when it was organized just before a visit of Kofi Annan. The last provocation was immediately exposed as soon as it became known that the bodies of the previously kidnapped belonged to Alawites. This provocation also contained serious inconsistencies – the names of those killed were from people loyal to the authorities, there were no traces of bombings, etc.
Postscript 7: Here is the translated transcript of a Russian TV documentary with some video fragments.
Postscript 8: In the mean time the Guardian reports on 4 June that UN investigators have said their evidence supported the claims of witnesses and defecting Syrian office that the Houla killings were carried out by a regime-controlled militia, the shabiha. Unfortunately it looks like the UN is only relying on opposition sources.
Postscript 9: National Review has article in which it cites German and Dutch sources. Some quotes: [...]the massacre occurred after rebel forces attacked three army-controlled roadblocks outside of Houla. The roadblocks had been set up to protect nearby Alawi majority villages from attacks by Sunni militias. The rebel attacks provoked a call for reinforcements by the besieged army units. Syrian army and rebel forces are reported to have engaged in battle for some 90 minutes, during which time “dozens of soldiers and rebels” were killed.
According to eyewitness accounts [...] the massacre occurred during this time. Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities. Over 90% of Houla’s population are Sunnis. Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator. Immediately following the massacre, the perpetrators are supposed to have filmed their victims and then presented them as Sunni victims in videos posted on the internet.
Already at the beginning of April, Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James Monastery warned of rebel atrocities’ being repackaged in both Arab and Western media accounts as regime atrocities. She cited the case of a massacre in the Khalidiya neighborhood in Homs. According to an account published in French on the monastery’s website, rebels gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya and blew up the building with dynamite.
Postscript 10: The FAZ article was retorted by an article ("Assad’s Houla Propaganda"). Given that the article made outrageous claims like that the victims were Alawi and Shiites this doesn't surprise. Here is a reaction by FSA activists from Houla.
Postscript 11: Here is the deathlist of Houla - as published on the site of the SNC.
Postcript 12: The wiki website A Closer look on Syria has a special section in hwich it tries to sort out the diverse allegations that have been made regarding the Houla massacre.
Postscript 13: Here is the UN report that declares the Syrian government and the shabiha responsible. The report contains 102 pages but less than one and a half page in the main text and four pages in Appendix IV is devoted to providing arguments for its conclusion. They mostly depended on interviews by others - partly because the government refused access. All interviews they saw supported the rebel version, except for the two mentioned in the government report. They tried to interview those two but didn't get access. Their evidence is rather circumstantial: the government had some positions that gave it considerabel control over the area and survivors fled to opposition controlled areas. What misses is an effort to reconstruct the situation and give an account of who did what and why.
Postscript 14: Here are interviews with witnesses from Houla on the Spiegel website.
Postscript 15: A closer look on Syria found more witnesses supporting the version that the rebels did it.
Postscript 16: Syria : One Year After the Houla Massacre. New Report on Official vs. Real Truth analyzes the unreliability of the UN report. Its source is Official Truth, Real Truth, and Impunity for the Syrian Houla Massacre of May 2012. Seven Essays By: Marinella Correggia, Alfredo Embid, Ronda Hauben, Adam Larson., a 79 pages long article.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Conflict going on in Syria
David Enders of McClatchy Newspapers has a nice series of articles from Syria.
One article (Syrian troops say cease-fire hasn’t stopped rebel attacks) discusses interviews with soldiers near Idlib:
“I know 17 soldiers who have died in the last two or three months,” said Ahmed, who asked that he be identified by a single name only because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. “We can’t leave the city unless we are in armored vehicles.”
“For six months we have not been able to enter Ariha,” said another soldier, who asked that he be identified only as Mazen because he, too, had not been given permission to talk to visiting journalists. “Today there was an attack on every checkpoint here. Last night they attacked a checkpoint and detonated a bomb.”
... the soldiers described their rebel enemies as capable, able to ambush Syrian army units, maneuver in relatively large groups and plot coordinated attacks, despite the lack of heavy weaponry. The rebels have been effective enough in inflicting casualties in close combat that government forces frequently resort to shelling urban areas from the edges as they seek to dislodge armed opponents. The result has been a tragic toll on populations that support the guerrillas or, in some cases, simply live in areas where the rebels operate. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been displaced as entire villages, towns and neighborhoods have been destroyed.
That seems to have spurred even more rebel recruitment as friends or family of those killed or jailed by the government decide to join the guerrillas. New groups of rebels post videos online regularly announcing their formation.
Ahmed and other soldiers in Idlib said there had been explosions in the city on Monday, when Syrians voted for a new Parliament.
“Many people didn’t vote because they were afraid,” Ahmed said.
Supporters of the anti-Assad uprising called for a boycott of the vote and said it was observed in many areas. In some places, polls didn’t open at all. Both sides have accused each other of threatening people who refused to go to the polls or supported the boycott.
One article (Syrian troops say cease-fire hasn’t stopped rebel attacks) discusses interviews with soldiers near Idlib:
“I know 17 soldiers who have died in the last two or three months,” said Ahmed, who asked that he be identified by a single name only because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. “We can’t leave the city unless we are in armored vehicles.”
“For six months we have not been able to enter Ariha,” said another soldier, who asked that he be identified only as Mazen because he, too, had not been given permission to talk to visiting journalists. “Today there was an attack on every checkpoint here. Last night they attacked a checkpoint and detonated a bomb.”
... the soldiers described their rebel enemies as capable, able to ambush Syrian army units, maneuver in relatively large groups and plot coordinated attacks, despite the lack of heavy weaponry. The rebels have been effective enough in inflicting casualties in close combat that government forces frequently resort to shelling urban areas from the edges as they seek to dislodge armed opponents. The result has been a tragic toll on populations that support the guerrillas or, in some cases, simply live in areas where the rebels operate. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been displaced as entire villages, towns and neighborhoods have been destroyed.
That seems to have spurred even more rebel recruitment as friends or family of those killed or jailed by the government decide to join the guerrillas. New groups of rebels post videos online regularly announcing their formation.
Ahmed and other soldiers in Idlib said there had been explosions in the city on Monday, when Syrians voted for a new Parliament.
“Many people didn’t vote because they were afraid,” Ahmed said.
Supporters of the anti-Assad uprising called for a boycott of the vote and said it was observed in many areas. In some places, polls didn’t open at all. Both sides have accused each other of threatening people who refused to go to the polls or supported the boycott.
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Some more tips for Annan on Syria
Here are some more ideas for Annan on Syria.
- Parts of the opposition are not really committed to a negotiated solution. Instead they want to go back to "peaceful" demonstrations and actions to a achieve a Tunisian-style revolution. The government is right to consider that unacceptable: this would be mob rule. This needs to be communicated clearly. The Annan Plan allows demonstrations, but there is a big difference between demonstrations to highlight popular demands and demonstrations to overthrow a government.
- There are still people who openly defy the armistice. These include several split-offs from the FSA that openly have stated that they do not recognize or follow the armistice. These people are still attacking inside Syria and withdrawing for resupply and recovery towards Turkey. Turkey should openly distance itself from those people, it should transfer any refugee with sympathies in this direction towards some refugee camp far from the Syrian border and it should prevent any fighter from those groups who comes to Turkey for rest or recovery from returning to Syria.
