Syria: Rogue regime: UN Security Council hears report on Syrian state crimes - US, UK, France vs Russia, China

Three weeks ago, The Associated Press rain a story "Syria growing more isolated" which I first encountered on Yahoo where it was dumped; but fortunately it's still online at AINA. The article mentions the coming US deadline of October 25 for the publication of a report on Syria's complicity or lack thereof, most immediately, the assassination of the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri. In response Lebanon experienced its Cedar Revolution, while Syrian troops and Intelligence officers were expelled (withdrawn, Syria would say) back over the border, where now they function to re-inforce the Syrian military's control of the Syrian population itself, doing so on behalf of President Bashir Assad's Baathist Party. Meantime, the UN probe has recently been completed.

Syrian officials have largely been silent on the probe. Beyond dull, vague and lengthy editorials about Syria paying for its staunchly anti-Israel stance, the media, all state-run, have largely ignored the developments.

For news about their country, Syrians have turned to the Internet, satellite television and Lebanese newspapers. And the news they get leaves them bewildered and worried. ¶ "People have no other source of information," said Abdul-Salam Haykal, head of the only public relations communications agency in Syria. "This is worrying." ¶ "We want the president to appear on local TV and tell us what's going on and reassure us," he said. ¶ On the surface, life in Syria appears normal. The streets are full of shoppers snapping up special sweets to eat at the end of daily fasts during the holy month of Ramadan. ...

But the capital Damascus is rife with an undercurrent of confusion and constant rumor -- of possible U.N. sanctions, U.S. action, or even a possible change in the government if Syria is blamed for Hariri's death. ¶ The U.N. investigation is not the only source of pressure on Syria. Washington considers the country a destabilizing element in the region and has been pushing the regime to change its behavior. ¶ It wants Damascus to crack down on Arab militants crossing into Iraq, expel radical Palestinians and disarm the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which spearheaded the guerrilla war against Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, which ended in 2000.

Until it complies, the Syrian regime is being shunned by the West. The U.S. ambassador to Syria, Margaret Scobey, was recalled to Washington shortly after Hariri's assassination, and there are no signs she will be returning soon. ¶ Senior European and American visitors have stopped calling on Damascus. And the European Union keeps delaying the signing of a crucial Syrian-EU trade agreement that would help boost Syria's stagnant economy. Syria says U.S. pressure is behind the delay.

Then, suddenly, one the principals of Syria's misdeeds in Lebanon where he functioned for two decades, a "63-year-old Baathist major general," now Minister of the Interior in the Assad government, Gazi Kanaan, according the official news agency, suicided himself "in his office," Reuters' reporter Suleiman al-Khalidi told us on October 12. Al-Khalidi does not speculate on whether Kanaan was assassinated, or was given the option he is reported to have taken. Already 4 Lebanese generals had been arrested by the UN special invetigator; but, in Syria itself, the hi-level suspects (Kanaan and a few other ranking officials, at the behest of Assad), had only to open their bank accounts to UN inspection. For its part, the US had already taken to freezing the accounts of a certain list of suspect Syrians, as well.

A week after the suicide, it came to lite that Syria had indeed all along known that Hariri was to be assassinated, raising the question whether Kanaan or his Syrian superior in Lebanon or their superiors in Syria itself had given the order to take out Hariri - a Sunni Muslim who was not himself in office at the time, having resigned months earlier and publicly taken on
the task of campaigning nationally and internationally for the ouster of the Syrians and against the Christian-Muslim cabal running Lebanon for its neighbor. The info surfaced in a UN report by its its special investigator, a German criminalist Detlev Mehlis.

But the [56-page UN] report paints a detailed portrait of involvement by senior members of Syria's security and political apparatus and will give weight to efforts by Washington, Paris and London to sanction Syria in the U.N. Security Council. ¶ The U.N. investigation notes that shortly before the fatal blast, Islamic militant Ahmad Abdel-Al, who is described as having ties to the Syrian authorities, telephoned Mr. Lahoud, among others. The international investigation notes that the crime had been prepared for several months by a well-connected group and that Mr. Hariri's movements were carefully monitored. His telephones had been tapped and his schedule scrutinized. Indeed, it did not appear to be a simple matter to kill Mr. Hariri, the enormously wealthy and, in some quarters, still very popular politician.

Mr. Hariri traveled with private security, and on the morning of Feb. 14, the group was in a convoy of Mercedes sedans and a Chevrolet sport utility vehicle with communications-jamming devices and guns, followed by an ambulance with paramedics. Shortly after 2 p.m. on the day of the assassination, the report found, a white Mitsubishi van was videotaped by a bank's security camera to be traveling just ahead of the Hariri convoy, but moving at one-sixth the speed. A blast, presumably from the van, ripped an enormous hole in the street and injured scores of people nearby.

