Theodore's Call: Lebanon Reformed

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Friday, May 13, 2011

Leb Web Digest 13.05.11

Hussain Abdul Hussain: The Insecurity Council
NOWLebanon: Where are the Estonians?
Michael Young: Syria Fortifies Obama in his Indecision
Forbes: Home to Beirut
The Guardian: Life in Syria's Psychological Prison of Fear
The Atlantic: An Unholy Alliance - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel backing Bashar
The National: Violence in Syria may prompt Turkey to "Get Tough"
Al Jazeera English: Glencore - Profiteering from Hunger & Chaos
Beirut Pursuit: The Last One in Saifi

Thursday, May 12, 2011

The Syrian Regime Thinks You're Smart! II

Imad Moustapha, Syria’s ambassador to the U.S. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar via WSJ: Washington Wire).

I couldn't help myself, this brief letter sent to the editor of the NY Times by Syria's ambassador to the U.S.A. made me laugh out loud:

I wish to inform you that Rami Makhlouf, a businessman whom you interviewed at length, is a private citizen in Syria. He holds no official position in the Syrian government and does not speak on behalf of the Syrian authorities. The opinions he expressed are exclusively his and cannot be associated in any way with the official positions of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic.

IMAD MOUSTAPHA
Ambassador of Syria
Washington, May 11, 2011

The letter was in response to this interview (my slightly abridged version here) which formed part of a Syrian PR blitz consisting of a visit limited to one journalist (Anthony Shadid - who I think did a good job of accentuating and laying out the extortionist mentality at play in the regime's thinking) conducting two interviews with regime insiders - this while all other foreign journalists were expelled or "forcibly disappeared" (check here and here) from the country and local independent journalists were arrested ... or worse.

Ostensibly the aim of the two interview was to push out a new regime line (perhaps on advice from the ambassador himself?), you know something along the lines of threatening to degenerate the conflict into an all out sectarian conflict; threatening to use regime cells to extend the violence into vulnerable regional neighbours like Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine/Israel, and perhaps even Jordan (add Turkey to the list if you count Iranian's mobilization of some loyal Kurdish cells there); and threatening to "ignite" the Golan Heights front, which, it should be noted, hasn't seen a bullet fired in about 40 years. The idea was also to present the international community with an all or nothing scenario, betting that it would not have the will to carry the confrontation with the regime to the end, and moving to choke out and/or limit to the extreme any evidence of popular revolt, thereby demonstrating that there would be nobody for the international community to deal with as an alternative to the regime - nobody except Islamic extremists, a point highlighted in another prong of the regime's PR offensive.

If nothing else, the talking points simply highlighted the regime's long standing modus operandi . This should come as no surprise given the leaked document (check here and here) which showed the Syrian regime vying to scare Syrian Christians into abstaining from joining the revolution while inciting the Alawite community to actively take up arms in defense of the regime. Tactics to be used to further incite sectarian divisions were attacks on religious sites and assassinations along clan and sectarian lines.

In order to bolster its threats, the regime employed them early in its favorite theater for violence, Lebanon, as the Arab Spring began to blossom in Syria. In the Bekaa valley a group of seven Estonian tourists were abducted shortly after having crossed the border, and by most analyst accounts taken back to Syria to be held in captivity. A clue as to the real identity of the abductors should have come to light in view of the relatively high degree of activity by Estonian diplomats and interlocutors in Damascus, in comparison to Beirut (Estonia has since resisted EU sanctions on Syria out of fear for the safety of its kidnapped citizens). Indeed, the choice of Estonian captives was an astute one, they were European and therefore likely to draw attention, but they didn't come from the larger, more influential European powers, so that that attention could be well contained, and the repercussions limited. Similarly, the bomb attack on a Syriac Orthodox church in the Lebanese Bekaa city of Zahleh sought to use a small, relatively powerless Christian sect as a consequence-free threat to the broader Christian community in Syria.

With the upcoming announcement of a Middle East speech by the US President, and US Senate initiatives on Syria (check here and here), the letter could be seen as an early sign that the the message didn't go down as anticipated and therefore attempt to back away from the more reprehensible talking points of the Makhlouf interview.

I guess we'll have to wait and see ...

Related Posts:

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

US Senator Cardin on Syria Human Rights Resolution

Syrian Regime Using Torture as Primary Weapon

Activists of the international non-governmental organization 'Reporters sans frontieres' (Reporters without borders) based in France demonstrate on May 3, 2011 in front of the Syrian Embassy after splattering the facade with ink in Paris to protest against attacks on journalists in Syria as part of World Press Freedom Day. Grafitti on wall reads: 'Ink must flow not blood.' (Getty Images via Daylife).

The UK's Telegraph reports:

Photographic evidence collected by Western and local rights agencies indicate that children as young as 12 have faced heavy beatings at the hands of Mr Assad's feared secret police, the Mukhabarat. Men and women were said to suffer even more extreme punishment, ranging from electric shocks to the extraction of fingernails.