- A truce is about trust. No matter how peaceful someone is he will draw his gun when he thinks the other side is about to attack him. And if he has been shot at he will shoot back. A lot of this trust is local and for that reason the UN should organize local talks between FSA and Syrian Army commanders. These should only be about the truce and address all the little violations that threaten to destabilize it. Such negotiations are about establishing trust and collaboration - not about trapping one or the other party into making commitments that it later finds it cannot hold.
- Both parties - and specially the opposition - will try to avoid responsibility by claiming that some attacks by their side were done by splinter groups outside their control. This is a very destructive approach. Each side should be held responsible for any support that it provides to those splinter groups, including providing shelter and passage.
- Army withdrawal from the cities can only work if the opposition holds back too. You can not expect Assad and the Syrian army to surrender those city areas that under its control - where often the population does not support the opposition - to opposition control.
- Demonstrations - although allowed under the truce - are not helpful. In present-day Syria demonstrations are inevitably linked to one or the other party. And as by now both parties have lots of blood on their hands they will be seen by the other side as provocative.
- Put more urgency in the start of political negotiations. This is the main task of the mission and I find it very disappointing that until it is hardly mentioned. They should be talked about all the time and anyone why tries to obstruct them should be openly criticized.
- It is rather difficult to maintain a truce in a situation where there are no clear borders separating the parties. So don't hold the negotiations hostage to the inevitable incidents but rather use the political process to build the trust that will reduce the violations.
- Negotiations should be about content and not about formula like elections. Minimal opposition demands are the return of exiles and the release of political prisoners. Minimal government demands are a peaceful transition, guaranteed minority rights, equality and no revenge. These kinds of issues should be addressed. Having only lofty talks about broad terms like "elections" and "freedom" will allow both parties to hide their real intentions and is a recipe for disaster. Democracy is about every citizen having some rights and some influence on his fate. If it becomes a dictatorship of the majority it has been wrongly desiged for the country involved.
- Parts of the opposition are not really committed to a negotiated solution. Instead they want to go back to "peaceful" demonstrations and actions to a achieve a Tunisian-style revolution. The government is right to consider that unacceptable: this would be mob rule. This needs to be communicated clearly. The Annan Plan allows demonstrations, but there is a big difference between demonstrations to highlight popular demands and demonstrations to overthrow a government.
- There are still people who openly defy the armistice. These include several split-offs from the FSA that openly have stated that they do not recognize or follow the armistice. These people are still attacking inside Syria and withdrawing for resupply and recovery towards Turkey. Turkey should openly distance itself from those people, it should transfer any refugee with sympathies in this direction towards some refugee camp far from the Syrian border and it should prevent any fighter from those groups who comes to Turkey for rest or recovery from returning to Syria.
- A truce is about trust. No matter how peaceful someone is he will draw his gun when he thinks the other side is about to attack him. And if he has been shot at he will shoot back. A lot of this trust is local and for that reason the UN should organize local talks between FSA and Syrian Army commanders. These should only be about the truce and address all the little violations that threaten to destabilize it. Such negotiations are about establishing trust and collaboration - not about trapping one or the other party into making commitments that it later finds it cannot hold.
- Both parties - and specially the opposition - will try to avoid responsibility by claiming that some attacks by their side were done by splinter groups outside their control. This is a very destructive approach. Each side should be held responsible for any support that it provides to those splinter groups, including providing shelter and passage.
- Army withdrawal from the cities can only work if the opposition holds back too. You can not expect Assad and the Syrian army to surrender those city areas that under its control - where often the population does not support the opposition - to opposition control.
- Demonstrations - although allowed under the truce - are not helpful. In present-day Syria demonstrations are inevitably linked to one or the other party. And as by now both parties have lots of blood on their hands they will be seen by the other side as provocative.
- Put more urgency in the start of political negotiations. This is the main task of the mission and I find it very disappointing that until it is hardly mentioned. They should be talked about all the time and anyone why tries to obstruct them should be openly criticized.
- It is rather difficult to maintain a truce in a situation where there are no clear borders separating the parties. So don't hold the negotiations hostage to the inevitable incidents but rather use the political process to build the trust that will reduce the violations.
- Negotiations should be about content and not about formula like elections. Minimal opposition demands are the return of exiles and the release of political prisoners. Minimal government demands are a peaceful transition, guaranteed minority rights, equality and no revenge. These kinds of issues should be addressed. Having only lofty talks about broad terms like "elections" and "freedom" will allow both parties to hide their real intentions and is a recipe for disaster. Democracy is about every citizen having some rights and some influence on his fate. If it becomes a dictatorship of the majority it has been wrongly desiged for the country involved.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
The divided rebels of Syria
The article "Rebel rivalry and suspicions threaten Syria revolt" by Erika Solomon discusses some aspects of the uprising.
It discusses the search for weapons - with rebels sometimes turning on each other to acquire weapons. To get weapons you need a sponsor and that means subscribing to his ideological agenda:
Such mistrust is compounded by the competing agendas of outside parties who are further fragmenting the rebel movement. Finding a donor usually means using personal connections, rebels say. They get relatives or expatriate friends to put them in touch with businessmen or Syrian groups abroad. But once fighters go to private donors for weapons, they have to negotiate, and the price may be ideological.
Many say Islamist groups, from hard-line Salafists to the exiled Muslim Brotherhood, bankroll many battalions that share their religious outlook. The Brotherhood has representatives in Antakya ready to meet interested rebels, fighters say.
Leftist politicians and other opponents of Islamists are trying to counter that influence by funding rival armed bands. "These groups are all making their own militias, like they are some kind of warlords. This is dividing people," said one activist who asked not to be named. "They aren't thinking about military strategies, they are thinking about politics."
Some rebel groups have broken with the FSA and ignore the truce:
Several rebel groups have formally broken with the FSA to form outfits such as the Syrian Liberation Army, the Patriotic Army and The Alternative Movement, whose real identity and clout are hard to assess, because the government restricts media access to Syria.
The FSA has pledged to honor the shaky U.N.-backed truce that took effect on April 16 if the army reciprocates. But the Syrian Liberation Army says it will keep fighting.
"We don't accept the ceasefire. We have slowed down a bit, only because we don't have enough weapons," its spokesman, Haitham Qudeimati, told Reuters.
The Brotherhood is accused of holding back in the fights in order to save its forces for after Assad has fallen:
A 60-year-old rebel commander called Abu Shaham, from the central city of Hama, accused the Brotherhood of hanging back from the battlefront to overpower other rebel groups later.
"The Brotherhood is pumping money into the rebel units yet their men don't fight as much as us. They are almost always the first to retreat. Why?" he asked.
"They are not thinking about this phase in the battle. They care about what comes next. They want to save themselves for the struggle after Assad falls, to come out the strongest."
No article would be complete without some Western war mongers:
"If we don't recognize the rebels, anyone can set up shop in Turkey and start funding opposing groups," said Joseph Holliday, of the U.S-based Institute for the Study of War. "We don't know who is arming who ... I'm afraid by the time the West decides to do something it may be too late."
It looks like mr. Holliday forgot to analyze what happened in Libya.
Again we see here talk about the killing of traitors:
Suspicion of "fleas" - slang for collaborators - has bred an environment where vigilante killing almost seems the norm.
"There are a lot of groups on the ground working alone and not all of them are good guys," said rebel commander Abu Shaham.
"Some are thieves or criminals taking advantage of the chaos. So we go after the fleas and chase them out or kill them. We don't have a problem shooting these people."
