Sarkozy visit to Damascus signals thaw in relationsIan ...
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Sun. 12 June. 2011
HAARETZ
➢ Assad likely to succeed in bid to quell Syria protests……….1
➢ Syrian refugee tells Haaretz: Assad regime killing soldiers...3
THE NATION
➢ After Assad, democracy in Syria?...By Elliott Abrams..........6
JERUSALEM POST
➢ Report: Egypt FM asks West to intervene in Syria crisis…...7
➢ Envoys: Russia, China snub UN council talks on Syria…….7
➢ 'Syria's nuclear plant linked to 3 other facilities'…………….8
YEDIOTH AHRONOTH
➢ IDF not expecting additional border riots………………...…9
SAN ANTONIO
➢ Syria repeating history…………………………………..…10
CBS
➢ In Syria, signs of a civil war, caught on tape…………...….12
ARUTZ SHEVA
➢ UNHRC Gave Assad, Other Dictators a Free Pass………...14
GUARDIAN
➢ Syrian elite don't plan to let the revolution spoil their party.16
TODAY’S ZAMAN
➢ The legitimacy problem……………………………………18
NYTIMES
➢ U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors……..…20
COUNTER PUNCH
➢ Bashar Assad's Missed Opportunity………………………..28
➢ The Odyssey of Hassan Hijazi……………………………..39
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Assad likely to succeed in bid to quell Syria protests
Assad is operating on the assumptions that time is on his side and that even if Turkey or other states sever ties with Syria it will still be able to count on cooperation from Iraq, Iran and Russia.
By Zvi Bar'el
Haaretz,
12 June 2011,
A Syrian opposition website yesterday compared President Bashar Assad with a hijacker who names his ransom fee and then cuts off all contact until his demands are met.
The comparison is right about one thing at least - Assad isn't taking phone calls from Ban-ki Moon. In their last conversation, a few days ago, he asked the United Nations Secretary General why he had called him, anyway. The Turkish prime minister is apparently in the same boat; Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he last spoke to Assad "four or five days ago." On Friday he denounced the "atrocities" being committed by the Syrian regime against its own citizens, calling its actions "savagery." Strong words for a man who only a week ago said he still considered Assad a "good friend."
Syria seems unmoved by both Erdogan's remarks and by the UN Security Council, where he has the full backing - and the threat of their veto of any anti-Syrian resolution - of China and Russia. Their support enables Assad to continue to characterize his violent suppression of demonstrations and shooting of protesters as an "internal Syrian matter" or the work of "armed gangs," and to claim that any international intervention is a plot to destroy the regime.
Assad is operating on the assumptions that time is not working against him, that his army will succeed in suppressing the demonstrations even if they continue for longer than anticipated and that even if Turkey or other states sever ties with Syria it will still be able to count on cooperation from Iraq, Iran and Russia. Another assumption, presumably correct, is that Syria will not be subject to a Libya-style international military onslaught. Assad's Syria has endured periods of severe diplomatic isolation in the past. With the UN draft resolutions intended, for now, only to censure the acts of suppression, without imposing additional sanctions, Assad can ignore the threat.
The position of the Syrian army lends further support to Assad's intransigence. Its junior and mid-level echelons, as well as the senior command, is behind him. While opposition leaders have reported the defections of soldiers and some officers, even they admit that their numbers are in "the hundreds, and not thousands." Most of these defectors are soldiers or junior officers from towns and villages that are under army assault. According to Lebanese sources, senior commanders remove soldiers or officers who are "suspected" of disloyalty and either imprison them or order them to remain in barracks.
Assad has also stopped offering a "dialogue" with the opposition; in recent days, the reports mention only an intention to carry out reforms "in the coming days." These announcements no longer have any effect on the resistance movement, which now encompasses large parts of Damascus and of Aleppo, the country's two largest cities, which have not as yet joined the anti-regime protest full-force. The opposition's ultimate goal is to get rid of the Assad regime and introduce democracy.
The opposition, however, is having difficulty forging a unified leadership, and this plays into Assad's hands. Even though the convention held by the opposition movement early this month elected a 31-member consultative council and drafted a declaration of intentions that was also signed by the Muslim Brotherhood, many internal disagreements remain. These include, for example, whether to call for international military intervention, how to build the post-Assad regime, how to divide the political pie among Sunni and Shi'ite, Christian and Alawi; between urban and rural, between tribal heads and urban elites. And, as usual in such circumstances, the will is being read before the deceased has breathed his last breath.
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Syrian refugee tells Haaretz: Assad regime killing soldiers who refuse to shoot civilians
Haaretz's Anshel Pfeffer reports from the Syrian-Turkish border.
By Anshel Pfeffer
Haaretz,
12 June 2011,
All he is willing to say is that his name is Moussa and that he comes from a village near Jisr al-Shoughour, where he arrived on Thursday to shop at the market. To prove that he was there, Moussa holds up his cell phone and plays a video of burning fields with sounds of gunfire in the background.
Moussa says that the incident which the Syrian regime claimed left 120 soldiers dead at the hands of "armed gangs" began when the security police and Baath party activists brought two buses of pro-regime demonstrators into the town and urged residents to join a procession celebrating the rule of Bashar Assad. The residents refused and instead staged a counter-protest.
"The policemen told the soldiers to shoot at the people," Moussa recalls. "Some of the soldiers refused to open fire, so they themselves were shot."
He says he doesn't know where the figure of 120 dead soldiers comes from, but notes that 37 protesters were also killed, and "other civilians were taken away, we don't know where. Anyone who could ran off, and policemen stayed behind to shoot at whoever would come back. In the end everyone ran away."
On that night, the residents of Jisr al-Shoughour and the surrounding villages began a massive exodus toward the Turkish border. "On the way we saw them burning fields and bringing in reinforcements," Moussa says. He recalls hundreds of soldiers arriving in convoys of armed vehicles and tanks. The tanks shelled buildings, hitting two mosques in the process. The forces appeared to belong to the staunchly loyal Fourth Division of the Syrian army, commanded by Mahr Assad, the president's brother.
Moussa is sitting curled up on the roof of a house in a small village on the Turkish side of the border, casting furtive glances from left to right. He is one of the few Syrians who have succeeded in crossing without being detained in a refugee camp by the Turkish authorities.
About 300 meters from the house is an asphalt road marking the border. A dirt road leading up to it from the Syrian side is full of vehicles abandoned there by Jisr al-Shoughour refugees.
Later that day, at around 7 P.M., about 100 people stand on the asphalt strip. They arrived hours before with a coffin on their shoulders. They said it contained the remains of a young man killed by Syrian security forces. They were stopped at the border by a Turkish armored vehicle and told to stay on that side of the road.
Warning shots
A young Turkish lieutenant is driving up and down the road in a jeep and yelling at Turkish civilians who try to help the refugees and the journalists who want to film them, warning both to stay away. "It's a closed military zone, this is a border," he shouts. One of the soldiers fires two warning shots into the air. About half an hour after darkness falls, a convoy of white mini-buses arrives. The refugees board them and are taken to one of the two refugee camps, both already nearly completely full. An ambulance takes some of the wounded to a hospital in the nearby city of Antakya. Those with less serious wounds are taken to a field hospital nearby.
While there is still no clear account of recent events in the northwestern province of Idlib, the picture that emerges from statements by refugees and reports compiled by human rights organizations is that at least some of the fatalities among the soldiers were caused when security forces loyal to the regime shot at them, after these soldiers refused to shoot protesters.
There are also reports of widespread defections from the army, and it is clear that events in Syria are resonating beyond the country's borders.
