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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  • Mary

    John Ref the Bullingdon crowd. I think it is the arrogance of their expressions in that photo of Farmer’s son, with others, that is most disturbing. They know they are different from the rest of us because they have rich parents.

    Laughing in our faces with knobs on!

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/10537611/Mr-Copper-bucks-commodities-gloom-with-double-digit-returns-for-third-year.html

    Quite revolting.

    Tax avoidance? Tories’ #1 donor running hedge funds from Bermuda
    June 19th
    •Tories claim to be on the offensive over tax avoidance
    •But #1 donor running secretive Bermuda hedge funds
    •Territory snubbed David Cameron over tax deal last week
    http://politicalscrapbook.net/2013/06/tory-donor-michael-farmer-hedge-funds-bermuda/

    But he’s a Christian. So that’s alright then.

    http://sorted-mag.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/what-do-christians-conservatives-and.html

  • Mary

    Archaeology Shows Bible Written Late, Full of Errors
    By Juan Cole
    February 06, 2014 “Information Clearing House

    A new paper by Israeli archaeologists Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef, http://archaeology.tau.ac.il/ben-yosef/pub/Pub_PDFs/Sapir-Hen&Ben-Yosef13_CamelAravah_TelAviv.pdf
    posted at the University of Tel Aviv web site, is bad news for biblical literalists and far right wing Israeli nationalists who use the Bible for support.

    The Hebrew Bible’s oldest chapters– Genesis, Exodus, and even Judges purport to discuss events thousands of years ago. The custom in Western biblical scholarship is to date Abraham to e.g. 2000 B.C. This dating is based on nothing more than counting generations (“begats”) backward and assigning an arbitrary number of years to each generation. In fact, Genesis is replete with myths and assertions of people living hundreds of years, and was only historicized in this way by 19th century positivists.

    But here is proof that the Bible was written late and projects later developments into the distant past: it alleges that people had domesticated camels four millennia ago in what is now Israel. And that assertion, folks, is simply not true. That is the finding of Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef.

    /..
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37566.htm

  • BrianFujisan

    It’s reported that since March 2011, more than 130,000 Syrians were killed in the clashes that have erupted inside the war-torn country, and more than 2 million others were displaced.

    The Western mainstream media persistently try to portray the violence in Syria as part of the wave of revolutionary movements in the Arab world that started from Tunisia three years ago known as the Arab Spring, but the irony is that there is virtually no sign of a popular uprising or civil movement in Syria that can quality the unrest in this country as a revolution. What is happening in Syria is an unspeakable, all-out sectarian conflict fueled by the foreign powers and terrorists from more than 80 countries whose ultimate objective is to tear the country apart and dismantle it as an integral part of the axis of resistance.

    In a systematic and organized way, the United States and some of its regional and trans-regional allies have concocted a scheme for Balkanizing Syria through embroiling the country’s different religious sects in an erosive and seemingly unending clash; Sunnis against the Alawites and Twelver Shiites against the Christians. This will ultimately result in acrimony, quarrel and bitterness in Syria and pave the way for what the enemies of peace and harmony in Syria have been looking for: the dismantlement of the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

    Some analysts believe that Syria is paying the price for its resistance against Israel. Of course Israel, which directly benefits from conflict and unrest in Syria, is inclined to see a chaotic, turbulent and tumultuous Syria rather than a Syria which is unified, strong and powerful. This belief that Israel sees its interest in the continuation of unrest in Syria is substantiated by many analysts and politicians who have closely monitored the developments in the Middle East in the recent years. In an interview with Press TV in September 2012, the former Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Abdullatif Sener said “the unrest in Syria benefits Israel, because Syria is one of a few countries standing against Tel Aviv.” According to Sener, Israel seeks to weaken Syria to undermine the Palestinians and Hezbollah.

    All things considered, the war that is being waged on Syria, with the involvement of those dangerous killers whom the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry honorably brands as “moderate terrorists” is leading to an erosive, obnoxious and bloody sectarian conflict which one can hardly think of an end for. Those who are pitting the Shiites against the Sunnis and vice versa are making use of the diversity of denominations in Islam as an instrument to spread unrest and confusion among the Muslims and undermine their unity and integrity. They fear that the growth of the Muslim community will entail a heavy price for them.