Last month, the commander of a rebel unit in Homs province, Amjad al-Hameed, who claimed to be funded by The Alternative Movement, criticized the leaders of several other groups.
"We have armed men among our civilians that are a burden to our revolution," he told a crowd in a March 17 YouTube video. "They are just thieves ... It is impermissible for anyone to rape women, otherwise we are no different from Bashar al-Assad."
The next day, unidentified gunmen shot him dead. Hameed's battalion did not blame the government but other rebels, vowing to "punish them as they deserve."
We see again too a reference to a culture of distrust in Syria.
Qudeimati says most rebels do not belong to any unified group because of a culture of distrust, fostered by years of fear under Syria's infamous secret police.
"The problem is the Assad regime had 40 years to create mistrust between Syrians," Qudeimati said. "The lack of unity has been part of the regime's strategy."
I find that too easy. It works always both ways. The Assad regime wouldn't have been as oppressive if it hadn't been confronted with murderous Brotherhood in the past. And the misdeed by the rebels now sow distrust for many years to come.
BTW. there is also an increase in violence among the Shiites of Saudi Arabia. See Gunfights in Saudi Oil-Rich Province Show Spread of Iran Political Tension.
It discusses the search for weapons - with rebels sometimes turning on each other to acquire weapons. To get weapons you need a sponsor and that means subscribing to his ideological agenda:
Such mistrust is compounded by the competing agendas of outside parties who are further fragmenting the rebel movement. Finding a donor usually means using personal connections, rebels say. They get relatives or expatriate friends to put them in touch with businessmen or Syrian groups abroad. But once fighters go to private donors for weapons, they have to negotiate, and the price may be ideological.
Many say Islamist groups, from hard-line Salafists to the exiled Muslim Brotherhood, bankroll many battalions that share their religious outlook. The Brotherhood has representatives in Antakya ready to meet interested rebels, fighters say.
Leftist politicians and other opponents of Islamists are trying to counter that influence by funding rival armed bands. "These groups are all making their own militias, like they are some kind of warlords. This is dividing people," said one activist who asked not to be named. "They aren't thinking about military strategies, they are thinking about politics."
Some rebel groups have broken with the FSA and ignore the truce:
Several rebel groups have formally broken with the FSA to form outfits such as the Syrian Liberation Army, the Patriotic Army and The Alternative Movement, whose real identity and clout are hard to assess, because the government restricts media access to Syria.
The FSA has pledged to honor the shaky U.N.-backed truce that took effect on April 16 if the army reciprocates. But the Syrian Liberation Army says it will keep fighting.
"We don't accept the ceasefire. We have slowed down a bit, only because we don't have enough weapons," its spokesman, Haitham Qudeimati, told Reuters.
The Brotherhood is accused of holding back in the fights in order to save its forces for after Assad has fallen:
A 60-year-old rebel commander called Abu Shaham, from the central city of Hama, accused the Brotherhood of hanging back from the battlefront to overpower other rebel groups later.
"The Brotherhood is pumping money into the rebel units yet their men don't fight as much as us. They are almost always the first to retreat. Why?" he asked.
"They are not thinking about this phase in the battle. They care about what comes next. They want to save themselves for the struggle after Assad falls, to come out the strongest."
No article would be complete without some Western war mongers:
"If we don't recognize the rebels, anyone can set up shop in Turkey and start funding opposing groups," said Joseph Holliday, of the U.S-based Institute for the Study of War. "We don't know who is arming who ... I'm afraid by the time the West decides to do something it may be too late."
It looks like mr. Holliday forgot to analyze what happened in Libya.
Again we see here talk about the killing of traitors:
Suspicion of "fleas" - slang for collaborators - has bred an environment where vigilante killing almost seems the norm.
"There are a lot of groups on the ground working alone and not all of them are good guys," said rebel commander Abu Shaham.
"Some are thieves or criminals taking advantage of the chaos. So we go after the fleas and chase them out or kill them. We don't have a problem shooting these people."
Last month, the commander of a rebel unit in Homs province, Amjad al-Hameed, who claimed to be funded by The Alternative Movement, criticized the leaders of several other groups.
"We have armed men among our civilians that are a burden to our revolution," he told a crowd in a March 17 YouTube video. "They are just thieves ... It is impermissible for anyone to rape women, otherwise we are no different from Bashar al-Assad."
The next day, unidentified gunmen shot him dead. Hameed's battalion did not blame the government but other rebels, vowing to "punish them as they deserve."
We see again too a reference to a culture of distrust in Syria.
Qudeimati says most rebels do not belong to any unified group because of a culture of distrust, fostered by years of fear under Syria's infamous secret police.
"The problem is the Assad regime had 40 years to create mistrust between Syrians," Qudeimati said. "The lack of unity has been part of the regime's strategy."
I find that too easy. It works always both ways. The Assad regime wouldn't have been as oppressive if it hadn't been confronted with murderous Brotherhood in the past. And the misdeed by the rebels now sow distrust for many years to come.
BTW. there is also an increase in violence among the Shiites of Saudi Arabia. See Gunfights in Saudi Oil-Rich Province Show Spread of Iran Political Tension.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Syria's stolen revolution
Christian Science Monitor has an article (Syrian activists to rebels: Give us our revolution back). It tells about a conference in Cairo of Syrian on 16 April of opposition leaders who believe that the FSA has stolen their peaceful revolution.
The article provides a multitude of viewpoints:
- “The regime is more afraid of the nonviolent protesters than it is of the armed Islamists. That’s why most of them have been forced to leave the country or are in prison," says Yara Nseir, who was forced to flee Syria last summer after she had been detained 18 days for distributing leaflets. "They wanted it to become an armed uprising because it allows them to tell the world that they are fighting terrorists.”
[...]
“Back then the regime would have armed troublemakers mingle with the protesters to have an excuse to open fire on us. Well, they don’t need to do that anymore: the Free Syrian Army has provided them with the perfect excuse to go on killing people.”
I doubt if it is that simple. The impression is that the Assad regime itself is divided and that Assad himself would be prepared to more reforms than some of his supporters. So he could use the mass demonstrations to swing the consensus inside the elite towards more democracy. But of course such a change takes time and their are lots of people in the police and army who are still stuck in older modes of thought.
- Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu made a telling remark at an Istanbul press conference April 13, when he was asked if “the Syrian regime is afraid of their own Tahrir.” He replied, “That is what we have believed from day one.”
I think the Syrian government has good reasons to afraid of revolutions. Even peaceful revolutions like in Egypt and Tunisia often end up sowing lots of antagonism and new suppression. A peaceful transition is much better. But it will be hard to explain that to Turkey's government that is having its own vendetta against the Turkish army.
- The Syrian opposition has called for mass demonstrations this Friday to test Mr. Annan's peace plan. One of the conditions of the plan is that the regime allow freedom of assembly.
As I have ofter stated I am against those demonstrations. The opposition has killed lots of people by now and some hate it just as much as others the government. So opposition demonstrations are just as provocative and controversial as an army parade in Homs. That is not the way to achieve reconciliation and peace.
- The Syrian National Council, an umbrella opposition group, is supposed to provide a channel for working for political change. But even Ms. Nseir, who is the SNC's spokesperson in Lebanon, says the SNC is seen as too closely aligned with the FSA to present a real alternative to their armed rebellion.
