Support Builds for Syrian National Council

Elizabeth Whitman

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 10 2011 (IPS) - What was once a glaring weakness in the seven-month Syrian revolution and uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad is now slowly transforming into one of its strengths with the coalescence of opposition groups into the Syrian National Council (SNC) earlier this month.

Yet many questions and concerns about strategies, both domestic and international, remain, especially in the wake of the latest failure in the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the violence in Syria.

On Oct. 2, the SNC convened in Istanbul to announce its official formation, outline its structure and goals, and publish a founding statement.

Members of the international community have welcomed its creation, even as the Syrian government threatened “tough measures” against countries that recognized the opposition council.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Monday that France intends to establish relations with the SNC, while the European Union hailed its formation, calling it a “positive step”.

Syrians began protesting in March 2011, calling for reforms and an end to government corruption, among other demands. The Syrian government initially responded with promises of reform that went unfulfilled. As protests grew, it turned to tanks and bullets in a brutal crackdown that has killed nearly 3,000 civilians, according to U.N. estimates.

Fledgling opposition

A core of the national council was announced in mid-September, followed by negotiations to include more political groups.

The SNC, with a general assembly membership of 230, and executive committee of 29 and presidential committee of seven, spans the political spectrum from leftists to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Four Kurdish and one Assyrian representative are among those included in the 29-member executive committee. Many Christians, Druz and Alawite are also members.

The council’s immediate concern is “having a well-founded and solid entity”, Monajed said. Until the leadership and structure is finalized, the council is not seeking meetings with world leaders.

The organisation’s vision is the “formation of a national body to represent the Syrian Revolution, embody its aspiration in toppling the regime, achieve democratic change, and build a modern civil state”, according to a council document.

It sees itself as a “political umbrella for the Syrian revolution in the international arenas” that aims to “deliver the message of the Syrian people in the field of international diplomacy”.

Saying that it was “inspired by previous initiatives and attempts at unifying opposition groups”, the council subtly acknowledged the difficulties, especially over the past six months, to consolidate Syrian opposition.

“It’s an agreement in terms of all the committees on the ground and it’s an agreement in terms of all the opposition,” an activist, who goes by the pseudonym of Alexander Page, told IPS.

Based in Damascus until early October, Page escaped Syria after he learned his identity had been compromised. He has been on CNN, Huffington Post and other outlets.

Page’s perspective was that a better opposition council could not be formed at this point. “After this, there’s not going to be any council that’s going to go through,” he said.

Politically, the council’s immediate concern is “having a well- founded and solid national council”, Ausama Monajed, a member of the council, told IPS. Until the leadership and structure is finalized, the council is not seeking meetings with world leaders.

In both its declaration and the words of Ghalioun, the Council has explicitly rejected foreign intervention “that undermines the sovereignty of the Syrian people”, as Ghalioun said.

Page, who was involved and remains in contact with various revolution groups on the ground in Syria, said that the SNC has garnered notable popular support domestically.

Intervention: a highly sensitive topic

A wide array of concerns accompanies discussion of international intervention, which remains a prominent issue that is highly sensitive both in Syria and for the international community because of the Syria regime’s domestic propaganda campaign and because of the looming shadow of NATO’s military intervention in Libya.

The Syrian government has claimed since March that armed gangs are launching attacks inside the country and that Syrian security forces have responded by quelling those attacks.

Aiming to discredit the international community, the Syrian government would use international intervention to support its claims that foreign governments are trying to undermine Syrian sovereignty. Giving the Syrian government the opportunity to legitimize those claims through foreign intervention could be detrimental.

Many, Syrians included, are wary of any intervention that could follow in the footsteps of NATO’s in Libya.

At most, the SNC would call for would a no-fly zone or possibly a buffer zone, Page said.

But Monajed emphasized that from the international community, the SNC would seek measures to ensure civilian protection, such as a Security Council resolution that called for U.N. observers that might help prevent some of the violence.

Similarly, the international community should “protect the civilians by all the legal means commensurate with the U.N. charter and international conventions”, Hozan Ibrahim, spokesperson for the coordinating network Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) of Syria and member of the SNC, told IPS.

Complications in the Security Council

Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council has been criticized as it struggles to find a unified voice condemning the violence, civilian deaths, arbitrary arrests and torture.

Most recently, a rare double veto by China and Russia on Oct. 4 thwarted a Western-backed resolution that would have condemned Syrian authorities’ “continued grave and systematic human rights violations” and called for a “an inclusive Syrian-led political process” free from violence and intimidation.

In addition to the Russian and Chinese vetoes, Brazil, India, Lebanon and South Africa abstained – results that indicate underwhelming international solidarity regarding how to respond to the current situation in Syria.

