Syria and Diplomacy 2917


The problem with the Geneva Communique from the first Geneva round on Syria is that the government of Syria never subscribed to it.  It was jointly chaired by the League of Arab States for Syria, whatever that may mean.  Another problem is that it is, as so many diplomatic documents are, highly ambiguous.  It plainly advocates a power sharing executive formed by some of the current government plus the opposition to oversee a transition to democracy.  But it does not state which elements of the current government, and it does not mention which elements of the opposition, nor does it make plain if President Assad himself is eligible to be part of, or to head, the power-sharing executive, and whether he is eligible to be a candidate in future democratic elections.

Doubtless the British, for example, would argue that the term transition implies that he will go.  The Russians will argue there is no such implication and the text does not exclude anybody from the process.  Doubtless also diplomats on all sides were fully aware of these differing interpretations and the ambiguity is quite deliberate to enable an agreed text. I would say that the text tends much more to the “western” side, and that this reflects the apparently weak military position of the Assad regime at that time and the then extant threat of western military intervention.  There has been a radical shift in those factors against the western side in the interim. Expect Russian interpretations now to get more hardline.

Given the extreme ambiguity of the text, Iran has, as it frequently does, shot itself in the foot diplomatically by refusing to accept the communique as the basis of talks and thus getting excluded from Geneva.  Iran should have accepted the communique, and then at Geneva issued its own interpretation of it.

But that is a minor point.  The farcical thing about the Geneva conference is that it is attempting to promote into power-sharing in Syria “opposition” members who have no democratic credentials and represent a scarcely significant portion of those actually fighting the Assad regime in Syria.  What the West are trying to achieve is what the CIA and Mossad have now achieved in Egypt; replacing the head of the Mubarak regime while keeping all its power structures in place. The West don’t really want democracy in Syria, they just want a less pro-Russian leader of the power structures.

The inability of the British left to understand the Middle East is pathetic.  I recall arguing with commenters on this blog who supported the overthrow of the elected President of Egypt Morsi on the grounds that his overthrow was supporting secularism, judicial independence (missing the entirely obvious fact the Egyptian judiciary are almost all puppets of the military) and would lead to a left wing revolutionary outcome.  Similarly the demonstrations against Erdogan in Istanbul, orchestrated by very similar pro-military forces to those now in charge in Egypt, were also hailed by commenters here.  The word “secularist” seems to obviate all sins when it comes to the Middle East.

Qatar will be present at Geneva, and Qatar has just launched a pre-emptive media offensive by launching a dossier on torture and murder of detainees by the Assad regime, which is being given first headline treatment by the BBC all morning

There would be a good dossier to be issued on torture in detention in Qatar, and the lives of slave workers there, but that is another question.

I do not doubt at all that atrocities have been committed and are being committed by the Assad regime.  It is a very unpleasant regime indeed.  The fact that atrocities are also being committed by various rebel groups does not make Syrian government atrocities any better.

But whether 11,000 people really were murdered in a single detainee camp I am unsure.  What I do know is that the BBC presentation of today’s report has been a disgrace.  The report was commissioned by the government of Qatar who commissioned Carter Ruck to do it.  Both those organisations are infamous suppressors of free speech.  What is reprehensible is that the BBC are presenting the report as though it were produced by neutral experts, whereas the opposite is the case.  It is produced not by anti torture campaigners or by human rights activists, but by lawyers who are doing it purely and simply because they are being paid to do it.

The BBC are showing enormous deference to Sir Desmond De Silva, who is introduced as a former UN war crimes prosecutor.  He is indeed that, but it is not the capacity in which he is now acting.  He is acting as a barrister in private practice.  Before he was a UN prosecutor, he was for decades a criminal defence lawyer and has defended many murderers.  He has since acted to suppress the truth being published about many celebrities, including John Terry.

If the Assad regime and not the government of Qatar had instructed him and paid him, he would now be on our screens arguing the opposite case to that he is putting.  That is his job.  He probably regards that as not reprehensible.  What is reprehensible is that the BBC do not make it plain, but introduce him as a UN war crimes prosecutor as though he were acting in that capacity or out of concern for human rights.  I can find no evidence of his having an especial love for human rights in the abstract, when he is not being paid for it.  He produced an official UK government report into the murder of Pat Finucane, a murder organised by British authorities, which Pat Finucane’s widow described as a “sham”.  He was also put in charge of quietly sweeping the Israeli murders on the Gaza flotilla under the carpet at the UN.

The question any decent journalist should be asking him is “Sir Desmond De Silva, how much did the government of Qatar pay you for your part in preparing this report?  How much did it pay the other experts?  Does your fee from the Government of Qatar include this TV interview, or are you charging separately for your time in giving this interview?  In short how much are you being paid to say this?”

That is what any decent journalist would ask.  Which is why you will never hear those questions on the BBC.