"The SNC claims to be representative of the Syrian people. That’s just not true," says Nseir. "They talk only about arming the rebels. They never talk about nonviolent resistance and they certainly do not speak for the ramadieen, or grey people, the silent majority who support neither the regime nor the armed rebels.”
- In an open letter to the leaders of the Syrian opposition, Human Rights Watch cited “increasing evidence of kidnappings, the use of torture, and executions by armed Syrian opposition members.”
"I told them to their face they are criminals if they do such things, and that they know the meaning of the word freedom," says Ashamy.
Ashamy was told he had better not show his face around Tripoli again if he wanted to stay alive.
Note that this fragment tells that the FSA makes such threats in Tripoli in Lebanon.
"They have ruined everything," Ashamy says of the FSA. "In the beginning we were all Syrians. But when I was last in Homs [late last year] I found that people there were not even aware of what is happening elsewhere in the country. They see this as a purely Sunni Muslim insurgency, and I was accused of being a spy because my ancestry is Druze."
Postscript: This article Syrians questioning whether armed revolt works from 4 May 2012 also discusses the issue. It mentions that some of those who say to support peaceful action also support the uprising. They just don't see themselves as fighters with a gun and see the battle as a two track battle. In my opinion these people miss the point: "non-violent" is not really non-violent when it is meant to support the violence.
Postscript 2: The BBC article "Stuck in the middle - Syria's moderate voices" highlights some people in Damascus who try to stay in the middle and notes that the Assad regime is starting to see them more as a threat.
Postscript 3: Here (Preaching Nonviolence, Syrian Activist Heads Home) is an article about Sheik Jawdat Said who is presented as an 81-year-old Islamic scholar whose books and teachings helped inspire young Syrian activists to challenge the regime in peaceful protests last year. Unlike many "non-violent" protesters who praise the FSA he is against the armed uprising.
Postscript 4: This article (Syrian activists reach across sectarian divide) is about the Nabd (or Pulse) Gathering for Syrian Civil Youth - one of the many cross-sectarian movements that have emerged from Syria's 18-month-long revolt. As I see it one of the front organizations for the rebels aimed to get attract non-Sunni support.
Google also for "Musalaha Syria".
The article provides a multitude of viewpoints:
- “The regime is more afraid of the nonviolent protesters than it is of the armed Islamists. That’s why most of them have been forced to leave the country or are in prison," says Yara Nseir, who was forced to flee Syria last summer after she had been detained 18 days for distributing leaflets. "They wanted it to become an armed uprising because it allows them to tell the world that they are fighting terrorists.”
[...]
“Back then the regime would have armed troublemakers mingle with the protesters to have an excuse to open fire on us. Well, they don’t need to do that anymore: the Free Syrian Army has provided them with the perfect excuse to go on killing people.”
I doubt if it is that simple. The impression is that the Assad regime itself is divided and that Assad himself would be prepared to more reforms than some of his supporters. So he could use the mass demonstrations to swing the consensus inside the elite towards more democracy. But of course such a change takes time and their are lots of people in the police and army who are still stuck in older modes of thought.
- Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu made a telling remark at an Istanbul press conference April 13, when he was asked if “the Syrian regime is afraid of their own Tahrir.” He replied, “That is what we have believed from day one.”
I think the Syrian government has good reasons to afraid of revolutions. Even peaceful revolutions like in Egypt and Tunisia often end up sowing lots of antagonism and new suppression. A peaceful transition is much better. But it will be hard to explain that to Turkey's government that is having its own vendetta against the Turkish army.
- The Syrian opposition has called for mass demonstrations this Friday to test Mr. Annan's peace plan. One of the conditions of the plan is that the regime allow freedom of assembly.
As I have ofter stated I am against those demonstrations. The opposition has killed lots of people by now and some hate it just as much as others the government. So opposition demonstrations are just as provocative and controversial as an army parade in Homs. That is not the way to achieve reconciliation and peace.
- The Syrian National Council, an umbrella opposition group, is supposed to provide a channel for working for political change. But even Ms. Nseir, who is the SNC's spokesperson in Lebanon, says the SNC is seen as too closely aligned with the FSA to present a real alternative to their armed rebellion.
"The SNC claims to be representative of the Syrian people. That’s just not true," says Nseir. "They talk only about arming the rebels. They never talk about nonviolent resistance and they certainly do not speak for the ramadieen, or grey people, the silent majority who support neither the regime nor the armed rebels.”
- In an open letter to the leaders of the Syrian opposition, Human Rights Watch cited “increasing evidence of kidnappings, the use of torture, and executions by armed Syrian opposition members.”
"I told them to their face they are criminals if they do such things, and that they know the meaning of the word freedom," says Ashamy.
Ashamy was told he had better not show his face around Tripoli again if he wanted to stay alive.
Note that this fragment tells that the FSA makes such threats in Tripoli in Lebanon.
"They have ruined everything," Ashamy says of the FSA. "In the beginning we were all Syrians. But when I was last in Homs [late last year] I found that people there were not even aware of what is happening elsewhere in the country. They see this as a purely Sunni Muslim insurgency, and I was accused of being a spy because my ancestry is Druze."
Postscript: This article Syrians questioning whether armed revolt works from 4 May 2012 also discusses the issue. It mentions that some of those who say to support peaceful action also support the uprising. They just don't see themselves as fighters with a gun and see the battle as a two track battle. In my opinion these people miss the point: "non-violent" is not really non-violent when it is meant to support the violence.
Postscript 2: The BBC article "Stuck in the middle - Syria's moderate voices" highlights some people in Damascus who try to stay in the middle and notes that the Assad regime is starting to see them more as a threat.
Postscript 3: Here (Preaching Nonviolence, Syrian Activist Heads Home) is an article about Sheik Jawdat Said who is presented as an 81-year-old Islamic scholar whose books and teachings helped inspire young Syrian activists to challenge the regime in peaceful protests last year. Unlike many "non-violent" protesters who praise the FSA he is against the armed uprising.
Postscript 4: This article (Syrian activists reach across sectarian divide) is about the Nabd (or Pulse) Gathering for Syrian Civil Youth - one of the many cross-sectarian movements that have emerged from Syria's 18-month-long revolt. As I see it one of the front organizations for the rebels aimed to get attract non-Sunni support.
Google also for "Musalaha Syria".
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Misinforming about Syria
In its latest articles the NY Times is quite distorting the situation in Syria in its effort to get an armed intervention:
- it claims that the ongoing army offensive is a prove that Assad is intending not to stick to the armistice. In fact it is quite usual that before an armistice both parties attempt to improve their position. So the fact that Assad seems to be doing just that seems to indicate that intends to take the armistice seriously.
The fact that that the opposition announces that it will even earlier stop with hostilities is not necessarily a friendly gesture. Due to the government offensive the opposition is losing territory so they are desperate to stop the government offensive as soon as possible.
- it claims that Assad's demands for written assurances from the rebels that they will stick to the armistice is a "new demand". But an armistice can only work when both parties stick to it. Assad is perfectly justified to ask additional guarantees if he think that the opposition will take advantage if he withdraws his troops from the cities. The fact that the opposition is refusing to do this should be a warning sign that they are not intending to stick to their part of the deal.
- the article claims that Assad is asking that the opposition "would be dismantled first". This is an exaggeration of his demands. But is it unreasonable to ask that the opposition will not create a state within a state and treat the areas it controls as liberated areas - where Assad supporters are not safe - but instead be committed to a Syria where everyone is free to move?