    I remember talking to a Syrian citizen a few weeks ago. She told me that Bashar al-Assad has always maintained a policy of preserving balance and equilibrium between the followers of divine religions in Syria, and religious tolerance is something which is widely practiced in the country. She was saying that the Alawites and other Shiites, Sunnis and the Christian and Jewish minorities have always lived with each other peacefully and interacted constructively, and this atmosphere was created by Bashar al-Assad, but it’s really indeterminate and unclear what will happen if he goes, either voluntarily or by force, and what the next leader will do to maintain religious equality.

    The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria has confirmed in a recent report that sectarian violence has increased in Syria, and there are other reports testifying that sectarian conflict is being expanded into Lebanon and Iraq and is likely to engulf the whole Middle East very soon.

    The fact that takfiris, salafists and other fundamentalists who don’t accept as Muslim whoever is politically opposed to them are now gaining power and contributing to the Balkanization of Syria is really disturbing, and it seems that nothing worthwhile comes out of the negotiation rooms in Geneva that can help Syria see the face of peace and tranquility once again; however, experience has shown that whenever the decision-making is entrusted to the people themselves, they make the best choices. It’s up to the Syrian people to decide whether they want Bashar al-Assad to remain in power or not. Killing and terrorizing will not help find an answer to the dilemma.

    By Kourosh Ziabari

  • John Goss

    Brian, unless you read Russian the only known translation is “The Breakup (Disintegration of an Atom), by Peter Rossbacher”. Ivanov was a very special poet who created a new language in Raspad Atoma which he called Australian. Those who accuse me of being a Stalinist, Communist, whatever, might be surprised to learn that Georgy Ivanov was an aristocrat, who left Soviet Russia in 1923 and never returned. Someone has written of him that “further to the right was the wall.” So why would I, whose politics is not quite that far right, espouse his accomplishments as a poet? Because I like to think I am even-handed and art is not politics. Ivanov died in an old people’s home in poverty. I understand that his body was later removed from the village of Hyères in France and reburied in the Masonic cemetery at Paris. The Wikipedia entry makes me laugh. He was probably the greatest Russian poet of the twentieth century, certainly the most inventive.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Ivanov

    As to the Kourosh Ziabari article it is right. It is the intention of the Zionist-owned countries to break up the Middle East and keep it in a continual state of civil war to prepare a way for the United States of Israel. I keep saying this. It is not achievable because people rebel against imposed regimes. And when they work out who is imposing the unrest they will stop fighting among themselves, and realise who the real enemy is.

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    Just a quick few lines before I head off for the day.

    Gary emailed to let me know Dr Bullstrode told him Dad won’t bother anyone today. He’s worried about the poor man and reckons he’s not much saner than Dad. When he saw hi arriving with all that rope and the box of horse tranquilezer he almost did’nt let him in, but at that moment the banging started again so he gave in to expediency and let him in.

    If he behaves Gary’s going to take him to the theatre later for a treat,

    http://electronicintifada.net/content/tale-palestinian-family-torn-apart-prison-brought-london-stage/13116

  • John Goss

    “Gone will be Europe and America
    Moscow and the parks of Tsarskoe Selo –
    An attack of atomic hysterics will
    Pulverize everything in the shining blue.”

    Georgy Ivanov (translation by Jerome Katsell and Stanislav Shvabrin)

    It is a good literal translation. According to the translators this poem was published in 1953.

    Although an authority on eighteenth century English novelist, Robert Bage, I could talk about Georgy Ivanov for just as long. One day I will prove why he is such a great poet. Bet you can’t wait!

  • ESLO

    Not under foreign skies
    Nor under foreign wings protected –
    I shared all this with my own people
    There, where misfortune had abandoned us.

    For Fujisan and Dross – in the vain hope that the scales are lifted from their eyes when it comes to Assad and Putin. From a rather and more relevant poet than Ivanov.

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!
    6 Feb, 2014 – 11:08 pm

    To Nevermind:
    “The conclusion one must draw from your post is that you do not think Israel has the right to exist. Thank you for being so clear. You may be mistaken, but at least you’re honest. “

    “Anyone else?”

    Habbabkuk, the conclusion I draw from your conclusion is that you support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and the ethnic cleansing and land theft it carries out.

    Please justify your stance in a proper, well written and intellectually sound argument.

    Over a week ago I made a similar challenge to anyone on this blog to justify their support for Israel. I was, of course, greeted by silence; not one taker!

    So either, there are no supporters of Israel here or not one of you has the courage of your convictions or the ability to articulate your views in more than one sentence.

    Another round of silence will confirm to all the other posters and readers of this blog how disingenuous you all are.

  • Beelzebub (La Vita è Finita)

    Captcha glitch: Apparently if x – four = four, x does not equal 8. Or anything else I tried.

