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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  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Questions, therefore, to Fred, Mr Goss and Mary.

    I advise expectant readers not to hold their breath.

  • Mary

    What I think of Hamas is irrelevant. The Palestinian people of Gaza elected them DEMOCRATICALLY.

    We can make a guess what ‘Habbabkuk’ ‘thinks’ of Hamas.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Re-reading Anne Applebaum’s excellent book, which is my recommendation for February, I came across the following squib which I think is worth sharing with readers. The source Applebaum gives for it is the British (Communist) newspaper the Daily Worker (20 November 1950, P.2):

    “Upon returning from Warsaw in 1950, one British socialist, the wife of a Labour MP, told a crowd at Trafalgar Square she had seen ‘no signs of dictatorship’ in Poland. On the contrary, she declared, the only ‘iron curtain’ in existence was the one around Great Britain (the British government had just refused visas to Eastern European delegates who wanted to attend a world peace conference in Sheffield.”.

    I wonder if the above reminds readers of something and some people?

  • fred

    “Quite so – as Israel was.”

    No, there are still 32 states which do not recognise Israel, for those states Israel does not exist.

  • Irish butter

    Govinda: ‘Kindly tell me about yourself’

    Siddhartha; ‘Which self, and how should I tell you?’

    Govinda; ‘I don’t mean Atman, I’m curious about your personal views; in your own words’

    Siddhartha; ‘That is a mystery to me, and will remain a mystery to all who ask’

    Govinda; ‘A mystery as in divine origin, or just individual mental confusion?’

    Siddhartha; ‘They are all One, as everything has a divine origin’

    Govinda; ‘I just want to know something about you, beside the fact that you are skilled at asking questions. Do you eat meat?

    Siddhartha; ‘If I were to eat meat, it would be a powerful sign I was a carnivore’

    Govinda; ‘GFY’

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    “What I think of Hamas is irrelevant.”
    _____________

    A bit of a cop-out from someone (Mary) most of whose posts on this blog are about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    *********

    An a subsidiary observation :

    “The Palestinian people of Gaza elected them DEMOCRATICALLY.”
    _______________

    This is what’s irrelevant – and misleading.

    If, as Mary says, the Gazans and West Bankers are one, then we must ask who – Fatah or Hamas – won the elections overall, ie, in the West Bank and Gaza taken together. Can Mary supply the answer, or will she cop-out again?

  • Mary

    Lifting Gaza blockade ‘out of the question,’ senior Israeli officials say

    Sources at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office reject Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s condition for reconciliation with Turkey.

    By Barak Ravid | 12.02.14 |

    Israel will not lift the blockade currently imposed on the Gaza Strip, senior officials at the Prime Minister Office said on Wednesday, a day after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded that lifting the siege be a condition for signing a reconciliation agreement between…..
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.573871

    ~~~

    Israel bars Gaza patients over ‘Palestine’ letterhead

    Israeli military official says Israel denied access permits to 50 Palestinians because their forms were marked ‘State of Palestine’; urgent patients were granted access.

    Israel has denied entry permits to some 50 Palestinian medical patients from the Gaza Strip because the words “State of Palestine” appears on the letterhead of their application, officials said on Wednesday.

    Israel does not recognize a Palestinian state, whose creation it says should stem from peace negotiations. It voted against a UN General Assembly resolution in 2012 that gave de facto recognition to a sovereign Palestinian state.

    http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.573911

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Fred

    You are introducing red herrings again. Not good enough.

    Was the state of Israel officially signed into being by the UN or not?

    You know, the UN which you and others have frequently referred to as “the international community”?

    And now stop being so silly.

  • Mary

    The troll knows that I do not enter into any discussions with him and I have no appetite for contact of any sort. I have a long memory going back to November, 2012.

  • John Dross

    Nevermind

    “If anybody buys Israeli made goods in our house, incl. moire, they will be castigated and shown up for it, then it gets taken back or binned.”

    Dear me. Life must be be a barrel of laughs in your house.

  • Farnham Friends of Palestine

    I object to the allegation from the troll that I am obsessed with Israel. I am obsessed with Jews all over the world.

  • nevermind

    You have to be fiendish to find your path through the over packed goods, John Dross, but over packing and selling of air is a good starter, off course there is reading, we do that as well, but hey we get our fun from other things, like Bosseln.

    Since when was shopping a barrel of laughs?

  • Mary

    Ref Farnham Friends of Palestine
    12 Feb, 2014 – 8:56 pm

    The trolls are resorting to cheap tricks again.

    I live in Surrey but not in Farnham!

    Goodnight. You can go off shift now,

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Mary says

    “The troll knows that I do not enter into any discussions with him and I have no appetite for contact of any sort. I have a long memory going back to November, 2012.”

    Habbabkuk answers

    Fair enough, Mary, we live in a vibrant democracy. But it was Clark who asked you for your opinion on Hamas, not I. Why won’t you do him the courtesy of giving a proper answer?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Fred

    I would furthermore refer you to the vote of the 207th Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly (11.05.1949) which admitted Israel as a member of the UN.