- the article claims that "Syria has undermined every truce plan it ostensibly accepted since the uprising started in March 2011". Every truce plan was undermined by the opposition that didn't participate but used it as an opportunity to expand its own power. Add to this the consistent refusal of the opposition to negotiate with Assad - what leaves an armed fight as the only alternative - and it is clear that the attitude of the opposition is a major problem.
If fact the government has repeatedly during periods been very reticent in military actions - only to see the opposition take advantage of that.
- the title of the article puts the blame of the shooting near the Turkish border on the Syrian Army. But as the article explains the army was attacked at that place. One can blame the Syrian Army for not showing adequate restraint. But most of the blame should go to Turkey that places a refugee camp right next to the border and allows it to be used as a staging ground for opposition fighters.
- the article mentions a recent HRW report about extrajudicial killings by government forces but fails to mention reports (like the Spiegel Online article) that the opposition is doing the same.
- it claims that the ongoing army offensive is a prove that Assad is intending not to stick to the armistice. In fact it is quite usual that before an armistice both parties attempt to improve their position. So the fact that Assad seems to be doing just that seems to indicate that intends to take the armistice seriously.
The fact that that the opposition announces that it will even earlier stop with hostilities is not necessarily a friendly gesture. Due to the government offensive the opposition is losing territory so they are desperate to stop the government offensive as soon as possible.
- it claims that Assad's demands for written assurances from the rebels that they will stick to the armistice is a "new demand". But an armistice can only work when both parties stick to it. Assad is perfectly justified to ask additional guarantees if he think that the opposition will take advantage if he withdraws his troops from the cities. The fact that the opposition is refusing to do this should be a warning sign that they are not intending to stick to their part of the deal.
- the article claims that Assad is asking that the opposition "would be dismantled first". This is an exaggeration of his demands. But is it unreasonable to ask that the opposition will not create a state within a state and treat the areas it controls as liberated areas - where Assad supporters are not safe - but instead be committed to a Syria where everyone is free to move?
- the article claims that "Syria has undermined every truce plan it ostensibly accepted since the uprising started in March 2011". Every truce plan was undermined by the opposition that didn't participate but used it as an opportunity to expand its own power. Add to this the consistent refusal of the opposition to negotiate with Assad - what leaves an armed fight as the only alternative - and it is clear that the attitude of the opposition is a major problem.
If fact the government has repeatedly during periods been very reticent in military actions - only to see the opposition take advantage of that.
- the title of the article puts the blame of the shooting near the Turkish border on the Syrian Army. But as the article explains the army was attacked at that place. One can blame the Syrian Army for not showing adequate restraint. But most of the blame should go to Turkey that places a refugee camp right next to the border and allows it to be used as a staging ground for opposition fighters.
- the article mentions a recent HRW report about extrajudicial killings by government forces but fails to mention reports (like the Spiegel Online article) that the opposition is doing the same.
Friday, April 06, 2012
Non-violent disobedience for Syria? A bad idea.
In the article "Merits of a Syrian Cease-Fire on the CFR website it is argued that the Syrian opposition should now "launch a civil disobedience program which doesn't include violence.".
I strongly disagree. There is only a subtle difference between "civil obedience" and mob rule. The purpose of civil disobedience is to make a point and to show that a considerable part of the population supports that point. At that point negotiations should take over and a compromise should be searched. But when it ends up in a semi-violent takeover of the power it has clearly passed this goal and degraded in mob rule.
I think it is no coincidence that none of the color revolutions has become a success. Mob rule breeds instability, not progress. Serbia is the least problematic of the color revolutions. But it can hardly be called a success when a country cannot vote for the opposition without risking the anger of Brussels. The heritage of mob rule can also be seen in the fierce protests and other actions by radical Muslims in Egypt and Tunisia. They are a minority. But they know that if they push hard enough they have a good chance to have it their way. Already it is reported that the women of Tunisia dress more conservatively and at Manouba Universiteit Salafists managed for one month to impose an obligated scarf.
There is one other factor. At this stage of conflict there is no more freedom to demonstrate. And that works both ways: those who not go will face sanctions if the revolution wins.
What Syria's opposition needs to do after an armistice is building bridges with the army and the government and to negotiate with Assad about the future. Civil disobedience and demonstrations would show that they are still in the destructive mode and not prepared to a constructive contribution.
It is easy to suggest that Assad won't negotiate seriously. But that ignores Assad's real position. Thousands of regime supporters have died too in the past year and there is a real risk that a revolutionary victory might lead to massacres and other retributions against his followers. So if he can have a good deal he will certainly consider it. But then the opposition has to go beyond asking steps toward surrender. Instead they should aim for a real compromise.
I strongly disagree. There is only a subtle difference between "civil obedience" and mob rule. The purpose of civil disobedience is to make a point and to show that a considerable part of the population supports that point. At that point negotiations should take over and a compromise should be searched. But when it ends up in a semi-violent takeover of the power it has clearly passed this goal and degraded in mob rule.
I think it is no coincidence that none of the color revolutions has become a success. Mob rule breeds instability, not progress. Serbia is the least problematic of the color revolutions. But it can hardly be called a success when a country cannot vote for the opposition without risking the anger of Brussels. The heritage of mob rule can also be seen in the fierce protests and other actions by radical Muslims in Egypt and Tunisia. They are a minority. But they know that if they push hard enough they have a good chance to have it their way. Already it is reported that the women of Tunisia dress more conservatively and at Manouba Universiteit Salafists managed for one month to impose an obligated scarf.
There is one other factor. At this stage of conflict there is no more freedom to demonstrate. And that works both ways: those who not go will face sanctions if the revolution wins.
What Syria's opposition needs to do after an armistice is building bridges with the army and the government and to negotiate with Assad about the future. Civil disobedience and demonstrations would show that they are still in the destructive mode and not prepared to a constructive contribution.
It is easy to suggest that Assad won't negotiate seriously. But that ignores Assad's real position. Thousands of regime supporters have died too in the past year and there is a real risk that a revolutionary victory might lead to massacres and other retributions against his followers. So if he can have a good deal he will certainly consider it. But then the opposition has to go beyond asking steps toward surrender. Instead they should aim for a real compromise.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Syria's "peaceful" opposition
Spiegel online has an article ("The Burial Brigade of Homs: An Executioner for Syria's Rebels Tells His Story")that gives a disturbing picture how deadly Syria's revolutionaries really are. It tells how this rebel group alone has executed nearly 150 government supporters in addition to 200 to 250 "traitors" from their own ranks. And this is only Homs and concerns only those who had first been captured and were then killed after a "trial".
Of course they mention government violence as an excuse. They also say that Syria has a very violent culture. But however you take it, it is clear that the rebels are contributing to the spiral of increasing violence too. And in a my bigger way than most of their Western supporters would like to admit.
Syria's government has its own claims on how deadly the opposition is. It talks about "6, 143 Syrian citizens killed by the terrorist groups and 1, 590 citizens who were kidnapped, the fate of two thirds of whom remain unknown".
Postscript:
20 June 2012: This article (In rebel-held Syria, revolutionary courts decide matters of life, death) reports about a more peaceful revolutionary court.
Of course they mention government violence as an excuse. They also say that Syria has a very violent culture. But however you take it, it is clear that the rebels are contributing to the spiral of increasing violence too. And in a my bigger way than most of their Western supporters would like to admit.