Russia has strong business ties to Syria. Reuters reported in August 2011 that Russia’s top arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, would continue selling arms to Syria.

The European Union (EU) and the U.S. have already imposed sanctions on Syria, and Turkey announced last week that it would as well.

“Russia is waiting for the right price to sell, unfortunately,” Monajed told IPS. For Russia, Syria is a matter of money, regional interest and influence, he said.

He said the SNC was hoping the West would be able to pressure or reach a deal with Russia to allow a Security Council resolution to pass that would permit U.N. observers into the country to help prevent civilian deaths and hold the Syrian government accountable.

Martin Nesirky, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, had no specific comment on the SNC’s formation, but noted, “The Secretary-General has called consistently, repeatedly, for there to be a dialogue, inclusive dialogue,” in Syria and so the SNC could be understood “in that context”.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/10/support-builds-for-syrian-national-council/.

Five years after uprising, jihadist expansion threatens Libya

2016-02-16

TRIPOLI - Five years after the uprising began against dictator Moamer Gathafi, many Libyans have lost hope of seeing the rule of law return to a divided country threatened by jihadist expansion.

The Islamic State (IS) group has exploited the chaos engulfing the oil-rich North African nation since the 2011 revolution to gain a foothold and expand its influence.

Last June, it seized Gathafi's coastal home town of Sirte -- 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of Tripoli -- and has since transformed it into a training camp for Libyan and foreign militants.

"The Islamic State likely sees Libya as the most favorable country in which to establish a regional hub of its caliphate," Ludovico Carlino of the IHS Jane's think-tank said.

With a port and airport, there are growing fears that IS -- which seized large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014 -- may try to use Sirte as a base from which to attack Europe.

Despite the jihadist threat, there are also signs of hope on the political front.

On Monday, a UN-backed council of rival factions announced the formation of a revised government of national unity line-up to be put to lawmakers.

Approval of the cabinet -- headed by prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj -- would be a vital step in resolving Libya's political disarray, capping off months of difficult diplomacy.

"The journey to peace and unity of the Libyan people has finally started," UN Libya envoy Martin Kobler wrote on Twitter.

- Africa's largest oil reserves -

Beyond Libya's current political and security vacuum, "the availability of large stockpiles of weapons and porous borders, made it the main transit point for North African militants seeking to reach Syria and Iraq to wage jihad there," Carlino said.

The country also sits atop the largest oil reserves in Africa, estimated at 48 billion barrels, although output has slumped since 2011.

"The presence of large oil assets, the existence of well-established and lucrative smuggling routes to sub-Saharan Africa, and porous borders all make Libya as attractive as Iraq and Syria to the Islamic State, if not more so," Carlino said.

Last month, the group launched attacks from Sirte on facilities in the "oil crescent" along the coast.

The Soufan Group think-tank in a report last month said jihadists existed in Libya under Gathafi, but have thrived in the turmoil since his downfall.

"Libya has a long violent jihadist tradition dating back to the Soviet Afghan War, though the oppressive and authoritarian Gathafi regime was largely able to keep militant jihadist activities in check," it said.

"With the collapse of the regime, the long-suppressed militant Islamist factions sought to fill the resulting vacuum."

Since a coalition of Islamist-led militias overran Tripoli in August 2014, the country has had two administrations.

- Living day to day -

An Islamist-dominated legislature, the General National Congress, sits in Tripoli while the internationally recognized government has been driven to the country's far east.

As Libya on Wednesday marks five years since the uprising began, its people are still waiting for a panel elected in February 2014 to draft their first constitution since Gathafi seized power in 1969.

With anniversary preparations under way in Tripoli's Martyrs Square, the mood remains gloomy among many residents.

"The last five years have been nothing but one mistake after another," said Karima Leguel, a bank employee in her fifties.

"Our daily lives have become increasingly difficult. We have to plough on despite the high prices, no proper health care, long power cuts and -- recently -- no cash at the bank."

Libya's conflict has left 1.9 million people with serious health needs in a country that lacks medical professionals, medicines and vaccines, the World Health Organization said last month.

No foreign airline has flown to Tripoli since its airport was destroyed in summer 2014, and few countries allow Libyan aircraft to land on their soil.

Libyans who want to travel abroad struggle to obtain the required visas as most foreign missions have been closed for 18 months.

Florence, a Frenchwoman in her fifties who is married to a Libyan, said the cost of living was increasing and cashpoints were empty.

"We live day to day," the mother-of-two said. "But if things don't get better we'll leave."

"My greatest fear is that IS will reach Tripoli."

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=75270.