According to reports, nearly all 41,000 residents of Jisr al-Shoughour and thousands of other villagers from the area have fled south, toward the Turkish border. It is not yet known how many of them succeeded in crossing into Turkey and how many are still hiding in the mountainous terrain near the border. One group of refugees that did break through yesterday said that Syrian soldiers shot at them, wounding some. There were also reports of groups of armed civilians and soldiers who defected and stayed behind in Jisr al-Shoughour to fight regime forces.
Various official Turkish announcements have put the estimated number of refugees who crossed the border into their country at anywhere between 4,000 and 6,000.
While Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week strongly condemned Syria's brutal suppression of the protests, Turkish gendarmes and soldiers are preventing any contact between the refugees who made it over the border and local journalists and citizens.
The Turkish Red Crescent organization and the Health Ministry have built two refugee camps that are already operating at capacity, one at Altinozu and a second in Yayladagi. A third camp is slated to go up near Boynuyogun, just over the border, today. A field hospital has also been built.
The camps are surrounded by gendarmes who have prevented not only journalists, but also relatives of the refugees who live in Turkey, from entering or even speaking with people inside.
"We came to check whether our relatives were here because we haven't been able to make phone contact with them," said Ahmet Demel yesterday.
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After Assad, democracy in Syria?
By ELLIOTT ABRAMS
The Nation (Pakistani)
12 June 2011,
The bloody war that the Assad regime is waging against the people of Syria will end in the downfall of the regime. Whether that will take months or years is impossible to say; how many peaceful demonstrators and unarmed Syrians the regime will kill is equally uncertain.
But in the end the regime will fall. Then what? Those who think the Muslim Brotherhood will take over and impose a Saudi-style regime are forgetting the “Damascus Declaration,” which I reprint below.
On October 2005, a group of brave Syrian democrats-twelve of whom landed in prison for their activities-wrote and issued this call for liberty. It called the Assad regime “authoritarian, totalitarian, and cliquish” and denounced “the stifling isolation which the regime has brought upon the country as a result of its destructive, adventurous, and short-sighted policies on the Arab and regional levels, and especially in Lebanon.” It was in February 2005 that Rafik Hariri was murdered in Beirut, leading to the withdrawal of Syrian troops-but not of Syrian intervention.
The Declaration calls for peaceful change, “shunning violence in exercising political action; and seeking to prevent and avoid violence in any form and by any side.”
The Declaration calls for a truly democratic state under the rule of law, and discusses both the role of Islam and the situation of Syria’s Kurdish population in a sophisticated manner.
Some day, and tomorrow would not be soon enough, the Assad mafia will be gone and Syria will face the difficult challenge of building a democracy after decades of bloody repression. The Damascus Declaration-and the courage of those who wrote it and suffered time in Assad’s prisons for their principles and their patriotism-provides Syrians with the key guidelines to follow, and provides us all with some hope that democracy can indeed be built in Syria.
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Report: Egypt FM asks West to intervene in Syria crisis
Jerusalem Post,
12 June 2011,
Cairo has asked the West to send an envoy to Syria to negotiate with Damascus over an end to the Syrian crisis and to avoid the drafting of a strong resolution against Syria at the United Nations Security Council, Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Araby told London-based Al-Hayat on Sunday.
The Egyptian foreign minister said that Cairo is working all the time "behind the scenes" and that he hopes reforms in Syria will be serious and will be implemented soon.
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Envoys: Russia, China snub UN council talks on Syria
Jerusalem Post (original story is by Reuters),
12/06/2011
UNITED NATIONS - Russia and China snubbed UN Security Council talks on Saturday convened to discuss a draft resolution that would condemn Syria's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, UN diplomats said.
"Russia and China didn't think it necessary to show up," a council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "It's a pretty clear message," another diplomat said.
The European drafters of the resolution convened Saturday's talks in the hope they could break their deadlock on a draft resolution that would not impose sanctions on Syria but would condemn it for the crackdown and suggest Syrian security forces might be guilty of crimes against humanity.
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'Syria's nuclear plant linked to 3 other facilities'
Excerpts from IAEA report claim Deir al-Zor site tied to other secret hubs, Syria took extensive measures to hide facilities, 'Al-Hayat' reports.
Jerusalem Post,
12/06/2011
The suspected Syrian nuclear facility in Deir al-Zor was linked to three other facilities in the country, London-based Al-Hayat reported quoting excerpts from an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released Sunday.
The report did not give details on the facilities or on their locations.
It was also claimed in the report that Syrian authorities' excuse to import large amounts of equipment meant for "nuclear activities" between 2002 and 2006 was that the equipment was to intended for "civil purposes."
Syria undertook extensive measures to hide the suspected nuclear facility at Deir al-Zor so that it would stay out of the public eye, the report added.
Syrian authorities, according to the report, further contended that uranium residue found near the facility came from "Israeli missiles" that tried to destroy it.
The report concluded that the Syrian facility was similar to North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which was used by the North Korean government for nuclear weapons testing before the IAEA forced it to shut down.
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IDF not expecting additional border riots
Army was prepared for 'Naksa Day' riots organized by Syrian regime as distraction, officials say
Hanan Greenberg
Yedioth Ahronoth,
11 June 2011,
IDF officials postulated Saturday that the violent protests that took place on 'Nakba Day' and 'Naksa Day' respectively are not likely to reoccur in the near future, though the army is maintaining a state of alert.
The 'Naksa Day' protests, they add, were not a battle for Palestinian right of return but rather an organized attempt by the Syrian regime to deflect attention from its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters.
The Syrian authorities hired transportation for 'Naksa Day' protesters and made sure that no military checkpoints would be in place to stop them. The 'Nakba Day' riots that preceded them, during which 150 Syrian civilians infiltrated the border, provided a good foundation for the second round, officials say.
For this reason, they add, the army was well-prepared for the second onslaught and the 'Naksa Day' riots ended with few casualties.
"We know where each bullet hit. The fire was very selective and controlled," one IDF source said, adding that 23 dead was not a high number. The army says 8-10 of these victims were killed by mines that exploded when protesters threw firebombs at Quneitra crossing.
In addition, officials reiterated the explanation that many were wounded and may have even died because protesters did not allow the Red Cross to reach the victims.
The officials back their claim by citing the condemnation offered up by Palestinian organizations against Syrian-affiliated Palestinian groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which they see as responsible for the casualties.
Families of the victims have also condemned these groups for putting their loved ones at risk for political gain. Hamas leaders have also been blamed.
"After 37 years we are witnessing a change in the Syrian reality," a senior IDF official said. "There is loss of control, a shrugging off, and this could lead to disturbing events along the border."
However military officials do not believe this will last. They also cite the relative lack of violence along the Lebanese border as proof that the IDF has succeeded in warding off threats.
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Syria repeating history
Assad massacred thousands in 1982. Like father, like son.
By Jonathan Gurwitz/jgurwitz@express-
San Antonio (American daily- South Texas)
Sunday, June 12, 2011
The biggest massacre of Muslims you've never heard about didn't occur in Afghanistan or Iraq at the hands of the American military. It wasn't perpetrated in the Gaza Strip or West Bank by Israel.
The largely unknown annihilation took place in Syria. In 1982, an insurrection led by the Muslim Brotherhood took root in Hama, Syria's fourth-largest city. Syrian President Hafez Assad sent in his military forces with orders to show no mercy.
By conservative estimates, the Syrian government slaughtered 10,000 people, most of them civilians. The Syrian Human Rights Committee puts the figure as high as 40,000. “During the period of mass murder, the regime killed all citizens in certain districts and wiped out entire families,” the group writes. Yet the events in Hama are at best a footnote to history.
History is repeating itself in Hama and other cities where Syrians have risen up against the dictatorship of Bashar Assad, son of Hafez. Assad has called out military and security forces that have killed more than 1,000 people and detained and tortured thousands more. That's the family way.