Syria's government has its own claims on how deadly the opposition is. It talks about "6, 143 Syrian citizens killed by the terrorist groups and 1, 590 citizens who were kidnapped, the fate of two thirds of whom remain unknown".
Postscript:
20 June 2012: This article (In rebel-held Syria, revolutionary courts decide matters of life, death) reports about a more peaceful revolutionary court.
Friday, March 30, 2012
How the US deals with a popular uprising
We know what happened in Iraq but the US is also heavily involved in the fighting against a popular uprising in Colombia. The country - with about twice the population of Syria - has 5 million internally displaced.
I couldn't find number of casualties but those must be thousands a year.
I couldn't find number of casualties but those must be thousands a year.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Syrians fleeing for whom?
The Media Line has an interesting look on the increase of the number of Syrian refugees in the neighboring countries:
“The West wants to punish Al-Assad by imposing sanctions on his regime, but they are also punishing the people. Citizens are suffering as a result of the sanctions and uncertainty in the pound value,” says activist Islam Abdullah from the Syrian Media Center.
He says hundreds of Syrian families have chosen to flee to Jordan and other neighboring countries in search of food rather than for safety. In Jordan, they receive aid from non-government organizations and ordinary Jordanian citizens.
According to this article ("Exclusive: Syria buys grain via Lebanon to beat sanctions"): Growing numbers of Syrians are struggling to obtain food, with prices of staples more than doubling.. This may have been caused by the fact that the exchange rate of the Syrian currency has fallen to half.
There is also a shortage of LPG gas that is mainly used for cooking and hearing.
Here is an article in Spiegel and here the German original about war profiteers in Syria. Just like in any other sanctioned country those connected to the regime profit from the sanctions while the common man suffers.
“The West wants to punish Al-Assad by imposing sanctions on his regime, but they are also punishing the people. Citizens are suffering as a result of the sanctions and uncertainty in the pound value,” says activist Islam Abdullah from the Syrian Media Center.
He says hundreds of Syrian families have chosen to flee to Jordan and other neighboring countries in search of food rather than for safety. In Jordan, they receive aid from non-government organizations and ordinary Jordanian citizens.
According to this article ("Exclusive: Syria buys grain via Lebanon to beat sanctions"): Growing numbers of Syrians are struggling to obtain food, with prices of staples more than doubling.. This may have been caused by the fact that the exchange rate of the Syrian currency has fallen to half.
There is also a shortage of LPG gas that is mainly used for cooking and hearing.
Here is an article in Spiegel and here the German original about war profiteers in Syria. Just like in any other sanctioned country those connected to the regime profit from the sanctions while the common man suffers.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Some tips for Annan on Syria
The Security Council just adopted a resolution of Syria after a report from Annan who proposed a six-point peace proposal.
Here some thoughts on how I would approach negotiating the Syrian conflict. This is a blog and I am not a diplomat so I will use a style that stresses clarity over diplomatic niceness.
Vs Assad:
- stress the need to discipline his troops. Torture and unnecessary destruction may work in the short term to relieve the stress from the troops and to intimidate the enemy. But it makes him a loser in the fight for hearts and minds.
- encourage him to make local compromises. Building trust with the opposition will take time so cherish small compromises.
- tell him that he is the president of all Syrians and that he should show that. One can discuss whether the devastation in Baba Amr was necessary or not. But one should feel sorry for the population that now has to live in devastated houses and may have lost relatives.
- ask him to make openings for the opposition to come back.
- stress that he cannot ignore the Muslim Brotherhood. He must find a way to engage them.
- discuss local leaders who keep their community together in the present climate. Stress that such behavior should be encouraged and copied.
- tell him that we no longer live in 1982. With internet, easy money transfers, cheap telephone and travel and widespread car possession the world is now much more connected and he needs to reach out.
- Assad has shown himself prepared to negotiate and has introduced some reforms and released many prisoners. Discuss with him a road forward.
- tell him that if he doesn't play his cards well there is a real chance that he will lose power in a revolutionary way. So he should do better to prevent unnecessary polarization between Alawites and Sunnites as that might backfire later on.
- tell him that one day Syria will be a prosperous democratic country and that he should work towards that goal. Ethnic polarization will harm the progress towards that goal and may also harm the long term position of Syria's minorities.
Vs the opposition:
- Talk with many different opposition leaders. Be prepared to form a "coalition of the willing".
- Stress the costs of revolution. Let them have a look at the devastation and human costs of the revolution in Libya and ask them is them if this is really what they want.
- condemn their offensive at the end of January for destroying chances for peace.
- challenge the exiles and emigrants. It is very comfortable to be radical from your arm chair in Los Angeles. It were the exiles who destroyed Yugoslavia and the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka with their support for radicals. Don't give them a chance here.
- challenge the revengeful: some who lost relatives in 1982 or recently may just be filled with hatred against the Assad government. But such an attitude does not offer hope for finding a compromise between Syria's many different political groups.
- Tell them that a peaceful transition with compromise offers a much better long term chance for democracy than a revolution. Compromise is the heart of democracy. With a zero-sum winner-takes-it-all mentality democracy is doomed and you are on your road to the next dictatorship.
- Stress that any compromise will contain a clause to reintegrate opposition fighters. Many of the young fighters have the feeling that they have burned the bridges behind them and that they have no choice but to fight till the bitter end.
- stress that "Assad must go" demonstrations are revolutionary and not democratic. This is not how peaceful opposition should look.
- tell them to focus on content and not on people. The primary goal should be more freedom and prosperity for the Syrians - not having some other people in the power seats. The task of the government is to serve the population and if Assad is prepared to do that it is ok. And it is much better than some revolutionary place holder who thinks he entitled to a high position because of what he did in the revolution. They will notice that once this mentality change happens the step towards democracy will become much smaller.
- tell them that a revolution always brings a backlash against the former rulers and their supporters. This applies the more as Syria's opposition lacks any leader of the stature of Mandela who might be able to impose his own vision. Tell them that for that reason you think it very unlikely that Syria after a revolution will be democratic and tolerant - no matter how well the intentions of some insurgents may be - and that you see an real need for a negotiated solution.
Vs the US:
- see also opposition part
- talk with Obama about how disgusting you find his behavior in Libya where the Western resistance to compromise led to a protracted civil war, many unnecessary deaths, a devastated country, anarchy and needless polarization.
- stress that the policy of regime change results in a world where everybody feels bullied not to speak out against the US but where at the same time there a great resentment against it.
- discuss how America's previous democratization project - the color revolutions - ended. Stress that the sorry results were not coincidental but a logic consequence of revolutionary change.
- Stress the value of negotiations in democracy and how undemocratic America's refusal to talk with Assad is.
- condemn hypocrite US behavior such as demanding Assad to withdraw his troops from the cities while at the same time encouraging and equipping the rebels to enter there.
- discuss the issue of Syria's "support for terrorists". Talk about how real this still is and suggest other solutions.
Vs Saudi Arabia:
- see also the US part
- ask them what they really want. As stricter dictatorships than Syria they can't be really interested in democratization.
- discuss the Saudi Iran obsession. Mention that secular Syria is not a natural ally for fundamentalist Iran and that Saudi policies have driven them in each others arms.
What not to do:
- don't ask for regime change. How Syria should be governed in the future should be the subject of negotiations and not be predetermined.
