Sarkozy visit to Damascus signals thaw in relationsIan ...



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Thurs. 7 July. 2011

FOREIGN POLICY

➢ The Hard Man of Damascus…………………..……………..1

DOMAIN-B

➢ Syria: A gullible West and the demonisation of Assad news.5

YEDIOTH AHRONOTH

➢ US: Israel included in terror watch list by mistake………...14

HUFFINGTON POST

➢ Syria's Assad & America's Decaying Credibility…………..15

ECONOMIST

➢ A troublesome town………………………………………..20

WASHINGTON POST

➢ Syrian crackdown underscores new vulnerability for Assad regime, officials say………………………………………..22

GUARDIAN

➢ Hama is beacon of resistance 30 years on from massacre…24

➢ After 41 years, Syria begins to imagine a future without an Assad in charge…………………………………………….27

WALL st. JOURNAL

➢ Prolonged Libya War Puts Defected Diplomats in Limbo...33

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The Hard Man of Damascus

Let's be clear. There can be no real democratic reform in Bashar al-Assad's Syria.

GARY GAMBILL

Foreign Policy Magazine,

JULY 6, 2011

With Syrian troops encircling the city of Hama, Barack Obama's administration and its European counterparts continue to hold out hope that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can be coaxed into accepting a peaceful transition to democracy. Instead of joining the protesters in demanding Assad's resignation, the U.S. envoy to Damascus, Robert Ford, is encouraging prominent dissidents to hold a dialogue with the regime.

Unfortunately, there are no plausible circumstances under which a democratic transition would constitute a rational choice for the embattled dictator, and it appears exceedingly unlikely that the Syrian people will peacefully accept anything less. The Syrian people's fight for freedom promises to be long, uncertain, and violent.

The crux of the problem is Syria's unique minority-dominated power structure, which is most closely comparable to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Alawites, a heterodox Islamic sect comprising roughly 12 percent of Syria's population, may not be the privileged minority suggested by some Western media reports, but they provide both the brains and the muscle for a secular authoritarian political order that would otherwise be untenable.

Alawite solidarity renders the loyalty of the internal military-security apparatus nearly inviolable, enabling Assad to mete out a level of repression far beyond the capacity of most autocrats. The bloodiest government reprisal during Poland's long struggle for democracy -- the killing of nine Solidarity strikers in December 1981 -- would make for a very placid Friday afternoon in today's Syria, where over 1,400 have been gunned down in less than four months. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's police quickly disintegrated under comparable strains, while his army engineered his downfall in less than three weeks.

The powerful stigma associated with Alawite hegemony over a majority Sunni population both necessitates and enables this police state. While the sectarian identity of Assad and his chief lieutenants is not the primary grievance of most Syrians, a substantial minority -- perhaps 10 to 20 percent, mostly religious Sunnis -- loathe the regime so deeply that they cannot be co-opted and will exploit any respite from repression to mobilize against it. This feeds into the existential insecurities felt by most Alawites and makes it nearly impossible for the regime to safely liberalize.

A straight-up transition to democracy under these circumstances is difficult to fathom. A freely elected Syrian government would surely be dominated by Sunnis, responsive to their demands, and therefore strongly disposed to mete out harsh justice for the preceding decades of brutal tyranny. Assad could never rationally accept such a transition unless his regime was on the verge of collapse, by which time a peaceful transfer of power would be exceedingly unlikely.

Other countries have solved this conundrum by negotiating an agreement whereby an autocratic regime consents to free and fair elections, in exchange for the opposition's acceptance of limitations on the new government's authority to punish or dispossess existing stakeholders. By drawing into the process those who have the power to disrupt a peaceful transition, extrication pacts have propelled robust democratic breakthroughs in such thorny political climates as apartheid South Africa and Gen. Augusto Pinochet's Chile.

A "pacted" transition requires that a critical mass of the ruling elite come to prefer "democracy with guarantees" over the costs of continuing to forcibly monopolize power. Elite beneficiaries of authoritarian rule range from soft-liners, who have the fungible assets and limited criminal liability to make it in the "real" world of democracy, to hard-liners, who don't. When there is a decline in the regime's ability to forcibly ensure continued public quiescence, soft-liners have growing incentives to hedge their bets by seeking a political accommodation with the opposition.