As in the other revolts of the Arab Spring, there's a whiff of religious fundamentalism in the Syrian rebellion. Overwhelmingly, however, the protesters who have organized under the National Initiative for Change are pro-Western, secular or at least religiously tolerant.
Assad presides over a criminal regime that is responsible for assassinations in Lebanon, acts as a military conduit between Iran and Hezbollah and serves as patron for terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In testimony to Congress, Gen. David Petraeus identified Syria's key role in allowing foreign fighters to enter Iraq and kill Americans.
Assad is far more deadly and ruthless than Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarek in Egypt or even Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Yet the Syrian opposition, which presents a pro-Western alternative, has received far less support than its counterparts in other Arab nations.
How to explain this?
First, Assad, in addition to being ruthless, is also shrewd. He is a master at playing on Western fears that without his brand of stability, Islamists will take over Syria, Iraq will spin out of control and Arab-Israeli peace will be unattainable. This is what causes normally sensible people, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to refer to Assad as “a reformer.”
Second, Assad has a tacit public relations team in the West that consistently portrays him as the liberal captive of a regime resistant to change rather than the regime's head judge, jailer and executioner. Among his chief image makers is Trinity University Professor David Lesch, who in 2008 wrote glowingly of Assad, “He is genuinely popular in his country and in the region.” As late as March in a New York Times op-ed, Lesch was willing to excuse the brutal crackdown as the work of rogue secret police.
Third, Assad has absolute control over Syrian media and keeps the foreign press on a tight leash. That allows him to hide the full dimensions of his regime's brutality from international view. Yet unlike in 1982, digital and social networking technologies give the Syrian opposition ways to get some news out, including images of the mutilated body of 13-year-old democracy protester Hamza al-Khatib, who was tortured and murdered by government security agents.
It would be ideal if the protesters in Syria had NATO warplanes protecting them. It would be an improvement if President Obama and other leaders spoke out as forcefully about their plight as they have about pro-democracy movements in other nations. It would be sufficient if decent people stopped treating Bashar Assad as anything other than the butcher that he is.
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In Syria, signs of a civil war, caught on tape
By Elizabeth Palmer
CBS
11 June 2011,
Video gradually surfacing online shows the defiance of anti-government demonstrators is escalating - along with the government's resolve to crush them.
Yesterday in Al Gaboun - a suburb of Damascus - a video posted to YouTube shows that protestors were actually baiting Syrian security forces. At first, the troops seem to hold back, but not for long. The gunmen eventually got into position - some kneeling - and opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators.
CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that, where there's no video of the crackdown - in Syria's north - there is other evidence in the form of a tide of refugees fleeing to safe haven in Turkey.
Mustafa Daas told CBS News he was at a protest yesterday - just 20 miles across the border - in Jisr al-Shougour, where soldiers and police opened fire on protesters almost right away.
Mustafa, while shocked and trying to help the wounded, also tried to gather evidence on his cell phone. The soldiers, he says, were shooting from the ground and the air.
Mustafa also told CBS News that police and soldiers who refused to fire on the protestors were themselves shot. These are exactly the kinds of divisions inside the security services that other residents of the area described at another protest last week.
There's more evidence of splits in the Syrian army with the growing number of deserting soldiers arriving in Turkey, describing atrocities.
Mohammed Mirwan Khalef says he and his friends escaped after they watched an officer - unprovoked - shoot a civilian in the head.
The accounts are impossible to verify, but if true they could be the first real signs of civil war.
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UNHRC Gave Assad, Other Dictators a Free Pass, Study Shows
Gil Ronen
Arutz Sheva (Israel National News),
12 June 2011,
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has turned a blind eye to most of the world’s worst abusers, UN Watch has found.
In an exhaustive study, the watchdog group examined all statements by Pillay published on the UN website between September 2008 and June 2010. The findings show “a questionable sense of priorities,” the group reported. “Ms. Pillay turned a blind eye to most of the world’s worst abusers… She failed to voice any concern for victims in 34 countries rated ‘Not Free’ by Freedom House—meaning those with the worst records, and the most needy victims.”
Syria was among the nations that received no criticism from Pillay. In July 2010, two renowned Syrian human rights lawyers, Haytham al-Maleh and Muhanad al-Hasani, were convicted for criticizing the Syrian authorities. In March 2010, Syrian military detained journalists, bloggers and writers for exposing government abuse and corruption. However, the High Commissioner did not respond to any of these events, and over the course of her tenure, did not make any public comments about the state of human rights in Syria.
Pillay only woke up to the problematic regime in Syria last Thursday when she called on it to stop "its aggression against its people," and urging Syria to allow an UNHRC fact-finding mission to investigate the violence, including the killing of 120 security personnel at Jisr a-Shugour.
Pilllay said in a statement: "This is very unfortunate that the government tries to force its people into submission using tanks, artillery and snipers. I urge the government to stop this assault on basic human rights of its people."
Among the countries not criticized between September 2008 and June 2010 despite severe human rights abuses: Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Brunei, Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo (Brazzaville), Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mauritania, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
There were 21 statements on countries in the Middle East and North Africa. However, of these, nine were on Israel, the only democracy in the region.
UN Watch slammed the UNCHR earlier this year for its hypocrisy regarding mass murder of rebels in Libya.
Ms. Pillay failed to issue any public statement in response to the well-documented violence against demonstrators in Iran following the June 2009 presidential elections. Her first comment appeared three months after initial reports and video evidence of government-backed paramilitary forces arbitrarily arresting, beating and killing protestors were released. She called on Iran to respect human rights in her traditional opening speech at the UNHRC session in September 2009 but did not give a press conference and chose not to issue a dedicated statement on the matter.
The UNHRC is the body that commisioned the now-discredited Goldstone report that slammed Israel for alleged war crimes in Operation Cast Lead against Gaza terrorists.
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The Syrian elite don't plan to let the revolution spoil their party
The rich and powerful are indifferent to their fellow Syrians and have too much to lose to want the current regime to end
Simona Sikimic,
Guardian,
11 June 2011,
International pressure for President Bashar al-Assad to step down may be growing, but it has failed to catch on among many of the Syrian elite who are carrying on with their lives as usual – in a bubble.
The growing violence – said to have left 1,200 dead and several thousands imprisoned even after the announcement of a prisoner amnesty on 31 May – has not dented the newly moneyed upper middle class's obsession with pleasure and luxury.
Private raves, hosted in the mansions of the rich and powerful, continue unabated, even as EU and US sanctions begin to bite at some of the regime's top personalities.
Pool parties in the Damascus suburb of Barada are openly promoted on Facebook, inviting patrons to get "wet and wild" every Friday as mosques call the faithful to prayer. The day is always busy and organisers say ticket sales failed to take a dip last month when fighting edged closer and sniper fire could be heard between the rare intermissions of trance music beats.
The fuel behind the fun is not escapism, but indifference. A sense of affiliation with fellow man does not regularly permeate the upper stratosphere of this former Soviet ally.
Many of the young, fashionable crowd in Damascus and Aleppo – who have varying degrees of association with the regime – drive in fast cars with blacked-out windows and openly smoke marijuana, knowing they are above the law and resenting the ongoing troubles.
Demands for higher living standards for all and at least a semblance of democratic reform, mixed with an undeniable religious zeal shared by the majority of protesters, could not be further away from the aspirations of the ruling few.
The Syrian elite cannot contemplate deserting Assad, no matter how unsettled about events they personally may be. They have too much to lose and virtually nothing to gain and feel irrevocably alienated from their fellow countrymen.
To an extent, this can be attributed to the sectarian divide which has pinned the majority Sunni population against the Alawite and Christian minorities, traditionally seen as loyal supporters of the largely secular Ba'athist regime.