- don't ask for surrender. Asking the government troops to withdraw from the cities means that the government should surrender the cities - including their pro-Assad areas - to the rebels. This is not a realistic demand. As the rebels lack a central command the only way to arrange for armistices is to have local negotiations where both sides commit to specific rules that prevent one side to draw disproportional advantage from an armistice.
Here some thoughts on how I would approach negotiating the Syrian conflict. This is a blog and I am not a diplomat so I will use a style that stresses clarity over diplomatic niceness.
Vs Assad:
- stress the need to discipline his troops. Torture and unnecessary destruction may work in the short term to relieve the stress from the troops and to intimidate the enemy. But it makes him a loser in the fight for hearts and minds.
- encourage him to make local compromises. Building trust with the opposition will take time so cherish small compromises.
- tell him that he is the president of all Syrians and that he should show that. One can discuss whether the devastation in Baba Amr was necessary or not. But one should feel sorry for the population that now has to live in devastated houses and may have lost relatives.
- ask him to make openings for the opposition to come back.
- stress that he cannot ignore the Muslim Brotherhood. He must find a way to engage them.
- discuss local leaders who keep their community together in the present climate. Stress that such behavior should be encouraged and copied.
- tell him that we no longer live in 1982. With internet, easy money transfers, cheap telephone and travel and widespread car possession the world is now much more connected and he needs to reach out.
- Assad has shown himself prepared to negotiate and has introduced some reforms and released many prisoners. Discuss with him a road forward.
- tell him that if he doesn't play his cards well there is a real chance that he will lose power in a revolutionary way. So he should do better to prevent unnecessary polarization between Alawites and Sunnites as that might backfire later on.
- tell him that one day Syria will be a prosperous democratic country and that he should work towards that goal. Ethnic polarization will harm the progress towards that goal and may also harm the long term position of Syria's minorities.
Vs the opposition:
- Talk with many different opposition leaders. Be prepared to form a "coalition of the willing".
- Stress the costs of revolution. Let them have a look at the devastation and human costs of the revolution in Libya and ask them is them if this is really what they want.
- condemn their offensive at the end of January for destroying chances for peace.
- challenge the exiles and emigrants. It is very comfortable to be radical from your arm chair in Los Angeles. It were the exiles who destroyed Yugoslavia and the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka with their support for radicals. Don't give them a chance here.
- challenge the revengeful: some who lost relatives in 1982 or recently may just be filled with hatred against the Assad government. But such an attitude does not offer hope for finding a compromise between Syria's many different political groups.
- Tell them that a peaceful transition with compromise offers a much better long term chance for democracy than a revolution. Compromise is the heart of democracy. With a zero-sum winner-takes-it-all mentality democracy is doomed and you are on your road to the next dictatorship.
- Stress that any compromise will contain a clause to reintegrate opposition fighters. Many of the young fighters have the feeling that they have burned the bridges behind them and that they have no choice but to fight till the bitter end.
- stress that "Assad must go" demonstrations are revolutionary and not democratic. This is not how peaceful opposition should look.
- tell them to focus on content and not on people. The primary goal should be more freedom and prosperity for the Syrians - not having some other people in the power seats. The task of the government is to serve the population and if Assad is prepared to do that it is ok. And it is much better than some revolutionary place holder who thinks he entitled to a high position because of what he did in the revolution. They will notice that once this mentality change happens the step towards democracy will become much smaller.
- tell them that a revolution always brings a backlash against the former rulers and their supporters. This applies the more as Syria's opposition lacks any leader of the stature of Mandela who might be able to impose his own vision. Tell them that for that reason you think it very unlikely that Syria after a revolution will be democratic and tolerant - no matter how well the intentions of some insurgents may be - and that you see an real need for a negotiated solution.
Vs the US:
- see also opposition part
- talk with Obama about how disgusting you find his behavior in Libya where the Western resistance to compromise led to a protracted civil war, many unnecessary deaths, a devastated country, anarchy and needless polarization.
- stress that the policy of regime change results in a world where everybody feels bullied not to speak out against the US but where at the same time there a great resentment against it.
- discuss how America's previous democratization project - the color revolutions - ended. Stress that the sorry results were not coincidental but a logic consequence of revolutionary change.
- Stress the value of negotiations in democracy and how undemocratic America's refusal to talk with Assad is.
- condemn hypocrite US behavior such as demanding Assad to withdraw his troops from the cities while at the same time encouraging and equipping the rebels to enter there.
- discuss the issue of Syria's "support for terrorists". Talk about how real this still is and suggest other solutions.
Vs Saudi Arabia:
- see also the US part
- ask them what they really want. As stricter dictatorships than Syria they can't be really interested in democratization.
- discuss the Saudi Iran obsession. Mention that secular Syria is not a natural ally for fundamentalist Iran and that Saudi policies have driven them in each others arms.
What not to do:
- don't ask for regime change. How Syria should be governed in the future should be the subject of negotiations and not be predetermined.
- don't ask for surrender. Asking the government troops to withdraw from the cities means that the government should surrender the cities - including their pro-Assad areas - to the rebels. This is not a realistic demand. As the rebels lack a central command the only way to arrange for armistices is to have local negotiations where both sides commit to specific rules that prevent one side to draw disproportional advantage from an armistice.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
How (not) to negotiate in Syria
The International Crisis Group has a released a report "Now or Never: A Negotiated Transition for Syria" in which it advocates a plan that:
- comprises an early transfer of power that preserves the integrity of key state institutions;
- ensures a gradual yet thorough overhaul of security services; and
- puts in place a process of transitional justice and national reconciliation that reassures Syrian constituencies alarmed by the dual prospect of tumultuous change and violent score-settling.
I don't believe this will work.
The first problem is that it has copied the Arab League (read: Wahabi) demand for immediate regime change. But there is no organization ready to replace the regime. The opposition is hopelessly divided. So we would see a lot of infighting before Syria has once again a stable government.
The claim that the "integrity of key state institutions" should preserved is in this context an empty shell. It is very unlikely that in such a climate of infighting the politicians will be inclined to respect certain institutions. Politicians want to profile themselves and one of the obvious targets for that will inevitably be the Baath institutions.
But the biggest problem is that it is a "camel's nose" tactic. Nobody expects replacing Assad with some deputy will solve anything. The only reason to ask it is that it is believed that it has a better chance to be accepted than a demand for an immediate replacement of Assad by someone from the opposition. But the calculation is that it will weaken the regime so that such a demand for an opposition takeover becomes more feasible. Assad and his supporters will of course recognize this and can be expected to resolutely resist it.
A second problem is that this proposal ignores the value of negotiations in itself. Negotiations can serve to let people learn to know and trust each other. They would offer a forum where people from the government and the opposition can develop a common vision on the future of Syria. They would force the government to take the opposition more seriously. But they would also force the opposition to find a common view.
Having an “early transfer of power” is the wrong idea. Negotiations should initially focus on trust-building measures like gradual release of prisoners, withdrawal of rebel forces and an end to the demonstrations. Demonstrations are nice to express popular demands but they should not degenerate into mob rule: in the end solutions should be negotiated. Next would be a government of national unity with opposition representatives. The focus should be on agreeing how the new Syria should look like. Not on which people will play what roles.
The often repeated argument not to negotiate is that Assad would just negotiate to buy time and would only use the opportunity to repackage reforms he is already introducing. I think this argument is wrong for several reasons:
- the fact that Assad is already introducing reforms should be appreciated. The attitude should be that these are not enough - not that they are fundamentally wrong. One may question Assad's sincerity for reform but his claim that controlled reform is better than a revolution is sound.