On the same day, October 21, further info emerged regarding Syria, but this time not from its neighbor to the West, Lebanon; rather, this time from its neighbor to the East, in the person of Yasser Sabawi al-Tikriti.

"Basically Sabawi[, as he's called, minus his clan designation, al-Tikriti] was found, and caught red-handed giving money to ... demonstrators [demanding the release of Saddam Hussein], who he was trying to incite to violence,'' says Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser. "We believe he was a major fundraiser and a major supporter of the terrorists."

But there are indications that help in Mr. Sabawi's arrest came from an unexpected corner: Syria.

[Syria is t]he country Iraqi officials and the Bush administration accuse of aiding Iraq's raging insurgency[; Syria] recently deported Sabawi to Iraq, according to an official at the Defense Ministry, who asked not to be named. This was first reported by the Associated Press, citing two anonymous sources.

However, Mr. Rubaie said "there was no Syrian help" in Sabawi's arrest, saying it was a lucky break brought about by the man's own carelessness. Asked if he knew whether Sabawi had been expelled from Syria, he replied: "I don't have any comment on that."

Sabawi's arrest came on a day when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice maintained US pressure on the Syrian regime, alleging that it and Iran are funding and supporting insurgents inside Iraq. "Syria and Iran must decide whether they wish to side with the cause of war or with the cause of peace," Rice said. She added that President Bush had not taken the possible use of force "off the table" with regard to Syria.

One should, at this point, note the geostrategic spread of this story: We started in Lebanon with the assassination of Hariri; the eastward next step takes us to Syria; Syria takes us to Iraq; and Lebanon, Syria, Iraq take us to the eastmost country of the quartet, Iran. Now, Iran has been the financier of the huge Hezbullah terrorist group in Lebanon and has added support to terrorists seeking to undermine the new government of Iraq, as well. Just yesterday, the new President of Iran fiercely promised to annihilate Israel. The Christian Science Monitor article (October 21) above, by Dan Murphy and Rhonda Roumani, speculates that Sabawi was squealed-out by backdoor manoeuvres of Syria to placate the West, especially the US.

President George Bush, however, was of another mind than the Assad regime, whether it squealed-out Sabawi or not.

President Bush called on the United Nations yesterday to convene a session on a report naming relatives of Syria President Bashar Assad as suspects in the assassination of former Lebanon Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
"The report strongly suggests that the politically motivated assassination could not have taken place without Syrian involvement," Mr. Bush said .... The investigation named President Assad's brother, Maher Assad, Syria's security chief, as well as his brother-in-law, Asef Shaukat, who runs military intelligence. Several other members of the Syrian and Lebanese security apparatus were also named as planning or approving the Hariri slaying.
Mr. Hariri, a wealthy real estate magnate with close ties to Washington and Saudi Arabia, resigned as prime minister in late 2003, protesting Syria's control of Lebanese politics, defense and other internal issues.
Although divisive in life, his death unified the Lebanese people against Syrian meddling, touching off months of popular protests and crippling Beirut's credibility.
The assassination also galvanized international opposition to the Syrian occupation, which began during Lebanon's bloody civil war, and ended only with a U.N. Security Council resolution this past spring.
There are a range of options, including political pressure on Damascus and narrowly drawn sanctions on government officials.

The above comes from a Christian Science Monitor editorial; the same day CSM published a meditative piece by Souheila Al-Jadda, starting from an experience at a hotel where her hajib traditional attire was not welcome, she gives a rapid summary of Syria today.

while the hotel's dress code reflects a growing willingness here to accept foreign cultures, values, and business practices, Syria must play catch-up with the rest of the world to achieve modernity. When first taking office, after the death of his father in 2000, President Bashar Al Assad promised reform at the political, social, and economic levels - yet signs of change have been slow and their extent limited. Internet service providers in Syria have popped up everywhere, although e-mails can be monitored by the government. The telecommunications industry has boomed, flooding the market with the latest cellphones. The government opened a stock exchange, partially privatized several banks, and allowed insurance companies to operate there. Import taxes have been significantly reduced, and foreign companies, like the American fast-food chain KFC, are beginning to open businesses in Syria.

But these reforms are mainly economic; little progress has been made on establishing civic institutions or protecting human, civil, and political rights - nor on freedom of speech and press. Debate and criticism of the government is only marginally tolerated. The secret police continues to carry out political arrests, such as the recent detention of leaders of an Arab nationalist group, the Jamal Al Atassi Forum, for reading a statement by the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization banned for violent opposition to the Syrian regime.

Nonetheless, the Syrian reign of fear which characterized the decades-long dictatorship of the elder Assad appears to have faded, and Mr. Assad retains popular support.