But the problem is equally a battle of the haves and the have-nots. Certainly, religion matters much less at the Barada pool than who is ordering champagne and who is drinking the local beer.
More than just greed or corruption, the problem stems from conflicting visions regarding the future and how to move Syria forward.
After years of trying to modernise the economy by phasing out subsidies on key goods such as petrol and sugar, the regime immediately reversed its policy on 16 January after popular protests pushed Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from power.
According to Syrian finance minister Mohammad al-Hussein, the increase in the heating oil allowance alone will cost the state $326m (£200m) a year, benefiting two million public workers and retirees out of a population of 20m.
But populist measures such as this cannot endure if the elite's aspirations are to be fulfilled. In contrast to Egypt and Libya, where political resignations have become commonplace, no leading figures in Syria have publicly switched allegiances, even in the face of rising bloodshed.
For the business and political classes and their offspring, the price of dissent is high, but the fear of what would replace the status quo is even higher, and the Syrian people should not expect sympathies to turn or influential advocates to speak up on their behalf any time soon.
The Arab upheavals of the last six months have made the impossible look almost easy, but the wider the crevasse dividing the two sides, the harder the transition will be. So different are the various visions of the future vying for prominence in Syria that national reconciliation, no matter what reform promises may be made, is going to be very difficult.
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The legitimacy problem
Dogu Ergil,
Today's Zaman,
11 June 2011,
The regimes that have been challenged by popular uprisings such as those in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria are all republics, secular in varying degrees.
A number of Arab regimes were taken over in the first half of the 20th century and have since been run by army officers who presented themselves as nationalists. Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Tunisia were of this sort. Although not a state yet, the Palestinian liberation movement/authority is also nationalist. These regimes pursued a combination of populist and a localized version of socialist policies, whetting the appetite of their people for a better future. They have backed their claim through land reform, the nationalization of natural resources, etc. However, their popular support came from the belief that they had delivered their countries from colonialism and were keepers of the nation’s independence. Their second line of defense or legitimacy was that they were warding off the Israeli threat and channeling the people’s wrath against this country. Yet, none of these nationalist Arab regimes could keep up with their promises. They received several defeats by Israel. Their national economies could not incorporate the totality of the country’s population. Poverty, corruption and unemployment weakened the nationalist, quasi-socialist Arab regimes.
Furthermore, some of the republican regimes undermined their credibility by looking like hereditary dynasties. The Syrian presidency passed from father to son. The dictators of Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Tunisia and Yemen were getting ready to transfer power to their sons before they were caught by the wind of popular uprisings.
On the other side of the coin Arab monarchies and republics like Iran underpinned by religion have been relatively unmoved by mass movements. Why? The short and easy answer is that most of these countries have oil and gas. They can buy loyalty and discourage discontent by co-optation. However, this method had not worked in Libya despite this country’s oil wealth. Another possible explanation is that Arab monarchs, in the eyes of many of their citizens, have a stronger claim to legitimacy than republican leaders who came to power either by force or by luck.
The monarchs claim that their right to govern comes either or both from religious or tribal connections. Either the principle primus inter pares, or first among equals, works as in the ruling families of Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the Emirates who came from old and prominent tribes whose primacy was accepted by others. Or they lay claim to religious authority as depicted by the royal family’s title.The Saudi royal family is the “Guardian of the Two Holy Shrines” (Mecca and Medina). The King of Morocco is Amir al-Mu’mineen -- the commander of the believers. The king of Jordan is the official guardian of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and is the “43rd generation direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.” These rulers embody both spiritual and temporal authority.
These titles are internalized and respected in traditional societies where tribal and religious affiliations still carry weight. That is why in such patriarchal societies protest movements have cropped up lately, but demonstrators demanded reforms rather than questioning the rulers’ right to govern. Bahrain is an exception with regard to Jordan and Saudi Arabia because there is a Sunni Muslim minority ruling over a Shiite majority.
The legitimacy problem of Arab monarchies will no doubt be a matter of debate, even conflict, soon. They will either have to share their wealth and political might with their peoples or succumb after bloody uprisings that will quickly decrease their legitimacy. Knowing this they try to bolster their legitimacy by claiming that they are fire walls against fundamentalism or defying chaos and disorder. Thus they are safeguards of benign regimes that are also pro-Western (read this as pro-American, too).
All of these combined give Middle Eastern monarchs valuable time to reform and think of ways to share some of their power with their people through responsible governments and constitutional practices. Would they be willing or able to go through this transformation? We will soon see from afar by the amount of smoke that comes out of their countries.
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U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors
By JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF
NYTIMES,
12 June 2011,
The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.
The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”
Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.
The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.
Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe.
The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.
In one of the most ambitious efforts, United States officials say, the State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on protected military bases inside the country. It is intended to offset the Taliban’s ability to shut down the official Afghan services, seemingly at will.
The effort has picked up momentum since the government of President Hosni Mubarak shut down the Egyptian Internet in the last days of his rule. In recent days, the Syrian government also temporarily disabled much of that country’s Internet, which had helped protesters mobilize.
The Obama administration’s initiative is in one sense a new front in a longstanding diplomatic push to defend free speech and nurture democracy. For decades, the United States has sent radio broadcasts into autocratic countries through Voice of America and other means. More recently, Washington has supported the development of software that preserves the anonymity of users in places like China, and training for citizens who want to pass information along the government-owned Internet without getting caught.
But the latest initiative depends on creating entirely separate pathways for communication. It has brought together an improbable alliance of diplomats and military engineers, young programmers and dissidents from at least a dozen countries, many of whom variously describe the new approach as more audacious and clever and, yes, cooler.
Sometimes the State Department is simply taking advantage of enterprising dissidents who have found ways to get around government censorship. American diplomats are meeting with operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones in the hills near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls, according to interviews and the diplomatic cables.
The new initiatives have found a champion in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose department is spearheading the American effort. “We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations,” Mrs. Clinton said in an e-mail response to a query on the topic. “There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America supports,” she said. “So we’re focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world.”
Developers caution that independent networks come with downsides: repressive governments could use surveillance to pinpoint and arrest activists who use the technology or simply catch them bringing hardware across the border. But others believe that the risks are outweighed by the potential impact. “We’re going to build a separate infrastructure where the technology is nearly impossible to shut down, to control, to surveil,” said Sascha Meinrath, who is leading the “Internet in a suitcase” project as director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group.
“The implication is that this disempowers central authorities from infringing on people’s fundamental human right to communicate,” Mr. Meinrath added.
The Invisible Web
In an anonymous office building on L Street in Washington, four unlikely State Department contractors sat around a table. Josh King, sporting multiple ear piercings and a studded leather wristband, taught himself programming while working as a barista. Thomas Gideon was an accomplished hacker. Dan Meredith, a bicycle polo enthusiast, helped companies protect their digital secrets.
Then there was Mr. Meinrath, wearing a tie as the dean of the group at age 37. He has a master’s degree in psychology and helped set up wireless networks in underserved communities in Detroit and Philadelphia.
The group’s suitcase project will rely on a version of “mesh network” technology, which can transform devices like cellphones or personal computers to create an invisible wireless web without a centralized hub. In other words, a voice, picture or e-mail message could hop directly between the modified wireless devices — each one acting as a mini cell “tower” and phone — and bypass the official network.
Mr. Meinrath said that the suitcase would include small wireless antennas, which could increase the area of coverage; a laptop to administer the system; thumb drives and CDs to spread the software to more devices and encrypt the communications; and other components like Ethernet cables.
The project will also rely on the innovations of independent Internet and telecommunications developers.