Unfortunately, Assad is a hard-liner. Under the present circumstances, he can count on solid Alawite backing, strong support from other religious minorities, and the acquiescence of many Sunnis who are prosperous, staunchly secular, or militantly anti-Zionist. These allegiances, however, would quickly evaporate in a democratic Syria. Absent the looming threat of catastrophic domestic upheaval, a regime-less Assad family may not even command majority support among Alawites.

In contrast, the livelihoods of most Syrian civil servants, businessmen, military officers, and others who benefit inordinately from the current order -- a broadly multi-confessional elite -- would not necessarily be threatened by a negotiated transition to more representative government. In contrast with Mubarak's Egypt, however, soft-liners have not been allowed to gain autonomous power within the state -- their ability to comfortably inhabit a post-authoritarian Syria puts them squarely outside the Assad family's circle of trust.

The president's extraordinarily thin base of popular support and uncertain relations with soft-liners militate against a pacted transition. Whatever formal guarantees of immunity and institutional prerogatives Assad might eke out of the process, his acute political vulnerability will make it very risky for him to linger very long in a free Syria. Even Pinochet, whose sympathizers captured 40 to 50 percent of the national vote for many years after his departure, found that democratic republics eventually tire of honoring their prenatal promises to powerless ex-tyrants.

Even if Assad were amenable to a deal, a pacted transition also requires that the regime and the opposition be capable of making credible commitments to each other. Outgoing autocrats must have faith that their erstwhile adversaries will hold up their end of the bargain after the tables have turned, while opposition leaders must have reason to trust that the regime will not renege on its commitments once the threat of mass popular mobilization has receded.

Neither condition exists in Syria. Years of state repression have left the country with no organized opposition of sufficient stature to credibly promise anything to the regime, while Assad's failure to honor past reform pledges makes most Syrians very skeptical that he can take bold action.

There is no easy fix to this impasse. Transition experts ordinarily prescribe an extended period of negotiated liberalization to cultivate credible opposition interlocutors and restore a measure of public trust in the government. For Assad, however, such an opening would not be sustainable unless radical opponents of the regime refrain from exploiting it to mobilize in pursuit of revolutionary change. So long as the regime is shooting people, no one in the opposition has enough clout to clear the streets.

Although the credibility gap between Assad and his adversaries can be narrowed by negotiating under the auspices of an outside arbiter (Turkey is now angling for the role), the Syrian president would still have to take radical and irreversible steps to signal his commitment to change. At a minimum, this would include negotiating under international auspices, releasing all political prisoners, and expelling notorious human rights offenders from government -- starting with his brother, Maher, the feared commander of the Republican Guards and the Syrian Army's 4th Division.

Attempting such a break with members of his family, clan, and sect would be an act of political hara-kiri for Assad, leading at best to a dignified exile (and considerably worse if his plan should go awry). Thus far, he has displayed little predilection for self-sacrifice. Assad's recent efforts to organize a "national dialogue" underscore that he isn't seeking credible commitments from his opponents. The select group of dissidents allowed to attend a conference in Damascus last week conspicuously excluded figures with significant influence over the protesters. The Syrian president isn't trying to negotiate with his opponents -- he's trying to divide and defeat them.

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Syria: A gullible West and the demonisation of Assad news

Domain-b (Indian)

06 July 2011

The Western media and governments fail to realise that the rebellion in Syria – one of the most liberal Arab nations – is being largely fomented by foreign-backed extremists whose goal is a far cry from democracy, says Waiel Awwad, a veteran TV journalist and correspondent for Al Arabiya, who has covered several conflicts

For months, while the international media has uncritically published lurid stories of Syrian police and auxiliary forces gunning down protesters demanding democratic reform, Syrians have been trying to tell the world an entirely different story.

This is - that it is not just the Assad regime, but the entire secular, stable and prosperous Syrian state that is under relentless attack. But till very, very recently, no one has been listening. Instead the media's one-sided coverage has helped to legitimise the imposition of sanctions upon the Assad government just when it needed the help of the rest of the world most urgently.

This disregard for the most fundamental tenet of good journalism pains me deeply. I am a Syrian national and have been the correspondent of TV channel Al Arabiya for the past two decades. These have been decades of turmoil in my part of the world. I have therefore perforce spent most of this time covering wars and insurgencies.