  • ESLO

    “Please justify your stance in a proper, well written and intellectually sound argument.”

    For a starter it is the position in international law. Where else would you suggest all the Jewish refugees who came to Israel fleeing Nazi, Soviet and yes Arab/Moslem persecution might wish to go? It is also defacto reality – Israel is not going just to dissolve itself and go away peacefully.

    Perhaps rather than standing by Sofia’s analysis some people here need to realise that one sign of maturity is being able to recognise that there are usually two or more signs to any argument. Until there is some recognition of that I think it would be pretty pointless to debate this matter.

  • nevermind

    To Nevermind:
    “The conclusion one must draw from your post is that you do not think Israel has the right to exist. Thank you for being so clear. You may be mistaken, but at least you’re honest. “

    “Anyone else?”
    To habbakuk: You draw your conclusions on half of my reasonings, thats all there is to say, there is much more justification to desolve Israel in order to free its peoples minds, to let children, once again, play together and accept each other, however long this may take.

    Moreover you have been prompted by Doug to make your own position clear, why do you support a repressive regime that refuses to be equal to others. If not, then at least say why you are painfully sitting on the fence, batting off facts and figures?

    Do you support Israel as it currently exist in the world community, Habbakuk, and why?

  • ESLO

    I could also add that the PLO and the saner elements of Hamas, in private, also acknowledge the right of Israel to exist.

  • ESLO

    Nevermind

    Supporting the right for a state to exist is not the same as supporting a repressive regime in that state. I am quite happy for Russia, Syria and the Ukraine to continue to exist.

  • Mary

    I prefer to put the word ‘Israel’ in inverted commas, as it is not a state as it knows no law and has no boundaries. Sorry for the repetition.

  • Beelzebub (La Vita è Finita)

    ‘Where else would you suggest all the Jewish refugees who came to Israel fleeing Nazi, Soviet and yes Arab/Moslem persecution might wish to go?’

    1. Nazi persecution (and the Nazis) were long gone by 1948.
    2. I have seen no proposals for a homeland for Russian and E. European non-Jews fleeing Soviet repression. Indeed, we were prepared if necessary to bomb the unfortunates trapped behind the wall because no alternative location was available.
    3. Palestinian Arabs and Jews coexisted pretty well before the Ashkenazi Zionists moved in. Arab-Jewish mutual fear and loathing is very largely the consequence of the seizure of formerly Arab property by the new immigrants.

    ‘It is also defacto reality – Israel is not going just to dissolve itself and go away peacefully.’

    That at any rate is true, at least until the happy day when its superpower backer decides even it has had enough. (Meanwhile, Israel is hitting the US taxpayer for >$3Bn annually. Wish the UK could do that!)

    So we’re stuck with a theocratic apartheid state which does not observe international treaties on major issues, and which is, under the umbrella of cynically extended and intentionally fruitless negotiations, marginalising followers of other religions and none – much as Saudi Arabia does, and I have no brief for that either. While requisitioning their property, and sequestering their remaining resources.

    It may have a right to exist – define “right” – but it has no conceivable right to exist like that.

  • ESLO

    “I prefer to put the word ‘Israel’ in inverted commas, as it is not a state as it knows no law and has no boundaries. Sorry for the repetition.”

    So lets just ignore the original UN resolution establishing Jewish and Arab states from the British mandate – funny how international law is only invoked by yourself in certain circumstances.

    Beelzebub

    Don’t you think Nazi and Soviet persecution might not have had some effect on the desire of Jews to want to have their own land – if only to avoid a repeat exercise – the comments from many here show that European anti-Semitism continues to exist. And so what should all the European Jews in Isreal do – just return? I’m afraid the genie is out of the bottle.

  • fred

    “So lets just ignore the original UN resolution establishing Jewish and Arab states from the British mandate – funny how international law is only invoked by yourself in certain circumstances.”

    Everybody seems to have ignored the bit about he Arab state, why shouldn’t we ignore the bit about the Jewish one?

  • fred

    ” Where else would you suggest all the Jewish refugees who came to Israel fleeing Nazi, Soviet and yes Arab/Moslem persecution might wish to go?”

    New York, Paris, Sydney, London, Amsterdam, that’s where they wished to go. They were mostly artisans, the only situations vacant in Palestine were for farm labourers. They were only given the one option.