“The cool thing in this political context is that you cannot easily control it,” said Aaron Kaplan, an Austrian cybersecurity expert whose work will be used in the suitcase project. Mr. Kaplan has set up a functioning mesh network in Vienna and says related systems have operated in Venezuela, Indonesia and elsewhere.
Mr. Meinrath said his team was focused on fitting the system into the bland-looking suitcase and making it simple to implement — by, say, using “pictograms” in the how-to manual.
In addition to the Obama administration’s initiatives, there are almost a dozen independent ventures that also aim to make it possible for unskilled users to employ existing devices like laptops or smartphones to build a wireless network. One mesh network was created around Jalalabad, Afghanistan, as early as five years ago, using technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Creating simple lines of communication outside official ones is crucial, said Collin Anderson, a 26-year-old liberation-technology researcher from North Dakota who specializes in Iran, where the government all but shut down the Internet during protests in 2009. The slowdown made most “circumvention” technologies — the software legerdemain that helps dissidents sneak data along the state-controlled networks — nearly useless, he said.
“No matter how much circumvention the protesters use, if the government slows the network down to a crawl, you can’t upload YouTube videos or Facebook postings,” Mr. Anderson said. “They need alternative ways of sharing information or alternative ways of getting it out of the country.”
That need is so urgent, citizens are finding their own ways to set up rudimentary networks. Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian expatriate and technology developer who co-founded a popular Persian-language Web site, estimates that nearly half the people who visit the site from inside Iran share files using Bluetooth — which is best known in the West for running wireless headsets and the like. In more closed societies, however, Bluetooth is used to discreetly beam information — a video, an electronic business card — directly from one cellphone to another.
Mr. Yahyanejad said he and his research colleagues were also slated to receive State Department financing for a project that would modify Bluetooth so that a file containing, say, a video of a protester being beaten, could automatically jump from phone to phone within a “trusted network” of citizens. The system would be more limited than the suitcase but would only require the software modification on ordinary phones.
By the end of 2011, the State Department will have spent some $70 million on circumvention efforts and related technologies, according to department figures.
Mrs. Clinton has made Internet freedom into a signature cause. But the State Department has carefully framed its support as promoting free speech and human rights for their own sake, not as a policy aimed at destabilizing autocratic governments.
That distinction is difficult to maintain, said Clay Shirky, an assistant professor at New York University who studies the Internet and social media. “You can’t say, ‘All we want is for people to speak their minds, not bring down autocratic regimes’ — they’re the same thing,” Mr. Shirky said.
He added that the United States could expose itself to charges of hypocrisy if the State Department maintained its support, tacit or otherwise, for autocratic governments running countries like Saudi Arabia or Bahrain while deploying technology that was likely to undermine them.
Shadow Cellphone System
In February 2009, Richard C. Holbrooke and Lt. Gen. John R. Allen were taking a helicopter tour over southern Afghanistan and getting a panoramic view of the cellphone towers dotting the remote countryside, according to two officials on the flight. By then, millions of Afghans were using cellphones, compared with a few thousand after the 2001 invasion. Towers built by private companies had sprung up across the country. The United States had promoted the network as a way to cultivate good will and encourage local businesses in a country that in other ways looked as if it had not changed much in centuries.
There was just one problem, General Allen told Mr. Holbrooke, who only weeks before had been appointed special envoy to the region. With a combination of threats to phone company officials and attacks on the towers, the Taliban was able to shut down the main network in the countryside virtually at will. Local residents report that the networks are often out from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m., presumably to enable the Taliban to carry out operations without being reported to security forces.
The Pentagon and State Department were soon collaborating on the project to build a “shadow” cellphone system in a country where repressive forces exert control over the official network.
Details of the network, which the military named the Palisades project, are scarce, but current and former military and civilian officials said it relied in part on cell towers placed on protected American bases. A large tower on the Kandahar air base serves as a base station or data collection point for the network, officials said.
A senior United States official said the towers were close to being up and running in the south and described the effort as a kind of 911 system that would be available to anyone with a cellphone.
By shutting down cellphone service, the Taliban had found a potent strategic tool in its asymmetric battle with American and Afghan security forces.
The United States is widely understood to use cellphone networks in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries for intelligence gathering. And the ability to silence the network was also a powerful reminder to the local populace that the Taliban retained control over some of the most vital organs of the nation.
When asked about the system, Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the American-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, would only confirm the existence of a project to create what he called an “expeditionary cellular communication service” in Afghanistan. He said the project was being carried out in collaboration with the Afghan government in order to “restore 24/7 cellular access.”
“As of yet the program is not fully operational, so it would be premature to go into details,” Colonel Dorrian said.
Colonel Dorrian declined to release cost figures. Estimates by United States military and civilian officials ranged widely, from $50 million to $250 million. A senior official said that Afghan officials, who anticipate taking over American bases when troops pull out, have insisted on an elaborate system. “The Afghans wanted the Cadillac plan, which is pretty expensive,” the official said.
Broad Subversive Effort
In May 2009, a North Korean defector named Kim met with officials at the American Consulate in Shenyang, a Chinese city about 120 miles from North Korea, according to a diplomatic cable. Officials wanted to know how Mr. Kim, who was active in smuggling others out of the country, communicated across the border. “Kim would not go into much detail,” the cable says, but did mention the burying of Chinese cellphones “on hillsides for people to dig up at night.” Mr. Kim said Dandong, China, and the surrounding Jilin Province “were natural gathering points for cross-border cellphone communication and for meeting sources.” The cellphones are able to pick up signals from towers in China, said Libby Liu, head of Radio Free Asia, the United States-financed broadcaster, who confirmed their existence and said her organization uses the calls to collect information for broadcasts as well.
The effort, in what is perhaps the world’s most closed nation, suggests just how many independent actors are involved in the subversive efforts. From the activist geeks on L Street in Washington to the military engineers in Afghanistan, the global appeal of the technology hints at the craving for open communication.
In a chat with a Times reporter via Facebook, Malik Ibrahim Sahad, the son of Libyan dissidents who largely grew up in suburban Virginia, said he was tapping into the Internet using a commercial satellite connection in Benghazi. “Internet is in dire need here. The people are cut off in that respect,” wrote Mr. Sahad, who had never been to Libya before the uprising and is now working in support of rebel authorities. Even so, he said, “I don’t think this revolution could have taken place without the existence of the World Wide Web.”
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Bashar Assad's Missed Opportunity
Syria's Pandoran Box
By ELAINE HAGOPIAN,
Counter Punch,
12 June 2011,
In 1971, I was a Fulbright Hays Faculty Grant recipient based in Beirut doing research on the impact of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict on Arab Nationalist States. I was returning with a Palestinian friend from Damascus to Beirut after one of my interview excursions in Syria. We were joined by a group of three Syrian freelance workers in the Damascus to Beirut Service (transportation by ancient used Mercedes-Benz cars and the cheapest way to travel). As we approached Chtuara in the Beka'a Valley of Lebanon, the car broke down. It was clear that we would be in for a long wait. The three men stared at each other in deep frustration and mental anguish. We entered a local café to get something to eat and to wait out the repairs. My friend and I sat at a table and ordered some food and water. I noticed that the men ordered nothing. I understood immediately that they did not have funds to purchase food. They were going to Beirut to pick up some goods to take back to Syria to sell. They were expecting to get to Beirut, pick up the goods, and return by Service to Damascus the same day, a trip of some 60 miles taking about two hours each way including border customs checks. It was clear that they would have to spend the night in Beirut since repairs would delay us for hours. My heart sank for them as I looked at their tired eyes, unshaven faces, and frayed clothes.