 

 

 


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2,917 thoughts on “Syria and Diplomacy

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  • Anon

    “Nobody can support anybody anymore. The unions have been divided and conquered.”

    I must admit it’s hard to support Bob Crow while he suns himself in Brazil on his £145k salary.

  • ESLO

    The NUM Executive voted against a national ballot 5 weeks after the start of the strike – and since the vote was 13 to 8 with 3 abstentions – it clearly was some miners who wanted a ballot and not just the Press as you previously claimed erroneously. Just because Thatcher was lying it was not a reason for the NUM to abandon its democratic traditions. One reason for a national ballot was to unite rather than divide and conquer.

  • ESLO

    Goss

    No it doesn’t – I said he was an idiotic Stalinist – he couldn’t stop miners asking for a ballot – but he as sure as hell subverted the democratic principles of that union so that the call for a ballot was ignored for many weeks beforehand.

  • John Goss

    Thanks Mark. We won’t forget the evil . . . someone fill in the blank for killing all those young Argentinians, and UK servicemen in an avoidable conflict, nor her son for trying to overthrow a government. What a family of . . . somebody fill in the blank please.

  • ESLO

    Goss

    I was on several miners’ marches – there was more than one. And I spent many hours shaking the bucket outside tube and railway stations.

    There were plenty of Stalinists in the Labour Party in those days – they often bored branch meetings rigid with their recollections of trips to the Soviet Union and its satellites and their eulogies for what they had seen. Didn’t you once say that you belonged to the Party?

    And what did the NUM constitution say about holding ballots before a strike?

  • ESLO

    Still haven’t had an answer as to what should be done differently so as to avoid more glorious failures – I presume it will involve doing something to the Zionists or similar.

  • doug scorgie

    “Oil giant BP boss Bob Dudley has warned there are “big uncertainties” for the company over the possibility of Scotland becoming independent.”

    “BP plans to invest £10bn in the North Sea between 2011 and 2016, its highest ever investment in the region.”

    “My personal view is that Great Britain is great and it ought to stay together,” added Mr Dudley.”

    “Alistair Darling, head of the Better Together campaign, said Mr Dudley’s comments marked the biggest intervention by a major business so far in the referendum debate.”

    Conspiracy to pervert the course of democracy?

  • John Goss

    There was one National Strike that I remember and a lot of local efforts. But I applaud you for going seemingly against your belief that there should not have been a strike. Let me tell you something, because feelings run high over the miners’ strike. I was brought up in two pit villages until I was twelve (one was a town actually). My grandfather was one of the lucky ones who worked underground for a quarter of his life and lived to be 76. As a family we got a small coal allowance. His father and brothers, and their father and brothers worked at the pit. It was a humble existence. The door was off the latch. There was nothing to steal. But there was community spirit and people pulled together as a community. Thatcher was going to close the pits one way or another. When the miners stopped pulling together all was lost. If everybody had pulled together it was winnable. But they did not. I was active in the sixties when we had to spend hours under candle-light. But we won. Breaking up the communities and community spirit was her aim and she succeeded. Union implies unity. That was what was lacking. In a way I do not like to think of people working underground because there are huge risks. Thatcher destroyed community spirit. And an industry.

  • doug scorgie

    Anon
    4 Feb, 2014 – 2:34 pm

    Anon, The Commenter you link to is a right-wing Zionist hasbara site.

    Do you read it every day?

  • Anon

    It was only a matter of time before Mark Golding weighed in with his Belgrano “war crime”

    “The entire South Atlantic was an operational theatre for both sides. We, as professionals, said it was just too bad that we lost the Belgrano”.

    – Rear Admiral Allara of the Argentine Navy.

  • Anon

    Douglas writes:

    “Anon, The Commenter you link to is a right-wing Zionist hasbara site. Do you read it every day?”

    Does the site’s “Zionist hasbara” have any bearing on:

    1) The sharp decline of UK coal production post WW2?
    2) The closure of more mines under Labour than Thatcher?

    I know you are inclined to blame everything on the Jews, Doug, but this really is stretching it.

  • Kempe

    “Conspiracy to pervert the course of democracy? ”

    No, expressing an opinion. That is democracy. Wanting to arrest anyone who says something you don’t agree with is not.

  • fred

    “Conspiracy to pervert the course of democracy?”

    I can’t see independence making a lot of difference to the oil industry. All the North Sea oil would continue to be sold in London for dollars then the British Government would work out Scotland’s share and give it to them.

    The oil companies have things set up pretty much how they like it, I think they would be reluctant to make any changes. They would continue to deal with the British government and Scotland would have to do the same.