  • Black jelly

    Its really funny, we have just had bandar and satanyahu conspire to gas 400 children (and 1,000 adults) and use them as props to con the Western public into okaying a NATO/US bombing of Syria, being caught red-handed in their false flag. And then we have the jews at this blog (ESLO) going on about Assad and Putin as if nothing has happened?!! Pure yiddish and dershowitzery, if you ask me. The clown says he does not believe God but then says judea and samaria are God given lands to the jews?!! FFS make up your mind, sorry but this time round even the intercession of a million Gerald Kaufmans will be inadequate.

  • John Goss

    ESLO 7 Feb, 2014 – 10:57 am

    That’s rich calling to your defence international law, when Israel is the biggest breaker of international law, followed closely by the US. What a naff argument.

  • Beelzebub (La Vita è Finita)

    ‘Don’t you think Nazi and Soviet persecution might not have had some effect on the desire of Jews to want to have their own land – if only to avoid a repeat exercise –…’

    I might, if the Jewish state were not so adept at reproducing the same conditions the Jews hoped to escape, for the benefit of the original inhabitants (including, to some extent, Sephardic Jews)

    ‘the comments from many here show that European anti-Semitism continues to exist.’

    Nothing like as strongly expressed as Arab detestation of the Jewish state, nearer at hand,. Europe would be a better option, and save the US $3Bn a year…of course the US is where half the world’s Jews live, in any case, including a very large proportion of those who escaped from Germany while they could.

    ‘And so what should all the European Jews in Isreal do – just return?’

    Strawman again, ESLO. (Though it would be a good solution, now that most of their ‘homelands’ are free democracies and offer no existential threat. It’s probably more dangerous to be homosexual than Jewish even in Russia…maybe gays should have an agreeable Mediterranean homeland?) But I’m not suggesting anything of the sort, as you very well know.

    If Israel wishes to be regarded and treated as a responsible democratic state, it MUST abide by the conventions observed by those states. It must NOT steal land. It MUST enfranchise its citizens equally, and give them equal rights. Otherwise it becomes the very thing it was founded to prevent. With the complicity of its few supporters.

  • John Goss

    ESLO, Akhmatova was a contemporary of Ivanov (little older I think). They knew one another well in the Silver Age. Yes she stayed in the Soviet Union. Who did the translation? I rather suspect she was influenced by her erstwhile husband Nikolai Gumilyov who as you probably know was shot by the Bolsheviks.

  • ESLO

    Black Jelly

    I am not Jewish. I am agnostic rather than atheist. Israel was created by a UN resolution not God. I take my evidence from other sources than yours on the Syrian gassings – that that I see either side in Syria having clean hands, unlike yourself who is prepared to excuse the excesses of Assad.

    Fred

    There was one Arab state created out of the British mandate – it is called Jordan. Not that I don’t believe in the dual state solution for what is now termed Palestine. It is just wrong to say that some Jews did not want their own country and go to Israel – yes some had restricted options and some didn’t, but there were large numbers who wanted to go to Israel. Many (e.g. Beelzebub) forget the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries that occurred post 1948 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_countries

    To explain all that as a result of Israeli settlers seizing land from Palestinians and the resulting poisoning of relations, or the encouragement of migration by Israel itself, just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. And to believe that such Israeli settlers would be welcomed back in peace and harmony is just beyond the bounds of all credibility.

    I’m afraid I wouldn’t start from here really is just a non starter for anyone who cares about the fate of either Isrealis or Palestinians.

  • Beelzebub (La Vita è Finita)

    That Wiki entry:
    ‘The reasons for the exodus included push factors, such as persecution, antisemitism, political instability, poverty and expulsion; together with pull factors, such as the desire to fulfill Zionist yearnings or find a better economic status and secured home in Europe or the Americas. A significant proportion of Jews left due to political insecurity and the rise of Arab nationalism, and later also due to policies of some Arab governments, who sought to present the expulsion of Jews as a crowd-driven retaliatory act for the exodus of Arab refugees from Mandatory Palestine.[1]’

    We can probably play ‘He started it’ indefinitely. And the Jewish mythos does. Maybe we might look at the affiliations of those writing Wiki entries, too. Most of those leaving the Maghreb and Arabia were Sephardim, who also enjoy inferior status in Israel, it might be noted. Still a bit baffled as to the “right” of Russian Ashkenazim to evict anyone in the MidEast, something to which the British mandate was generally opposed, though…and I don’t think you have much of a clue about that, either.

    I’d just say that the activities of the Jewish State over the last few decades, have done nothing whatever for the popularity of the remaining diaspora. Howling about antisemitism when someone looks at you sideways doesn’t make you many chums, either.

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