I did something I knew would offend their dignity – a cultural trait deeply embedded in Arab psyches, but especially among the poor. The thought that they would go without food for more than 24 hours and would have to sleep outdoors in Beirut overcame my understanding of how important dignity is to hardworking but poor Arabs. I asked the waitress to serve them some simple dishes and bottled water. Immediately, they rejected the food and glanced over at me. I asked if I could join them for a minute. They were polite and said "yes". I explained to them my own Syrian Arab origins and my understanding of dignity. I told them that I and my siblings were all born during the depression, and we had been poor. When relatives came to visit, my mother told us not to sit at the table or try to eat anything. We were to say we already ate and were full if the relatives asked. My parents did not want to be pitied. They put out the best they could ill afford. I and my siblings watched relatives we did not like consume the food with gusto – my mother was a terrific cook – while each of us prayed they wouldn't eat up everything. The men instantly identified with this story. I also reminded them of the religious duty of caring for all members of the community. They again nodded with recognition of this duty. Still they were hesitant to accept the food offered. I realized how hard it was for them not only to accept my gesture, but also to accept it from a woman. After all, men were supposed to provide for women and children!! In the end, the men accepted some food, but left more than half of it, insisting they were not hungry but ate what they could as a courtesy to me. This left their dignity intact. I thanked them.
The more important part of this story is that the forced idle time encouraged conversation. I asked them about their lives in Syria. They looked down and in quiet, resigned but frustrated tones, they said Syria could be rich and prosperous, but with fifteen coups in twenty years and corrupt leaders, the majority of Syrians were struggling to make a living. They went on pointing out how prosperous Lebanon was, how free and how lively its people were. I empathized with them and said perhaps one day Syria would recover from the present conditions. One of them looked at me philosophically and offered a saying with which I was quite familiar: "water that is spilled cannot be retrieved." Little did they know then that their newly "elected" president, Hafez al-Assad, would change Syria significantly over his thirty year reign. Nor did they know that Lebanon would slip into a 15-year civil war in 1975.
Historical Context
Syria has been governed for the past 48 years by the Ba'ath Party, and since 1970-71, has been officially headed by the al-Assad (meaning in Arabic "the lion") family: Hafez al-Assad (1971-2000) and now his son Bashar (2000-present). They originate from the Alawite sect of Syria, now recognized as an offshoot of Shi'a Islam. However, Alawite religious practices were earlier considered to be almost a nondescript Islamic anomaly with conceptual features, such as a trinity, likened to Christianity. They are one of the largest minorities, as are the Kurds, in what is today recognized as Syria. They number approximately two million or more in a total population of 22 million. Historically, the Alawites have met with adverse discrimination, despised by Sunnis (Orthodox Muslims) and earlier as well by mainstream Shi'a (followers of Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed) alike. Alawites are found throughout the region though not all share the same religious and cultural customs. For example, the Alevis of Turkey share some aspects of their faith with the Alawites, but they are really distinct from each other. The Syrian Alawites are located primarily along the Mediterranean coast of Syria with Latakia generally recognized as their "capital" city.
After WW I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria which included Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan) was split up by Britain and France. France got the League of Nations Mandate over Syria and Lebanon while Britain gained control of Palestine (and Iraq) and the area that became Jordan. France split Syria into six "states" or provinces (see map below) which included Lebanon until France expanded and separated Lebanon from Syria. Eventually, France also gave Alexandretta to Turkey, known as Hatay today. When Syria gained independence in 1946, the Alawites wanted to remain a separate state, but they were nonetheless politically a part of Syria. Independent Syria suffered from the divisions created by France, not the least of which was the competition between Aleppo (which included the Syrian Kurdish area primarily in the northeast) and Damascus.
The decades after independence, Syria witnessed some fifteen coups from 1949 to 1970. The first in 1949 was supported by the U.S. and ousted Syria's democratically elected Government under Shukri al-Quwatli. It ushered in General Husni al-Zaim who was willing to come to terms with Israel. He didn't last long, nor did other coup leaders. The 1970 Revolution, commonly known as the "Corrective Movement" brought Air Force General Hafez al-Assad into power. The Revolution (coup) was directed against the radical left-wing faction of the ruling Ba'ath Party (Renaissance). Assad became Prime Minister and was then elected President in 1971. Earlier, he had served as Defense Minister during the 1967 war which left a deep impression on him. As President, he immediately stacked the Ba'ath Party, the Security Forces and the Military leadership with Alawite officials faithful to him. He also developed a public works program, improved infrastructure worked on developing and improving universal health care and education for the Syrian population. He promoted opportunities for Sunni merchants as a way of co-opting them, given that Sunnis were the majority of the Syrian population, and affirmed equal citizenship for minorities – among them Christians and Druzes. A segment of the Kurdish population did not have citizenship rights in Syria, however. To rise in the system, individuals had to belong to the Ba'ath Party. But the main power positions were in Alawite hands. And Hafez al-Assad held the ultimate power in Syria. According to Henry Kissinger, Hafez al-Assad was the kind of man who went into a poker game with a hand of twos and threes, and scooped the pot; the cleverest politician in the Middle East.
Assad sought to build up his military, getting arms, planes and technology from the then USSR. When the USSR ceased to exist, he "replaced" it with Iran to give him regional leverage. He wanted to develop military parity with Israel, although he never did. What he did do was to forcibly integrate Syria's diverse provinces by using an iron fist. I use to jokingly note after a trip to Syria in the early 70s that Hafez al-Assad solved Syria's unemployment problem by putting them all in the Security/Intelligence Service to spy on Syrians and maintain political control over them. For his ability to bring stability to Syria after years of dismal coups and chaos as well as his brilliance in dealing with the West and regional actors, he was loved by his people. For his tight control over political freedom of expression and patronage of his faithful Alawite followers, they hated him.
In 1973, Assad joined with Egypt's Sadat to launch a war against Israel to regain the territories (Egypt's Sinai, and Syria's Golan Heights) they lost to Israel in the 1967 war. Their strength was in a surprise attack into the areas of Israeli occupation. Much hailed was Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal into its Sinai. After ten days in which the United States sent massive military aid to Israel thereby enabling Israel to reassert its military superiority, a cease fire was called. From 1973 to 1978, Sadat was able to negotiate the return of the Sinai to Egypt and signed a peace treaty with Israel. Syria recaptured the city of Qunaitra in the Golan in the war, but Israel retook it. However, as part of the cease fire talk agreements, Israeli forces withdrew from the city in the summer of 1974, but not before leveling it. They retained their occupation of the Golan, an agriculturally fertile area as large as Delaware. Assad was infuriated by Sadat who went it alone from that point on to regain the Sinai and then make peace with Israel, leaving Syria politically stranded and without leverage. In post-1990-1991 Gulf war negotiations, Assad called for the return of all of the Golan which Israel refused. Israel encouraged colonization of the lush Syrian area. Some 20,000 Israeli settlers live on the Golan. In 1981, Israel annexed the area, although its annexation is not internationally recognized.
In April 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon allegedly over an incident involving Palestinian workers from Lebanon's refugee camps. In July 1976, Assad's army entered Lebanon with the blessings of the US and acceptance of Israel to impose a cease fire between the warring groups. However, the civil war continued to 1989. Initially Assad appeared to favor and protect the Christians from defeat by the Lebanese National Movement headed by the Druze leader, Kamal Jumblatt. Assad himself was playing off the Lebanese groups against each other. According to Syria expert Patrick Seale, Assad was "duped" by Henry Kissinger and the Israelis into believing that if he did not enter the war to rein in the PLO (then headquartered in Lebanon and in alliance with the Lebanese National Movement), then Israel would have to go in to neutralize the civil war. The move was aimed at having Arab control Arab, and causing more divisions between Arab communities to weaken all of them. However, there is another angle to this. Syria at that point had never recognized or accepted the French separation of Lebanon from Syria. Syria feared the Lebanese Christians (predominantly the Maronites who peopled the Phalange Party and Militia) would collaborate, as historically they have favored doing, with the Zionists to undermine Syria. Riad el-Solh, the first Prime Minister of Lebanon after independence, and himself an Arab Nationalist, promised that Lebanon would never become a pathway to Syria for Western imperialism and Zionist machinations.