I have covered the first Gulf war and the second US invasion of Iraq (during which I was embedded with the US troops). I have covered wars in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Kargil India-Pakistan), and the unrest in Kashmir.

In all this time I have never knowingly violated the cardinal rule of good journalism, which is to verify my information before airing it - check and counter-check it with as many colleagues as possible and do my best not to mislead viewers.

To me therefore it is all the more distressing to see these principles being treated so casually by so many of my long-time colleagues. There have been honourable exceptions, but these have reported mostly for the print journals.

Their carefully crafted conclusions have been overwhelmed by the sound-bytes on TV and the repeated airing of 'amateur' videos that have conveniently come into the journalists' hands via social networking sites.

Today my country is threatened with turmoil and destruction at a time when it is the last beacon of secularism and modernity left alight in the Arab world.

The attack has been launched by Sunni fundamentalists, generically call Salafis, spearheaded by the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which killed President Sadaat in 1982, and was eradicated within Syria by President Hafez-al-Assad - the current President's father - in 1982.

In the past three decades, the Brotherhood has been infiltrated by the protagonists of Jihad. Its goal for Syria is simple: use the cover of democracy to establish an Islamic state.

With this in mind it has hijacked a legitimate demand for the democratisation of the current regime – which Assad himself supports – and turned it into an increasingly violent movement to oust the Baathist state and replace it with a Salafi, fundamentalist state.

The global media has failed to perceive this hidden agenda because it does not watch the local Arabic channels. But those who understand Arabic would do well to tune into two in particular, Al Safa and Wisal, and hear the diatribes of rabble-rousers like Sheikh Adnan Aeraour.

YouTube videos show him saying ''let a hundred thousand die in Aleppo'' if that is necessary to bring in the 'kingdom of Allah', and ''let us feed the meat (of the secularists) to the dogs''. Both these channels are Saudi Arabia-based and backed by the Saudi religious establishment.

The winds of change that started blowing in Tunisia and Egypt provided the perfect cover for the attempt. The Salafis concluded that in the turmoil that would ensue after the Assad regime was overthrown they, the largest and most cohesive political soup, would emerge supreme.

Thus if they could mobilise Syria's 70 per cent Sunnis on religious lines, the call for democracy itself would catapult them into power. All they needed was a few deaths, followed by a few funerals. The Syrian police would do the rest. This is the strategy that the global media, and Western governments, have utterly failed to understand.

The strategy that the Salafis have adopted is the classic one of fomenting an insurrection by provoking massive and indiscriminate reactions from the state against the people. For this they needed a few deaths at the hands of the police. They got these on Friday 18 March, when three people were killed in Deraa on the Jordan-Syria border.

After Friday prayers at the Al Omari mosque in Deraa a demonstration that numbered in the hundreds took to the street shouting slogans against the regime. The slogans were revealing: ''No Iran, no Hezbollah, We want a Muslim (who) fears Allah!'' Exactly the same rallying cry was heard at Jisr al Shugur six weeks later.

The Syrian Arab News Agency ( SANA) and state TV reported that the trouble had been started by 'saboteurs' who had been dispatched across the Jordan border by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a strong base in Jordan and had led the protests in that country at the end of January. Jordanian news agencies and TV also reported the capture of at least one shipment of arms to Deraa. But none of this was reported or investigated by the international media.

In the week that followed there were attacks on government offices and on the Baath party headquarters. The police in Deraa knew that outsiders were behind these and were holed up in the Al Omari mosque. Eventually, in an attempt to forestall the next Friday's demonstration, six days later they entered the mosque. According to foreign media reports this led to six deaths. But what was significant about these reports was the complete absence of any attempt to investigate the government's claim concerning the Al Omari mosque.

A precedent was set on 18 March. After that, for 13 straight weeks, all major protests have taken place on Fridays, and have begun at or near mosques. Each has seen several deaths.

That many of these deaths took place at the hands of the police cannot be denied. But how many?

This is the second issue on which, in its eagerness to demonise the Assad regime, the international media has cast aside its most cherished values. On the Friday after Deraa, they reported that 23 persons had died in protests across the country. All took place at remote locations on the very edges of the country, at Tel Kalakh on the Lebanese border, at Homs, which is also a stone's throw from Lebanon, at Deir Ezzor, on the Iraqi border, and at Lattakia and Baniyas, close to the Turkish border.