- one may ask Assad to release some prisoners as a specific gesture of goodwill before the negotiations.
- it ignores that the opposition - and specially the foreign-based SNC - has good reasons not to want to negotiate: they are too divided and not representative. When they have to take positions for negotiations this will show and they are likely to fall apart. Yet one may ask whether it would be in the interest of Syria when that division comes out after they have acquired power. In addition many opposition "leaders" represent nobody and are incapable as politicians. They were simply picked out for having an impressive resume when the uprising needed spokesmen.
- protests can always be restarted. Assad wins nothing with delaying tactics.
The call for an "overhaul" of security services has problems too. It is clear that in a peaceful Syria there is no place or need for Shabeeha. But the police and military is a different thing. Sure, the police could do with less torture and the military could have done more to avoid damage and civilian casualties when it conquered Baba Amr. But to a large extent these are problems that play in many Arab countries and mainly reflect a lack of appropriate training and expectations. Replacing these guys with amateurs from the opposition would lead to a deterioration of standards - not an improvement - as can be seen in Libya. Bringing improvements would primarily mean better training and political agreement. There is also a need to bring more Sunni's in the higher positions of the security services, but these two issues should not be confused. Trying to use the present problems of the security services as a wedge to introduce more Sunni's might very well backfire and result in neither of the goals being achieved.
Then there is the issue of trust. You cannot both aim for a revolution and reform. One of the reasons the opposition achieved so little in the beginning was that it only wanted regime change and didn't even want to negotiate about that. The same issue could be seen in the Security Council resolution that was rightly rejected by Russia and China because it asked the government to stop hostilities but refused to ask the same from the opposition. Real negotiating means that the opposition should give up on revolutionary regime change and seriously starts negotiating with the regime about building trust and making reforms. They might at some time conclude that it doesn't work and return to a revolution but before that they should be really prepared to give peaceful reform a chance. That would mean that their proposals should be aimed at real improvements and not at weakening the regime so that later on it can be overthrown more easily.
A revolution would cause serious problems in a country like Syria. Revolutions tend to polarize. Despite all the nice statements we hear now there is a considerable chance that after a revolution the country will evolve towards de-Baathisation and discrimination of the Alawites and other groups while the former rebel fighters demand their "rightful rewards". A gradual transition on the other hand can do a lot to preserve and improve the equality of people.
Bashar Assad will not be the easiest person to negotiate with. He is known to be rather reserved and often to leave negotiations to others. Also his political instincts are seen as less developed than those of his father. Occasionally some Western pressure may be needed but the main accent should be creating a vision on how Syria should go forward.
- comprises an early transfer of power that preserves the integrity of key state institutions;
- ensures a gradual yet thorough overhaul of security services; and
- puts in place a process of transitional justice and national reconciliation that reassures Syrian constituencies alarmed by the dual prospect of tumultuous change and violent score-settling.
I don't believe this will work.
The first problem is that it has copied the Arab League (read: Wahabi) demand for immediate regime change. But there is no organization ready to replace the regime. The opposition is hopelessly divided. So we would see a lot of infighting before Syria has once again a stable government.
The claim that the "integrity of key state institutions" should preserved is in this context an empty shell. It is very unlikely that in such a climate of infighting the politicians will be inclined to respect certain institutions. Politicians want to profile themselves and one of the obvious targets for that will inevitably be the Baath institutions.
But the biggest problem is that it is a "camel's nose" tactic. Nobody expects replacing Assad with some deputy will solve anything. The only reason to ask it is that it is believed that it has a better chance to be accepted than a demand for an immediate replacement of Assad by someone from the opposition. But the calculation is that it will weaken the regime so that such a demand for an opposition takeover becomes more feasible. Assad and his supporters will of course recognize this and can be expected to resolutely resist it.
A second problem is that this proposal ignores the value of negotiations in itself. Negotiations can serve to let people learn to know and trust each other. They would offer a forum where people from the government and the opposition can develop a common vision on the future of Syria. They would force the government to take the opposition more seriously. But they would also force the opposition to find a common view.
Having an “early transfer of power” is the wrong idea. Negotiations should initially focus on trust-building measures like gradual release of prisoners, withdrawal of rebel forces and an end to the demonstrations. Demonstrations are nice to express popular demands but they should not degenerate into mob rule: in the end solutions should be negotiated. Next would be a government of national unity with opposition representatives. The focus should be on agreeing how the new Syria should look like. Not on which people will play what roles.
The often repeated argument not to negotiate is that Assad would just negotiate to buy time and would only use the opportunity to repackage reforms he is already introducing. I think this argument is wrong for several reasons:
- the fact that Assad is already introducing reforms should be appreciated. The attitude should be that these are not enough - not that they are fundamentally wrong. One may question Assad's sincerity for reform but his claim that controlled reform is better than a revolution is sound.
- one may ask Assad to release some prisoners as a specific gesture of goodwill before the negotiations.
- it ignores that the opposition - and specially the foreign-based SNC - has good reasons not to want to negotiate: they are too divided and not representative. When they have to take positions for negotiations this will show and they are likely to fall apart. Yet one may ask whether it would be in the interest of Syria when that division comes out after they have acquired power. In addition many opposition "leaders" represent nobody and are incapable as politicians. They were simply picked out for having an impressive resume when the uprising needed spokesmen.
- protests can always be restarted. Assad wins nothing with delaying tactics.
The call for an "overhaul" of security services has problems too. It is clear that in a peaceful Syria there is no place or need for Shabeeha. But the police and military is a different thing. Sure, the police could do with less torture and the military could have done more to avoid damage and civilian casualties when it conquered Baba Amr. But to a large extent these are problems that play in many Arab countries and mainly reflect a lack of appropriate training and expectations. Replacing these guys with amateurs from the opposition would lead to a deterioration of standards - not an improvement - as can be seen in Libya. Bringing improvements would primarily mean better training and political agreement. There is also a need to bring more Sunni's in the higher positions of the security services, but these two issues should not be confused. Trying to use the present problems of the security services as a wedge to introduce more Sunni's might very well backfire and result in neither of the goals being achieved.
Then there is the issue of trust. You cannot both aim for a revolution and reform. One of the reasons the opposition achieved so little in the beginning was that it only wanted regime change and didn't even want to negotiate about that. The same issue could be seen in the Security Council resolution that was rightly rejected by Russia and China because it asked the government to stop hostilities but refused to ask the same from the opposition. Real negotiating means that the opposition should give up on revolutionary regime change and seriously starts negotiating with the regime about building trust and making reforms. They might at some time conclude that it doesn't work and return to a revolution but before that they should be really prepared to give peaceful reform a chance. That would mean that their proposals should be aimed at real improvements and not at weakening the regime so that later on it can be overthrown more easily.
A revolution would cause serious problems in a country like Syria. Revolutions tend to polarize. Despite all the nice statements we hear now there is a considerable chance that after a revolution the country will evolve towards de-Baathisation and discrimination of the Alawites and other groups while the former rebel fighters demand their "rightful rewards". A gradual transition on the other hand can do a lot to preserve and improve the equality of people.
Bashar Assad will not be the easiest person to negotiate with. He is known to be rather reserved and often to leave negotiations to others. Also his political instincts are seen as less developed than those of his father. Occasionally some Western pressure may be needed but the main accent should be creating a vision on how Syria should go forward.
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