Israel regretted okaying Syria's entrance into Lebanon. It spent decades looking for ways to remove Syria from Lebanon and pave its own way into controlling the strategically located country. Assad recognized he was no match for Israel's military, but his army remained in Lebanon and outlived Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 – the same year in which Assad was massacring thousands of politically threatening Muslim Brothers in the Syrian city of Hama - and its subsequent occupation of Southern Lebanon. Israel was forced to withdraw from Southern Lebanon by the growth and fighting
acuity of Hezbollah in May 2000. Syria had received guarantees from the US in 1990 when it joined the US Coalition in the first Gulf War (1990-1991) that the US would "allow" the continuation of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. However later, given the strong ties between Hezbollah and Syria, and their relationship with Iran, Israel and the US began to pressure Syria to withdraw from Lebanon.
The vastly underpaid Syrian Army was given unofficial license by the Syrian Regime early on in its occupation of Lebanon to loot Lebanon, and loot they did. One cannot help but think back on those hapless Syrians of 1971, powerless and penniless wanting real jobs and compare them to the ugly power of Syria as an occupier of Lebanon "paying" its army on the backs of Lebanese. Anything from toilets to refrigerators to window fixtures made their way to Syrian homes and bazaars. An illegal drug trade developed as well. To all intents and purposes, Syria controlled Lebanon politically and gained economically from it. Local Lebanese were fed up with their occupiers and their local Lebanese collaborators. Israel and the U.S. were concerned about Syria's pivotal role in the region, especially given its ties to Iran and Hezbollah. Under pressure from the US and Israel (including pressure from pro-Israel Lobby and Lebanese expatriates in the US favoring ties with Israel), the UNSC passed Resolution 1559 calling for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon and for presidential elections. Syria did not budge. President Bush imposed sanctions on Syria, but they were not sufficient to convince Syria to leave Lebanon. On February 14, 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated. This led to an outpouring of Lebanese (Cedar Revolution) calling from the withdrawal of the Syrian Army and its Intelligence officers from Lebanon, believing that Syria was responsible for the assassination. [A Special Tribunal for Lebanon was developed and focus is presently on Hezbollah members as the alleged killers.] Indeed within two months, the Syrian Army receded to the Syrian borders. The Lebanon withdrawal was among the first major crises Syria's Bashar Assad faced since his ascension to the Presidency in 2000 after the death of his father.
Bashar Assad: Ascendancy to the Office of President
Upon the death of Hafez al-Assad in June 2000, the Syrian Parliament met and amended Article 83 of the Constitution which lowered the age for presidential candidacy from forty to thirty-four, the then age of Bashar. His Republican Guard brother, Maher, was 33 but not considered for the presidency. Once the elites from the Ba'ath party, Security Forces, and the Military agreed on Bashar to replace his father, Bashar was made Secretary General of the Party and was promoted to the position of Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. However, Bashar did not have the power over the elites and the institutions they headed in the same way as his father. As a consensual leader, he was described by exiled Syrian activist, Ammar Abd al-Hamid as being "one of the equals while his father was first among them" (quoted in Joshua Stacher, "Reinterpreting Authoritarian Power: Syria's Hereditary Succession," MEJ, 65, 2, p.212. Spring 2011).
Bashar's initial year witnessed the "Damascus Spring". Freedom of assembly was permitted, the internet introduced, and Bashar expressed his wish not to have his image appear everywhere as his father used to do. That "Spring" did not last long. The Alawite elites who dominated the power institutions and who were the Regime saw to that. Hafez al-Assad had stacked the power institutions with his trusted Alawite followers. They were given privileges and power that this previously despised community never imagined they would ever see. In the unofficial capital of the Alawite area, Latakia, a powerful mafia developed. As previously noted, the father buttressed his Regime by offering privileges to non-Alawite sectors of the Syrian population. Minority members also held important roles in Government. In the end, a corrupt Regime run by the Assad family and their faithful sectarian brothers and sisters became the face of Syria. In spite of the tight internal political control, Hafez offered enough to the Syrians to maintain stability in the country and also make it a player in the region. Bashar walked into this institutionalized system with its guaranteed assurance of power and privilege for Alawites, all the while making noises that he would reform it but never taking other than baby steps economically and none politically.
The contrast in general atmosphere, if not in actual political and economic change, was palpably better under Bashar than it was during his father's period. While the mukhabbarat (internal intelligence) was still there in excess eyeing all local people and tourists, they were not quite as obvious as in earlier days. Upon the death of the "Damascus Spring," photos of Bashar and his deceased father and brother who had been the heir apparent, appeared everywhere, but they somehow seemed less intimidating than his father's. Restaurants, boutique hotels, Hip Hop cafes, and a growing tourist industry were evident. Once Turkey and Syria developed warmer relationships, Syria appeared to be on the cusp of economic development, although a recent drought had negatively affected that process. The relationship with Turkey also gave Syria heightened importance in the region. With Turkey, Iran, and Hezbollah as its main political coterie, and with Syria's politically popular stance on Israel, Syria seemed untouchable in spite of its setback in Lebanon and economically. Additionally, Syria regained influence in Lebanon even though it had finally exchanged Ambassadors with it and appeared to recognize its sovereignty. But then the "Arab Spring" came to Syria in March.
Syria's security forces, its military, and its Shahiba unleashed an indiscriminate and reckless killing spree on protesters. There is and has been in Syria an authentic desire for real democracy, for real economic opportunity, for elimination of the vast corruption and privilege given to Alawites and particular co-opted segments of the population, for a better quality of life, and above all for dignity. Interestingly enough, the protesters were not calling initially for Bashar's removal, but for vast reforms, for real elections, for removal of the emergency laws, for release of human rights prisoners, for a multi—party system, etc. etc. Bashar initially ignored these demands in his first Parliamentary speech, and then began to offer but not fulfill some of them. As the killing continued, numbering now some 1300 people, with thousands imprisoned, the demands grew for Bashar to go. Turkey begged Syria to push through reforms immediately to salvage Syria's political stability and block chaos in the region, but there was no response.
Now as Syria begins to disintegrate, and its Army is witnessing defections, the question remains, is it Bashar Assad who is giving orders to kill his people a la his father's iron fist approach, or is it the combined Alawite dominated Security, Military, Ba'ath Party and the Shahiba thugs who give the orders? Former Jordanian Ambassador Marwan Muashar says Bashar is in charge; Ilnur Cevik of the New Anatolia newspaper in Turkey says it's the Security forces, not Bashar, who control Syria and give the orders. Is he just one among the power elites, or has he gained power over them during his eleven years in office. Or has he just embraced their modus operandi as many think? In some ways, it doesn't matter who is in charge because as head of state, Bashar will be held responsible and accountable. If Bashar was inclined toward reforming Syria but was blocked all these years by the Alawite elites, he had an opportunity during this crisis to confront and challenge them. The Syrian people in large part basically liked and trusted Bashar. He could have used his popularity to call them out to confront and challenge the Regime, but he did not. Did he miss an opportunity or did he simply agree with the guardians of Alawite privilege? Indeed given the Alawites past history in Syria, and their rigid control of Syria under the Assad family, there is no way now that they could expect to have access to power and privilege in a democratic society. Who would vote for them? Given their bloodied hands, loss of power for them implies revenge against them - but hopefully not against innocent Alawites - whether through a judicial system (optimistically) or by violent means. They have written their own sentence which is bound to come if not now, in the near future. The Pandora's Box of protest has been opened, and it will continue to stay ajar until real changes are made in Syria. What happens to Bashar is still a question. Is there a country to which he could escape, or will he meet the fate of Mubarek? Does his political demise also guarantee the demise of the Regime or not? There are many unanswered questions. The consensus seems to be that Bashar cannot ultimately survive this protest after so many killings, but will this Lion (Assad) somehow overcome the present crisis?