For reports from these places the international media therefore decided to rely upon whatever was being put up on internet sites. Al Jazeera even announced that it had set up a special team to 'trawl social networking sites' in order to obtain information about what was happening in Syria.

With no independent verification of these postings, the media should at least have sought or published the official claim about what had happened. But it did no such thing, possibly arguing that Syria had been a closed society for so long that it had only itself to blame.

Unable to verify the reports and videos appearing on the internet for themselves, the media fell back upon the reports being filed by human rights organisations. But these have been, if anything, even less circumspect. One single example suffices to demonstrate this: between 18 and 24 March, according to media reports a total of nine persons were killed in Deraa.

But Amnesty International reported that 55 persons were killed in and around the city. How did 9 become 55? Amnesty did not feel it necessary to explain.

The media's inability to cross-check the information it was receiving made it a sitting duck for Salafi and other propagandists. Two examples among literally scores will show how far astray they have been led. The first is the case of the 'Gay Girl in Damascus'.

Since 19 February internet users had been enthralled by the frank blogs of Amina Abdallah Sarraf, a 35 year-old lesbian, who talked freely about her lesbianism and its relationship to Islam. Then one day her blog reported that she had been seen being pushed into a police car and had disappeared. The international outcry made the US start a full scale investigation. This unearthed no trace of her or her family.

But by then the Guardian of London had published a full story on her kidnapping and her web photo. It was only then that it found out that the photo was of a London-based Croatian girl, Jelena Lecic. Shortly after that the real gay girl unveiled herself. She turned out to be a 'he', Thomas Macmaster, American and living, of all places, in Edinburgh.

Macmaster started his blog, perhaps not coincidentally, only four days after activists issued their first call to assemble before the Syrian parliament. Several of Macmaster's blogs also reveal a deep involvement with Islam. In one of them he claims repeatedly that he / she is a Sunni Muslim and a believer, because he/ she had had 'a personal experience of the divine'. Is it far-fetched to wonder whether the Gay Girl blog, or at least the kidnapping story, might have been designed to push the world closer to war on Syria?

The second example highlights the danger of relying even on reputed agencies for second hand information. On Sunday 8 May, The French Channel 2 TV apologised to its viewers for having aired photos supplied to it by Reuters, alleged to be of the Syrian uprising, but which were in fact taken in Lebanon in 2008. Other papers and TV stations had also used the photos.

But the experience with Reuters made no dent in the preconceptions of the international media. As the violence spread around the periphery of Syria, the government continued to claim that the Friday bloodletting was being triggered by gunmen, often equipped with sniper rifles, who were picking off members of the police and the protesters to spark large-scale violence. But barring a few exceptions, the media did not consider it their duty to even report its claims, let alone investigate them.

This finally changed on Friday 3 June at a town called Jisr-al-Shugur, with a population of around 50,000, a few kilometres from the Turkish border. Following several clashes and fatalities the Syrian government ordered a military operation to restore order in the city. The military moved in on 4 June, but two days later Syrian state TV reported that heavily armed groups of unknown gunmen had begun to attack the security forces in the town.

According to these reports, they first ambushed a group of policemen who were responding to calls from local residents that unknown gunmen were terrorising them, and killed 20 of the cops. Later they attacked a police command centre and overran it killing another 82 members of the security forces. The gunmen also attacked and blew up a post office that was guarded by the police which left another eight policemen dead. In all, 120 security personnel were reported killed during the day.

What the media chose to report however was entirely different. The BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera reported that "Refugees and activists said the chaos erupted as government forces and police mutinied and joined the local population.''

The Economist swallowed this in its entirety: ''An accurate version of what happened there is hard to confirm, because independent reporters are banned from Syria and the state media have plumbed the depths of mendacity. Usually, however, they flag up an event and give an indication, sometimes unintentionally, of its magnitude. Then they set about rearranging the facts.

"In the case of Jisr al-Shughour, they at first said that 20 members of the security forces had been killed in an ambush ''by armed gangs'' and then, within an hour, raised the figure to 120, declaring that ''decisive'' action would be taken as part of the state's duty to protect its citizens. Probably the death toll has indeed been high.