As Syria braces for an eighth consecutive weekly showdown between the security forces and demonstrators after midday prayers on Friday, graphic testimony is slowly emerging of the price paid for challenging Mr Assad's 11 year-rule.

Unable to quell the unrest through force alone, despite having killed hundreds of civilians, Syria's security forces have instead resorted to mass intimidation. Over the past week, the number of detentions has soared to more than 500 a day, bringing the total to more than 8,000.

With prisons filled to capacity, many of those detained are being transported by bus into schools that have been transformed into makeshift "concentration camps", according to the National Initiative for Change, a newly-formed Syrian opposition coalition.

Inmates who have been released in recent days said they were held in locked classrooms where they were so tightly-packed there was only room to stand. Many were taken down to the cellars where the Mukhabarat has set up instruments of torture.

"They suspended me in the air from my wrists," one protester said in emailed comments. "They demanded that I confess to working for the Mossad, or for the Saudis or for the Lebanese and when I refused they shocked me with a cable whose wires were sticking out."

Some inmates, according to testimonies collected by rights groups, had their finger nails pulled out, their toes smashed with hammers or their tongues squeezed and pulled with pliers.

Deprived of water for days at a time, many inmates were allegedly reduced to drinking from lavatory bowls.

The vast majority of detainees are usually released within three days, a deliberate tactic, opposition activists say.

"They torture them brutally and then release them into the community as messengers of fear," said Ausama Monajed. "But it is not working. It only fuels anger and makes the people more determined.

Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, telephoned Mr Assad yesterday to protest "the possible violation of human rights" in Syria.

His call came as the Syrian army announced it was pulling out of Deraa, the southern city that has seen some of the worst bloodshed during a week-long siege where snipers frequently shot at anyone leaving their homes.
...

Syrian Regime Allies Push Sectarian Argument for its Preservation

A protestor waves a placard criticising Syria's President Bashar al-Assad during a demonstration outside the Syrian embassy in London on May 7, 2011. The demonstration was called to show support for the uprising in Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen (Getty Images via Daylife).

Michael Young does an excellent job exposing and debunking a propaganda piece by the US-based public relations representative of a pro-Assad/pro-Hizballah Lebanese political party led by Michel Aoun. Read the article in full, its well worth it, below is an excerpt:

...
A fear of Islamists was ... the gist of a revealing recent expression of Christian fright about events in Syria. In a Foreign Policy web article in late April, one May Akl, a Yale-based press secretary of Michel Aoun, went out of her way to argue that the revolt in Syria was different from that in other Arab countries. Why? Because the Syrian army had come under attack. A purported ambush of troops near the city of Banias, she wrote, proved that “a Jihad-like approach is a force behind the movement demanding reforms.”

Akl then went on to explain, “In the context of these leaderless revolutions that stemmed from rightful social, economic, and political demands, the only organized and well-structured group has been the Muslim Brotherhood. For 83 years now, the aim of this widespread movement has been to instill the Quran and Sunna as the sole reference for ordering the life of the Muslim family and state.”

What evidence did Akl present for her extraordinary claim that the Syrian army had been targeted by jihadists? She provided a link to an article from The Independent in London, which merely cited Syrian state television to that effect. How persuasive, or surprising, from an official outlet that has been a wellspring of disinformation during the weeks of dissension in Syria, overseen by a regime that has portrayed the domestic unrest as a rebellion by armed Islamists.

In fact, all the signs, if one bothers to look, have suggested the precise contrary. The anti-regime demonstrations have not been led by Islamists; they have been peaceful, despite the brutality of the regime’s security apparatus and praetorian guard; and the Muslim Brotherhood appeared to join the demonstrations relatively late, at least organizationally, only issuing a statement on participation two weeks ago. But Akl’s flimsy assertion was good enough in the service of a parochial Lebanese agenda feeding off communal paranoia.
...
Moving beyond the Christians, however, how many Lebanese can honestly look back upon four decades of the Assads with any sense of warmth? Yes, the Syrians did impose an end to the cycle of Lebanese wars in 1990, but the onerous price that Lebanon had to pay was a decade and a half of a near-total Syrian domination. And even this should not blind us to the reality that during our 15-year conflict, Syrian officials usually worked heroically to keep the violence alive. On numerous occasions their army bombarded civilians of all persuasions and religions, while the Golan Heights front remained dead quiet, reminding us of where the priorities of Arab militaries lie.

It’s a bad idea for the Lebanese to turn the events in Syria into grist for their domestic political disputes. Syrian society may be a mosaic of communities, just like Lebanese society, but it is also quite different in many respects. To interpret everything occurring there through the narrow prism of confessional politics is a mistake. Hopefully, democrats will emerge triumphant in Syria. They alone are the ones we Lebanese should consider with any feelings of sympathy.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Rami Makhlouf Speaks ... Confirms his Detestability

An excellent piece by Anthony Shadid on the Syrian regime's thinking and tactics in confronting the Arab Spring's arrival in Syria. The piece includes rare comments by a notorious regime insider, Rami Makhlouf. Abridged version below but the full article is well worth a read:

Syria’s ruling elite, a tight-knit circle at the nexus of absolute power, loyalty to family and a visceral instinct for survival, will fight to the end in a struggle that could cast the Middle East into turmoil and even war, warned Syria’s most powerful businessman, a confidant and cousin of President Bashar al-Assad.