Finally, regarding charges of external intervention in Syria as the cause of the protests, it must be noted that there are external forces that have operated in Syria. The Syrian Muslim Brothers have returned, are the best organized and are getting external support, perhaps from Qatar and Saudi Arabia – no hard evidence. It is also well known that the US has backed Syrian opposition groups. Wiki Leak Cables verify this. (See, "U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show" by Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post, April 17, 2011). Still today, various Syrian expatriate opposition groups are receiving U.S. aid).
Nonetheless, these facts do not negate the authentic protest movement in Syria, and they do not excuse the massive and heartless killings and imprisonments of thousands. The real problem after this botched approach to Syrian protesters is who will come after Bashar? Authentic, secular protesters do not appear to be organized. The Muslim Brothers who have a long festering grudge against the Assads and the Alawites are better organized. In fact, in his last interview with Charlie Rose, Rose asked Bashar what his greatest challenge was. He responded, "keeping Syria secular."
Elaine C. Hagopian is Professor Emerita of Sociology, Simmons College, Boston.
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A Brown-Haired Young Man
The Odyssey of Hassan Hijazi
By URI AVNERY (Israeli writer)
Counter Punch,
12 June 2011,
MY HERO of the year (for now) is a young brown-haired Palestinian refugee living in Syria called Hassan Hijazi.
He was one of hundreds of refugees who held the demonstration on the Syrian side of the Golan border fence, to commemorate the Naqba – “Disaster” – the exodus of more than half the Palestinian people from the territory conquered by Israel in the war of 1948. Some of the protesters ran down to the fence, crossing a minefield. Luckily, none of the mines exploded – perhaps they were just too old.
They entered the Druze village of Majdal Shams, occupied by Israel since 1967, where they spread out. Israeli soldiers shot, killed and wounded several of them. The rest were caught and immediately deported back to Syria.
Except Hassan. He found a bus carrying Israeli and international peace activists who took him with them – perhaps they guessed where he came from, perhaps not. He does not look obviously Arab.
They dropped him near Tel Aviv. He continued his journey by hitchhiking and eventually reached Jaffa, the town where his grandparents had lived .
There, without money and without knowing anyone, he tried to locate the house of his family. He did not succeed – the place has changed much too much.
Eventually, he succeeded in contacting an Israeli TV correspondent, who helped him give himself up to the police. He was arrested and deported back to Syria.
Quite a remarkable exploit.
* * *
THE BORDER crossing of the refugees near Majdal Shams caused near panic in Israel.
First there were the usual recriminations. Why was the army not prepared for this event? Who was to blame – Northern Command or Army Intelligence?
Behind all the excitement was the nightmare that has haunted Israel since 1948: that the 750,000 refugees and their descendents, some five million by now, will one day get up and march to the borders of Israel from North, East and South, breach the fences and flood the country. This nightmare is the mirror-image of the refugees’ dream.
During the first years of Israel, this was a waking nightmare. On the day Israel was founded, it had some 650,000 Jewish inhabitants. The return of the refugees would indeed have swamped the young Israeli state. Lately, with more than 6 million Jewish citizens, this fear has receded into the background – but it is always there. Psychologists might say that it represents repressed feelings of guilt in the national psyche.
* * *
THIS WEEK, there was a repeat performance. The Palestinians all around Israel have declared June 5 “Naksa” Day, to commemorate the “Setback” of 1967, when Israel spectacularly defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, reinforced by elements from the Iraqi and Saudi armies.
This time the Israeli army was prepared. The fence was reinforced and an anti-tank ditch dug in front of it. When the demonstrators tried to reach the fence – again near Majdal Shams – they were shot by sharpshooters. Some 22 were killed, many dozens were wounded. The Palestinians report that people trying to rescue the wounded and retrieve the dead were also shot and killed.
No doubt, this was a deliberate tactic decided upon in advance by the army command after the Naqba day fiasco, and approved by Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. As was said quite openly, the Palestinians had to be taught a lesson they would not forget, so as to drive any idea of an unarmed mass action out of their mind.
It is frighteningly reminiscent of events 10 years ago. After the first intifada, in which stone-throwing youngsters and children won a moral victory that led to the Oslo agreement, our army conducted exercises in anticipation of a second intifada. This broke out after the political disaster of Camp David, and the army was ready.
The new intifada started with mass demonstrations of unarmed Palestinians. They were met by specially trained sharpshooters. Next to each sharpshooter stood an officer who pointed out the individuals who were to be shot because they looked like ringleaders: “The guy in the red shirt…Now the boy with the blue trousers…”
The unarmed uprising broke down and was replaced by suicide bombers, roadside bombs and other “terrorist” acts. With those our army was on familiar ground.
I suspect very much that we are witnessing much the same thing once more. Again specially trained sharpshooters are at work, directed by officers.
There is a difference, though. In 2001 we were told that our soldiers were shooting into the air. Now we are told that they aim at the Arabs’ legs. Then the Palestinians had to jump high into the air to get killed, now, it seems, they have to bend down .
* * *
THE WHOLE thing is not only murderous, but also incredibly dumb.
For decades now, practically all talk about peace has centered on the territories occupied in the 1967 war. President Mahmoud Abbas, President Barack Obama and the Israeli peace movement all talk about the “1967 borders”. When my friends and I started (in 1949) to talk about the two-state solution, we, too, meant these borders. (The “1967 borders” are, in fact, simply the armistice lines agreed upon after the 1948 war.)
Most people, even in the Israeli peace movement, ignored the refugee problem altogether. They were laboring under the illusion that it had gone away, or would do so after peace had been achieved between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I always warned my friends that this would not happen – five million human beings cannot be simply shut out. It is no use to make peace with half the Palestinian people, and just ignore the other half. It will not mean “the end of the conflict”, whatever might be stated in a peace agreement.
But through years of discussions, mostly behind closed doors, a consensus has been reached. Almost all Palestinian leaders have agreed, either explicitly or implicitly, to the formula of “a just and agreed upon solution of the refugee problem” – so that any solution is subject to Israeli approval. I have spoken about this many times with Yasser Arafat, Faisal al-Husseini and others.
In practice, this means that a symbolic number of refugees will be allowed back into Israel (the exact number to be fixed in negotiations), with the others to be resettled in the State of Palestine (which must be big and viable enough to make this possible) or receive generous compensation that will allow them to start a new life where they are or elsewhere.
TO MAKE this complicated and painful solution easier, everyone agreed that it would be best to deal with this matter near the end of the peace negotiations, after mutual trust and a more relaxed atmosphere had been established.
And here comes our government and tries to solve the problem with sharpshooters – not as the last resort, but as the first. Instead of countering the protesters with effective non-lethal means, they kill people. This will, of course, intensify the protests, mobilize masses of refugees and put the “refugee problem” squarely on the table, in the center of the table, before negotiations have even started.
In other words: the conflict moves back from 1967 to 1948. For Hassan Hijazi, the grandson of a refugee from Jaffa, this is huge achievement.
Nothing could be more stupid than this course of action by Netanyahu and Company.
Unless, of course, they are doing this consciously, in order to make any peace negotiations impossible.
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
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