"But who killed whom remains unclear. Theories abound. Residents say people have been fighting back after helicopters and tanks killed at least 40 civilians during the weekend. Tanks have been massing menacingly around the city. But well-informed Syrians surmise that the number of dead servicemen was exaggerated in an effort to make ordinary people rally to the regime and that most of the victims were killed in clashes between the police and the army or within some security-force units after their members tried to defect or to mutiny - the last two possibilities being the ones that must really scare Mr Assad."

When the Syrian army finally recaptured Jisr-al-Shugur on 12 June it discovered a mass grave containing 12 army personnel shot at point blank range. In addition there were a number of bodies of civilians who had also obviously been executed. Once more its claim that the murders had been committed by unidentified gunmen was treated with deep scepticism.

It was only when The Sunday Times sent a celebrated British-born Lebanese journalist to Syria that the hard shell of disbelief finally began to crack.

Born in West Africa, Hala Jaber was awarded the Amnesty International journalist of the year Award in 2003. She was named the foreign correspondent of the year at the British Press Awards in 2005 and 2006 for her coverage of the Iraq war. In 2007 she jointly won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for her work in Iraq.

Last month she became the first foreign journalist to be allowed to enter Syria and write freely about the uprising.

While Jisr-al-Shugur was over when she arrived in Syria, here is what she had to say about another confrontation that occurred at Ma'arrat al-Numan, a town of 100,000, close by:

''They came in their thousands to march for freedom in Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, a shabby town surrounded by pristine fields of camomile and pistachio in the restive northwest of Syria.

"The demonstration followed a routine familiar to everyone who had taken part each Friday for the past 11 weeks, yet to attend on this occasion required extraordinary courage … so enraged were the townspeople at the blood spilt by the mukhabarat, or secret police, that intermediaries had struck a deal between the two sides. Four hundred members of the security forces had been withdrawn from Ma'arrat in return for the promise of an orderly protest.

"The remainder, 49 armed police and 40 reserves, were confined to a barracks near the centre of town. By the time 5,000 unarmed marchers reached the main square, however, they had been joined by men with pistols.

"At first the tribal elders leading the march thought these men had simply come prepared to defend themselves if shooting broke out. But when they saw more weapons - rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers held by men with heavy beards in cars and pick-ups with no registration plates - they knew trouble lay ahead.

"Violence erupted as the demonstrators approached the barracks, where the police had barricaded themselves inside. As the first shots rang out, protesters scattered. Some of the policemen escaped through a rear exit; the rest were besieged.

"A military helicopter was sent to the rescue. ''It engaged the armed protesters for more than an hour,'' said one witness, a tribal leader. ''It forced them to use most of their ammunition against it to relieve the men trapped in the building.''

Some of the gunmen were hit by bullets fired from the helicopter. When it flew away, the mob stormed the front of the barracks.

A fierce gunfight ensued. Soon, four policemen and 12 of their attackers were dead or dying. Another 20 policemen were wounded. Their barracks was ransacked and set on fire, along with the courthouse and police station.

The officers who escaped the onslaught on 10 June were hidden in the homes of families who had been demonstrating earlier, the tribal leader said. He and his sons and nephews retrieved 25 men and drove them to the safety of their headquarters in Aleppo.

Last Friday I watched Ma'arrat's latest demonstration for democracy. Only 350 people turned up, mostly young men on motorbikes who raced along the main road towards a line of army tanks parked in some olive groves. Among them were bearded militants. They shouted provocation and were greeted with stoicism. Local people said the tanks had not moved since they had taken up position 10 days earlier.

Hala Jaber also confirmed what Syrians had been saying all along - that the Salafi plot was being actively supported by Saudi Arabia, and elements backed by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Hariri has developed strong links with hardline salafi elements in Lebanon, in order to wean over these elements from the rest of the muslim population of Lebanon.

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US: Israel included in terror watch list by mistake

Israel erroneously included in Department of Homeland Security blacklist. Officials reassure Jerusalem is Washington's partner in war on terror

Yitzhak Benhorin

Yedioth Ahronoth,

7 July 2011,

WASHINGTON – Israeli diplomats stationed in the United States was surprised to discover that Israel was one of 36 countries included in a new Homeland Security terror watch list.