Poland's threat to strip scholar of state honor sparks anger

February 18, 2016

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A threat by Poland's president to strip an esteemed Polish-American scholar of a state honor in punishment for work that exposes uncomfortable historical episodes of Polish anti-Semitism has infuriated many people in Poland and abroad.

The office of President Andrzej Duda said recently it might strip Princeton-based historian and sociologist Jan Tomasz Gross of the Order of Merit he received in 1996 for his services as a dissident in communist Poland and his contributions to historical research.

The move against Gross is part of a broader effort by Poland's new conservative ruling party, Law and Justice, to focus on honorable episodes in Polish history and fight any messages that the new leaders feel are harmful to the country's image.

In an open letter, several Polish historians and other scholars said stripping Gross of the award would represent a threat against "freedom of scholarly research" and that Gross deserves only "gratitude and respect" for sparking needed debates about the past.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights organization, called Tuesday on the government "to stop the harassment" of Gross and said the move against him "appears to be a politically motivated attempt to intimidate and threaten all those who expose the history of anti-Semitism in Poland."

The move comes after Gross caused a huge uproar in Poland last year with a claim that Poles killed more Jews during the war than they did Germans, something that deeply offended a nation proud of its anti-Nazi resistance.

The government is also preparing a bill which could see five-year prison sentences for anyone found guilty of using the expression "Polish death camp" to refer to Auschwitz or other extermination sites that Nazi Germany operated in German-occupied Poland.

That phrase, infuriating to Poles, has been used from time to time by foreign journalists and politicians, including U.S. President Barack Obama. Poland was attacked and occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II and Poles were among those who were imprisoned and killed in the camps, and had no role in running them.

However, there were cases of Poles who killed Jews during the war, and Gross has touched a nerve in the country with books that expose some of those incidents, including the 1941 massacre in Jedwabne, which involved Poles burning Jews alive in a barn.

Liberal Poles accept the overwhelming evidence of Polish guilt in the Jedwabne massacre and have supported public apologies for it. But supporters of Law and Justice and other right-wing Poles argue that the Germans inspired the massacre and armed the local thugs — and that Polish society should not be saddled with the blame.

Germany revives calls for no-fly zone in northern Syria

February 17, 2016

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Germany revived calls Wednesday for a no-fly zone in northern Syria — an idea that once might have greatly helped the beleaguered rebels and protected civilians from bombardment but now is more complicated, dangerous and unlikely due to Russia's air campaign supporting President Bashar Assad.

The proposal came amid international efforts to coax at least a temporary truce and as the government allowed humanitarian aid to head for besieged areas around the country, part of an effort described by a Russian official as a first step toward implementation of an agreement reached among world powers in Munich last week.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has been trying to secure aid deliveries and to improve the chances of restarting peace talks before the end of February. But those efforts have been clouded by a major government offensive north of Aleppo, where various forces backed by regional and international rivals are clashing over a crucial strip of land linking Syria's largest city to the border with Turkey.

The violence in Aleppo, which has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing toward the border, led to the collapse of indirect talks between the Syrian government and its opponents earlier this month. It appears also to have revived a longstanding proposal to establish a no-fly zone in northern Syria, which was floated repeatedly by Turkey and other Assad opponents throughout the 5-year-old war.

A no-fly zone would potentially create a safe haven for tens of thousands of displaced Syrians and help stem the flow of refugees to Europe. But Washington has long rejected the idea, fearing it would draw U.S. forces further into the civil war.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed support Tuesday for the idea and repeated it Wednesday in parliament. She said it could be done by an agreement with Assad, his backers and the coalition fighting the Islamic State group — a proposal that analysts say is now unrealistic and more an attempt to appease Turkey.

At a news conference, Merkel said such an agreement would be "a sign of good will," suggesting she was referring to a more informal deal to halt aerial attacks, and that this could help lead to the overall cessation of hostilities agreed upon in Munich.

Enforcing a no-fly zone has become considerably more difficult since Moscow began its air campaign in Syria on Sept. 30. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov shrugged off Merkel's proposal, saying it would require Damascus' consent and U.N. Security Council approval.

Asked by reporters about Merkel's initiative, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov snapped: "It's not Merkel's initiative, it's Turkey's initiative." Kristian Brakel, an expert with the German Council on Foreign Relations, said Merkel's idea could be directed at Turkey, which sees "all their stakes in the Syrian war are just floating away."

Olaf Boehnke, a political scientist with the MERICS think tank in Berlin and former head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the idea could even be more for a domestic audience in Germany, where Merkel has been under increasing pressure to slow the flood of asylum seekers.