The frank comments by Rami Makhlouf, a tycoon who has emerged in the two-month uprising as a lighting rod for anger at the privilege that power brings, offered an exceedingly rare insight into the thinking of an opaque government. Beset by the greatest threat to its four decades of rule, the ruling family, he suggested, has conflated its survival with the existence of the minority sect that views the protests not as legitimate demands for change but rather as the seeds of civil war.

“If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel,” he said in an interview Monday that lasted more than three hours. “No way, and nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this regime.”

Asked if it was a warning or a threat, Mr. Makhlouf demurred.

“I didn’t say war,” he said. “What I’m saying is don’t let us suffer, don’t put a lot of pressure on the president, don’t push Syria to do anything it is not happy to do.”

His words cast into the starkest terms a sentiment the government has sought to cultivate — us or chaos — and it underlined the tactics of a ruling elite that has manipulated the ups and downs of a tumultuous region to sustain an overriding goal: its own survival.
...
“The decision of the government now is that they decided to fight,” Mr. Makhlouf said.

But even if it prevails, the uprising has demonstrated the weakness of a dictatorial government that once sought to draw legitimacy from a notion of Arab nationalism, a sprawling public sector that created the semblance of a middle class and services that delivered electricity to the smallest towns. The government of Mr. Assad, though, is far different than that of his father, who seized power in 1970. A beleaguered state, shorn of ideology, can no longer deliver essential services or basic livelihood. Mr. Makhlouf’s warnings of instability and sectarian strife like Iraq’s have emerged as the government’s rallying cry, as it deals with a degree of dissent that its officials admit caught them by surprise.

Mr. Makhlouf, a childhood friend and first cousin of Mr. Assad whose brother is the intelligence chief in Damascus, suggested that the ruling elite — staffed by Mr. Assad’s relatives and contemporaries — had grown even closer during the crisis. Though Mr. Assad has the final say, he said, policies were formulated as “a joint decision.”

“We believe there is no continuity without unity,” he said. “As a person, each one of us knows we cannot continue without staying united together.”

He echoed an Arabic proverb, which translated loosely, means that it will not go down alone.

“We will not go out, leave on our boat, go gambling, you know,” he said at his plush, wood-paneled headquarters in Damascus. “We will sit here. We call it a fight until the end.” He added later, “They should know when we suffer, we will not suffer alone.”

Mr. Makhlouf, just 41 and leery of the limelight, stands as both a strength and liability of Mr. Assad’s rule, and in the interview he was a study in contrasts — a feared and reviled businessmen who went to lengths to be hospitable and mild-mannered. To the government’s detractors, his unpopularity rivals perhaps only that of Mr. Assad’s brother, Maher, who commands the Republican Guard and the elite Fourth Division that has played a crucial role in the crackdown. Mr. Makhlouf’s name was chanted in protests and offices of his company, Syriatel, the country’s largest mobile phone company, were burned in Dara’a, the poor town near the Jordanian border where the uprising began in mid-March.

The American government, which imposed sanctions on him in 2008, has accused him of manipulating the judicial system and using Syrian intelligence to intimidate rivals.
...
“Maybe they are worried about using this money to support the regime,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe. But the regime has the whole government, they don’t need me.”

He said he was aware of the anger, but called it “the price I have to pay.”

More than just an icon of outrage, Mr. Makhlouf represents broader changes afoot in the country. His very wealth points to the shifting constellation of power in Syria, as the old alliance of Sunni Muslim merchants and officers from Mr. Makhlouf’s Alawite clan gives way to descendants of those officers benefiting from lucrative deals made possible by reforms that have dismantled the public sector.

He serves as an instrument, too, in Mr. Assad’s vision of economic modernization, where Syria serves as a crossroads of regional trade and a hub for oil and gas pipelines that link Iraq and the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and Europe. Cham Holdings, a vast conglomerate with a portfolio of $2 billion, in which Mr. Makhlouf owns a quarter of the shares outright, is at the forefront of that faltering scheme.

Turkey’s recent anger at Syria’s crackdown has fed feelings of betrayal in the government because Turkey was viewed as a centerpiece in that vision. Concerns are growing, too, over the uprising’s economic impact, deepened by Syria’s growing isolation and flight of capital — a legacy that may very well prove more threatening to the government than the protests.
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Related Posts:

Syria Action Map

Check BBCNews for the full clickable map.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Lebanese Police Bulldozer Burns

A bulldozer that was used by Lebanese police to demolish illegal buildings, burns after it was set on fire by owners protesting the demolishing process in the southern town of Adloun, Lebanon, Tuesday, May 3, 2011. Illegal construction is common in Lebanon, where many poor who cannot afford to buy land or apartments end up building on state-owned property (AP Photo via Daylife).