But Miss Al-Jabba is an Amrican professional hajibbing in her parents homeland at a hotel catering to GIs on R&R from the boiling toils of the Iraq battlefront. While CSM allows Al-Jabba insouciantley to mince down on the side of Assad, the same day (Octobber 24), The Washington Times carries a report "Damascus Spring," by London Telegraph reporter Harry de Quetteville with a very different take on the Assad regime.

A brutal beating delivered last week to Anwar al Bounni, one of the few lawyers who dares to represent political prisoners before Syria's security court, indicates that after a brief "Damascus Spring," the administration of President Bashar Assad is cracking down on dissent. Mr. al Bounni, a slight, quick-to-smile human rights lawyer from Damascus, was driving through the capital when his car was cut off by another vehicle. Several men jumped out, pulled Mr. al Bounni from his car and beat him around the head, leaving him dazed and badly bruised. His treatment was a sign that, for all the hopes of a more relaxed regime when President Hafez Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his second son, Bashar, Syria has returned to the bad old days.

On October 25, the axe more or less fell on Syria when Devlet Mehlis of the Independent Criminal Commission presented his report to the Security Council, as reported by AP via Fox News.

The United States has intensified pressure on Syria following the report's release late Thursday: President Bush said "serious pressure" needs to be applied against Damascus but diplomacy must be given a chance before the United States takes any military action.

The Bush administration is talking about next Monday as a target date for a resolution - and a ministerial meeting of the Security Council to give its adoption added prominence. But Russia and China - both veto-wielding members of the council - don't appear in any hurry, and Moscow, which has close ties to Syria, would likely oppose sanctions or any reference to them.

France indicated Monday it would not support sanctions against Syria before Mehlis finished his investigation. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also has indicated the United States might be willing to put off its push for sanctions.

The Mehlis report accused key Syrian and Lebanese security officials of orchestrating the bombing that killed Hariri and 20 others. Mehlis acknowledged that he deleted references implicating the brother and brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar Assad because he didn't know the report would be made public and the allegations were not corroborated.

The report said Syria's cooperation in form - but not substance - "impeded the investigation and made it difficult to follow leads." To complete the probe, the Syrian government must fully cooperate with investigators, including by allowing Syrians to be interviewed alone outside Syria, it said.

Hours after the Mehlis report to the UN Security Council, and blustering responses from Syria: the US, UK, and France presented a draft resolution to the effect that "Syria Must Comply" - or else. Besides a number of measures and penalties, the ante rose:

If Syria does not fully cooperate with the investigation, the draft says the council intends to consider "further measures" to ensure compliance, including sanctions.

The draft resolution also calls for anyone designated by the commission as suspected of involvement in Hariri's assassination to be subject to a travel ban and to have their assets frozen.

The proposed resolution would be under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter which is militarily enforceable.

The United States and France circulated the resolution hours after the chief U.N. investigator, Detlev Mehlis, briefed the council on his report which implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the car bomb that killed Hariri and 20 other people.

Today, CSM published commentary by George A. Lopez, "Impose 'SMART' sanctions on Syria."

The startling revelations of last week's report by Detlev Mehlis on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has set the stage for a significant United Nations Security Council debate. In response to the report's naming of five top Syrian political elites, including the brother and brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad, and a number of Lebanese intelligence officials as likely culprits, the United States appears poised to ask the Council to impose harsh economic sanctions on Syria.

A number of factors strongly suggests that Council members want to hold the perpetrators accountable for this terrorist act. But a US call for comprehensive and highly punitive sanctions that not-so-subtly aim at regime change in Syria will be counterproductive. This has less to do with whether the US could forge a political consensus for such action, and more with which do not.

And further:

Smart sanctions work best when they are not aimed at punishment or isolation of a regime, but when they engage leaders constructively with the Council in remedying the conditions which give rise to the sanctions. In this case, targeted sanctions serve as the clear and credible stick, as well as a carrot (incentive), for those Syrian and Lebanese leaders not involved in the crime. These governmental elites need to be convinced that their compliance in bringing these murderers to justice will bring a lifting of the sanctions and the promised benefits of a return to normal economic life.

Since yesterday, both Russia and China have indicated they will not support economic sanctions, but then too they have not evinced any interest in making Syria guarantee its borders for the prevention of terrorists entering Iraq, for ending the terrorists use of Syria as safe haven, nor for ending Syria's repression of its own population. The crowds you saw on TV news supporting the Assad regime? Baathist party cadres and a totally state-controlled news media.

The other day I read somewhere that the "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon had more or less petered out. However, we must recall that even with Syria gone, Iran still finances an independent terrorist / military force there. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised that the UN responsibles are insisting that the whole process toward democratizatoin towad which they are working will be incomplete until "considerable progress had been made toward meeting other parts of Resolution 1559, which called for Syria to withdraw all military forces and intelligence operatives as well as the disarmament of all Lebanese militias." (For the full article, click-up this blog entry's live-link title.)

- Owlb