"My gut feeling is there's not even a lot of conceptual thinking behind it," he said. "Maybe it's even wishful thinking, because if you look into the technical details of a no-fly zone like we've seen in Libya, it's quite complicated."

A U.S.-led bombing campaign helped oust Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, but that came with a resolution from the U.N. Security Council and agreement among NATO's 28 members. Such a scenario is almost impossible to imagine in Syria. Moscow has made it clear that it won't sign off on any such mission and has exercised its veto to block all efforts at the Security Council to sanction Damascus, its closest ally in the Middle East.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the U.S. for not backing his country's proposals, adding that a no-fly zone would have prevented Russia's air campaign in the region and saved the lives of thousands of civilians.

"Oh America! You did not say 'yes' to 'no-fly zone.' Now the Russian planes are running wild over there, and thousands and tens of thousands of victims are dying," Erdogan said. "Weren't we coalition forces? Weren't we to act together?"

His words reflected the resentment felt by Syrian rebels, who believe a no-fly zone would have robbed Assad of his biggest asset, the aerial bombardment. Christopher Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said not enforcing a no-fly zone is the "single biggest mistake" the West has made in Syria.

"Had the West intervened early on and denied Assad the ability to bomb his own citizens, the moderate opposition would have been ascendant and the radical opposition would not have gained as much traction," he said. Five years later and with the Russian air campaign, it is "more difficult, more complicated, more expensive and less likely," he said.

The U.S., Russia and other world powers agreed Feb. 12 on a deal calling for the ceasing of hostilities within a week, the delivery of urgently needed aid to besieged areas of Syria and a return to peace talks in Geneva.

Gatilov said "the implementation of the Munich agreements on (the) Syrian settlement has started." A working group on humanitarian access to the besieged areas has met and is to again meet Thursday to take stock on the status of access to the areas under siege., according to de Mistura's office.

Moscow expects that another working group to deal with specifics of the planned truce would start working this week, according to a Russian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the envoy was not authorized to talk to the media due to the sensitivity of the discussions. The diplomat said the Russian side is ready for that.

Hopes of a temporary cessation of hostilities — due to start Thursday, according to the Munich agreement — have all but faded. At least 25 people have been killed in an airstrike on a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders in northern Syria, the group said.

The U.N.-facilitated aid operation was going ahead, a development that U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York was "an incredibly important first step." "We've had a lot of conferences, we've had a lot of speeches and commitments," Dujarric said. "I think the Syrian people want to see hard evidence that these conferences serve a purpose."

After a delay, more than 100 trucks headed to the besieged areas. Convoys of food, medicine and other assistance reached the rebel-held towns of Madaya and Zabadani, northwest of the capital, while a 35-truck convoy was to deliver aid to the rebel-held suburb of Moadamiyeh southwest of Damascus.

According to the agreement, aid would simultaneously be delivered to two communities in the northern province of Idlib that are under sieged by rebels. "Today, we reached five besieged towns in urgent need of humanitarian assistance," said Yacoub el-Hillo, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator in Syria.

The aid was expected to reach over 100,000 people, said Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The convoys represent the third aid delivery to the blockaded communities after two other efforts last month. The U.N. estimates that 18 Syrian communities are under siege, affecting about half a million people.

Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report.

Top EU politician applauds Merkel's migrant stance

February 17, 2016

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel has received a strong vote of support from a top European politician for her leadership on the migration crisis. Merkel's open-door stance to asylum-seekers has been under increasing pressure at home, including from within her own conservative bloc, but European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says "Angela Merkel will outlast all of her current critics in office."

Juncker told Bild newspaper Wednesday "chancellors have always been recognized for staying the course in turbulent times. I'm thinking above all of the visionary reunification policies of Helmut Kohl — history has showed he was right and it will also show Angela Merkel is right."

Juncker says he hopes other leaders at an EU summit take her stance that the refugee crisis can only be solved by working together.

Austria places Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia on list of 'safe countries of origin'

2016-02-15

VIENNA - Austria announced Monday it will place six nations including Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia on its list of "safe countries of origin", as it seeks to curb the number of economic migrants.

The decision, which will also see Georgia, Ghana and Mongolia added to the list, was taken after the government carried out a "thorough examination of the situation", the interior ministry said.

"In the case of economic migrants, we need unambiguous signals that there is no protection for them in Austria," Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner warned.

The cabinet will sign off on the decision during its weekly meeting Tuesday.

Last month, neighboring Germany -- the favored destination for most migrants -- also declared Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia safe countries of origin.

The classification means that their citizens will have little chance of being granted asylum.

It will also allow Vienna to speed up case procedures and deport migrants more quickly.