  • John Goss

    There was one National Strike that I remember and a lot of local efforts. But I applaud you for going seemingly against your belief that there should not have been a strike. Let me tell you something, because feelings run high over the miners’ strike. I was brought up in two pit villages until I was twelve (one was a town actually). My grandfather was one of the lucky ones who worked underground for a quarter of his life and lived to be 76. As a family we got a small coal allowance. His father and brothers, and their father and brothers worked at the pit. It was a humble existence. The door was off the latch. There was nothing to steal. But there was community spirit and people pulled together as a community. Thatcher was going to close the pits one way or another. When the miners stopped pulling together all was lost. If everybody had pulled together it was winnable. But they did not. I was active in the sixties when we had to spend hours under candle-light. But we won. Breaking up the communities and community spirit was her aim and she succeeded. Union implies unity. That was what was lacking. In a way I do not like to think of people working underground because there are huge risks. Thatcher destroyed community spirit. And an industry.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7pnRgBan7c

  • doug scorgie

    Anon
    4 Feb, 2014 – 6:32 pm

    “I know you are inclined to blame everything on the Jews, Doug, but this really is stretching it.”

    Anon:
    The Commenter is a Zionist supporting right-wing site that’s all I said.

    I didn’t mention Jews and I have never blamed “the Jews” for anything.

    If I am “inclined to blame everything on the Jews” as you say presumably you can verify that by giving examples.

    You are a lying Zionist troll (me thinks).

  • Anon

    You said it is a Zionist hasbara site, during an entirely unrelated conversation about UK coal production.

    You are obsessed with Jews, Doug.

  • doug scorgie

    Kempe
    4 Feb, 2014 – 6:33 pm

    “Conspiracy to pervert the course of democracy? ”

    “No, expressing an opinion. That is democracy. Wanting to arrest anyone who says something you don’t agree with is not.”

    How stupid can you get Kempe?

    Corporations don’t vote. They don’t do democracy; they only try to undermine it for their own interests.

    Mr Dudley was speaking as head of BP – a multi-national corporation.

  • doug scorgie

    Fred
    4 Feb, 2014 – 6:34 pm

    “I can’t see independence making a lot of difference to the oil industry.”

    Yes that’s true Fred; which makes Dudley’s intervention political and designed to frighten off the undecided voters of Scotland.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    @ Goss

    “Thatcher announced 25 pit closures on 6th March. Scargill announced that there were to be 75 pit closures and called for a national strike on 12th March. Thatcher lied through her nasty meat-tearing incisors while Arthur Scargill told the truth. There was no time to organise a national ballot in 6 days.”
    _________________________

    Please explain something.

    You say that Baroness Thatcher (may she rest in peace)announced pit closures on 6 March.
    Presumably the intention was not to physically close down the pits the next day, or even the next week, or even the next month?
    And if that is correct, why did King Arthur (may he enjoy his generous pension) fix the strike for 12 March? Why did he not fix it for a week or so later, thus giving enough time for a national ballot beforehand?

    I think I’ve got you there!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    “From a quick scan, there seems to have been a troll fest here today. DON’T FEED THEM OR ENGAGE WITH THEM.”
    ___________________

    Booger off, Mary, as a Yorkshire miner might say.

    There’s a good discussion going on and then you have to turn up with your witterings.

    Get used to not being the centre of attention ALL THE TIME, will you? Learn a little humility.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    “How stupid can you get Kempe?”
    ______________________

    From what I have seen and heard over the past year or so, Kempe and a couple of others have more intelligence in their little fingers than you and the Eminences have in their entire bodies.

    PS – you owe me answers to several questions – so get on with it, will you.

  • doug scorgie

    Anon
    4 Feb, 2014 – 7:19 pm

    “You said it is a Zionist hasbara site, during an entirely unrelated conversation about UK coal production.”

    “You are obsessed with Jews, Doug.”

    I’m not interested in coal production.

    I merely stated a fact that the Commenter is a right-wing Zionist hasbara site.

    Right-wing politically and Zionist as well. Why do you read such guff?

    As I said earlier: If I am “inclined to blame everything on the Jews” as you say presumably you can verify that by giving examples.

    If I am obsessed with Jews, as you now say, please show any postings of mine that lead you to that conclusion.

  • Anon

    Show a little respect, Habbabkuk. Mary was writhing in agony as she listened to the former FCO secretary, who dared secure a pension for herself after her husband walked out, heaven forfend! Farnham WI will never be the same after this.

  • Jay

    @habba esq

    If you and your ilk are so intelligent why is the world in such a mess.

    Cultural education!

  • doug scorgie

    The thieves have been at it again.

    “Allegations of foreign exchange rate-fixing at major banks are “every bit as bad” as the Libor scandal, the boss of the UK’s financial regulator has said.”

    “Martin Wheatley, the head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), told MPs that 10 banks were now helping with its investigation.”

    “Traders were found to have used online chat rooms to collude [conspire] in setting the Libor rate – used to set the cost of borrowing between banks.”

    Of course all this is serious fraud but the regulators are not likely to call in the Serious Fraud Office as they didn’t with the Libor fraud.
    People who commit benefit fraud, on the other hand, can expect to be jailed.

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