    (States voting against : Yemen, Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Irak, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria. Not many surprises there.)

    Unlike some on this blog, the necessary two-thirds of the UN member states obviously believed that Israel had the right to exist.

    Do you, Fred?

  • fred

    “I would furthermore refer you to the vote of the 207th Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly (11.05.1949) which admitted Israel as a member of the UN.”

    So? That didn’t make it a state. The UN does not have the authority to create states, there isn’t even a universally accepted definition of what the word means. Though one common requirement is a defined territory which rules Israel out.

    Like I said, for 32 countries in the world Israel does not exist, the UN can’t make them recognise it. For them Israel is not a state.

  • Resident Dissident

    Although Hamas may have been democratically elected I fail to see how that gives it a mandate to carry out the human rights abuses detailed in the HRW report linked to by ESLO.

    And although Hamas may have been democratically elected back in 2006 its mandate ran out in 2010 and since then no Palestinians have been elected or have had the authority to delay the elections (and that it is the view of the Palestinian High Court not my own).

    Although Israeli behaviour at the Gaza border posts is entirely reprehensible – perhaps Mary might wish to comment on what happens on the Gazan side of the border – and how those who have members of their family in Fateh are treated or how greasing the palms of certain Hamas officials might help the process. Those who have read Dervla Murphy’s sympathetic account of Gaza will note how the greatest delays are on the Gazan side of border and how being linked to Fateh or not following the Hamas line makes an already near impossible life even worse.

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    Disturbing Parallels Between America & 1930s Germany:

    http://www.thesocilleader.com/2010/09/disturbing-parallels-america-1930s-germany/

    Nevermind. 5 20pm

    I’m sure Sophia is not yours.”

    You touch on a rather delicate subject there. Suffice it to say Sofia’s conception, far from being a brief and ghastly moment of passion, was simply a reaction to Dad’s campaign of unrelenting and unpleasant stalking of Mary.

    It’s good to see how, rather than silencing her, he has spurred her efforts on. No chance of the Nakba going undiscussed with Dad around.

    Aside from it’s great skill in harming Palestinians, frightening journalists, dropping American bombsand the rest, the Israeli state seems to be extremely incompetent. It’s “public diplomats” are a counter-productive joke.

    As Mark Twain said (no apologies for repeating this), “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

    I pray that when US support is no more that Israel has better luck producing peacemakers.

    Mary. 8 23pm

    What a refreshing Grammy speach. Thanks.

    http://snoopman.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/lordes-suppressed-grammy-award-acceptance-speech-full-transcript-26-january-2014/

    “…May you all find the balls to help construct a world based on resilient community, bona-fide freedom, and peace…”

  • mike

    By now thread-creep will have set in, big style, so try this one:

    Record snow in Tokyo; snow in Cairo; polar vortex in US; coldest January 7th in NY since 1896; ice storm in Slovakia. To name but five.

    We’ve also had the weakest solar maximum since the end of the 19th Century and the weakest solar minimum for almost 200 years.

    To paraphrase Bill Clinton: It’s the sun, stupid.

    There is too much invested, financially and intellectually, in Anthropogenic Global Warming to admit that the sun is the major factor regulating our climate, not CO2.

    And now I await the flaming torches to appear outside my house.

  • fred

    “Although Hamas may have been democratically elected I fail to see how that gives it a mandate to carry out the human rights abuses detailed in the HRW report linked to by ESLO.”

    But it did give them the right to govern all of Palestine including the West Bank.

    Any removal of that right by force is by nature undemocratic.

    You do believe in democracy don’t you?

  • Clark

    John Goss, here’s a technique I’ve found helpful. When you’ve been given a link and you’ve gone to the page, try cutting the page info off and click “Go” so that you end up on the home page, like this:

    http://somehelpful.info/Articles/20131103-guillotines-in-US.htm

    becomes:

    http://somehelpful.info/

    On that page, top of the list on the left: “Bible Prophecy”, “Deliverance from Demons”, “Rapture Insurance” (! “Jesus saves, Moses invests”?) etc. etc. etc.. Obviously a Right-wing Christian nutter’s site.

  • Herbie

    Apologies if this has already been posted.

    Excellent and detailed interview about life on the ground for ordinary Palestinians, and how the Israeli govt routinely interferes in denying them the capacity to make a living, rather like the Nazis did to the Jews in their early days.

    “Today we talk to Eva Bartlett of InGaza.wordpress.com, an activist and journalist who has spent much of the past seven years living in Gaza and documenting the plight of the Palestinian people in their struggle against Israeli occupation. We discuss Bartlett’s background and experiences in Gaza, her upcoming US speaking tour where she will present those experiences, and how the Palestinian struggle is kept out of the mainstream media.”

    http://www.corbettreport.com/interview-824-eva-bartlett-documents-the-struggle-of-the-palestinians/

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