The combined number of arrivals in Austria from Algeria and Morocco remains well below the 2,000-mark -- a tiny fraction of the 55,000 Syrians and Iraqis who sought asylum between January and November last year.

In total, the nation of almost nine million people received 90,000 asylum claims in 2015, one of the EU's highest rates per capita.

The Austrian government has noticeably hardened its stance as the bloc grapples with its worst migration crisis since World War II.

In 2015, over a million people reached Europe's shores -- nearly half of them Syrians fleeing a civil war that has killed more than a quarter of a million people.

In response to the influx, Austria is due to announce this week a daily cap on migrants allowed to enter from fellow EU member Slovenia, the next country down the migrant trail along the Balkans.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=75258.

Obama planning historic trip to Cuba to cement warmer ties

February 18, 2016

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will pay an historic visit to Cuba in the coming weeks, senior Obama administration officials said Wednesday, becoming the first president to set foot on the island in nearly nine decades.

The brief visit in mid-March will mark a watershed moment for relations between the U.S. and Cuba, a communist nation estranged from the U.S. for half a century until Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro moved to relaunch more than a year ago. Since then, the nations have reopened embassies in Washington and Havana and moved to restore commercial air travel, with a presidential visit seen as a key next step toward bridging the divide.

Obama's stop in Cuba will part of a broader trip to Latin America that the president will take next month, said the officials, who requested anonymity because the trip hasn't been officially announced. The White House planned to unveil Obama's travel plans Thursday.

Though Obama had long been expected to visit Cuba in his final year, word of his travel plans drew immediate resistance from opponents of warmer ties with Cuba — including Republican presidential candidates.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father fled to the U.S. from Cuba in the 1950s, said Obama shouldn't visit while the Castro family remains in power. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, another child of Cuban immigrants, lambasted the president for visiting what he called an "anti-American communist dictatorship."

"Today, a year and two months after the opening of Cuba, the Cuban government remains as oppressive as ever," Rubio said on CNN. Told of Obama's intention to visit, he added, "Probably not going to invite me."

With less than a year left in office, Obama has been eager to make rapid progress on restoring economic and diplomatic ties to cement the rapprochement with Cuba that his administration started. Following secret negotiations between their governments, Obama and Castro announced in late 2014 that they would begin normalizing ties, and months later held the first face-to-face meeting between an American and Cuban president since 1958.

But Obama, facing steadfast opposition to normalized relations from Republicans and some Democrats, has been unable to deliver on the former Cold War foe's biggest request: the lifting of the U.S. economic embargo. Opponents argue that repealing those sanctions would reward a government still engaging in human rights abuses and stifling of democratic aspirations.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Democrat born in Cuba, called the visit "absolutely shameful." "For more than 50 years, Cubans have been fleeing the Castro regime," said Lehtinen, the longest-serving Cuban-American in Congress. "Yet the country which grants them refuge — the United States — has now decided to quite literally embrace their oppressors."

Obama and supporters of the detente argue the decades-old embargo has failed to bring about desired change on the island 90 miles south of Florida. Still, while Obama has long expressed an interest in visiting Cuba, White House officials had said the visit wouldn't occur unless and until the conditions were right.

"If I go on a visit, then part of the deal is that I get to talk to everybody" — including political dissidents, Obama told Yahoo News in December. "I've made very clear in my conversations directly with President Castro that we would continue to reach out to those who want to broaden the scope for, you know, free expression inside of Cuba."

Officials didn't immediately specify what had changed in the last few weeks to clear the way for the trip, first reported by ABC News. But on Tuesday, the two nations signed a deal restoring commercial air traffic as early as later this year, eliminating a key barrier to unfettered travel that isolated Cuban-Americans from their families for generations.

Hundreds of thousands more Americans are expected to visit Cuba per year under the deal, which cleared the way for the U.S. Department of Transportation to open bidding by American air carriers on as many as 110 flights a day. Currently, there are about one-fifth as many flights operating between the two countries — all charters.

For Obama, the diplomatic opening with Cuba reflects one of the crowning achievements of a foreign policy rooted in a belief that the U.S. should test opportunities to ease hostilities with its historical enemies. Last month, the Obama administration lifted economic sanctions against Iran's nuclear program, following a diplomatic deal that has raised hopes about warmer ties between the U.S. and Iran. Yet those achievements have been offset by deepening security challenges in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere as Obama nears the end of his term.

Not since President Calvin Coolidge went to Havana in January 1928 has a sitting U.S. president been to Havana, according to the State Department historian's office. President Harry Truman visited the U.S.-controlled Guantanamo Bay on the southeast end of the island in 1948, and former President Jimmy Carter has paid multiple visits to the island since leaving office.