The list, which was attached to a May 10 document from the DHS Inspector General's office, also included a number of other close US allies such as Turkey, Bahrain, Morocco and Philippines.

John Morton, director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the department, said Israel's appearance on the list was a mistake.

"The addition of Israel to the list… was based on inaccurate information provided to the OIG during the course of its audit," Morton told JTA. "The US does not and never has considered Israel to have links to terrorism, but rather they are a partner in our efforts to combat global terrorism.

"The United States maintains close intelligence-sharing relationships with Israel in order to address security issues within its own borders and in our mutual pursuit of safety and security around the globe."

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Syria's Assad & America's Decaying Credibility

Marc Ginsberg (Former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco)

Huffington Post,

7 July 2011,

Now that we know who "allegedly" did the actual killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who then ordered the hit job? Was it Hezbollah -- the Iranian-backed terrorist organization's whose chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah despised Hariri and his Sunni compatriots? Syria's President Bashar al Assad, or one of his family members? The Iranian President or the Ayatollah... all of the above?

Let's recall that in February, 2005, the prime minister was killed along with six bodyguards and 16 innocent Lebanese pedestrians when Hariri's car was blown up by a huge bomb along Beirut's beachfront corniche. Originally, suspicion fell on Syria's Assad as the man behind the trigger man. After all, Hariri had dared to defy the Syrians by orchestrating efforts to reduce Syria's unwelcomed meddling in Lebanon, and in return, Hariri had been threatened repeatedly by Assad, according to independent media accounts.

This was no contract killing by rogue elements of Hezbollah. When the names leaked from the so-called sealed indictments issued by the special UN Tribunal investigating the hit job, it was the worst kept secret in the Middle East that senior Hezbollah leaders were going to be fingered. Although until a few days ago the actual perpetrators' names remained sequestered.

The indictments named Moustapha Badreddine, and Salim Ayyash -- each of whom held senior officer positions in Nasrallah's secret Hezbollah military intelligence unit. Badreddine is a Hezbollah deputy military commander and brother-in-law of the late Hezbollah master terrorist and murderer of Americans Imad Mughniyeh. The other two named culprits: Hassan Anaissy and Assad Sabra have as yet uncorroborated affiliations with any organization.

Well, let's dispose of the easy stuff first. Given the vagaries of Hezbollah, there is little doubt that Nasrallah himself directly ordered the assassination. For a man who denies culpability for any role Hezbollah may have played in the murder plot, Nasrallah has devoted the better part of the past six years trying to deflect guilt away from himself or Hezbollah by sabotaging the UN Tribunal. Like a broken record, Nasrallah has denounced anyone or anything associated with it, masterfully orchestrating a deceitful propaganda campaign against the tribunal in order to shield himself from the International Criminal Court.

It is inconceivable that Nasrallah would not have been privy to the plot given the fact that two of his faithful senior lieutenants have now been indicted after a painstaking, exhaustive and IMPARTIAL investigation. To think otherwise is to believe that Nasrallah is not the master of his entire shadowy Hezbollah domain... an absurd proposition given his absolute dictatorial power Nasrallah wields over Hezbollah. His methods to subvert justice have included threats, intimidation, and blackmail. Not normally the conduct of an innocent bystander crying foul at an internationally recognized judicial inquiry under the direct supervision of the United Nations.

The details of the plot remain under seal, but surely will leak out once the arrest warrants are issued by the Lebanese government prosecutors -- not a sure bet given the internal political crisis the long-awaited indictments provoked in Lebanon.

Would Nasrallah have acted alone? Unlikely.

Here is where the plot thickens.

Just after the indictments were handed down, the former head of the UN Tribunal Detlev Mehlis from Germany broke his silence and declared that Syria's embattled President Assad ordered and approved the plot, although Mehlis did not substantiate his assertion with any evidence. Why would a distinguished jurist with access to the investigation files make this assertion at the time the indictments were handed down against the actual perpetrators? Probably because he knows a lot more than we know about Assad's likely role.

Moreover, subsequent information that has leaked out since then reveals that Syrian Interior Minister General Ghazi Kana'an -- Assad's enforcer in Lebanon, mysteriously committed suicide in October, 2005 (probably with someone holding the gun to his head) because the UN Tribunal was onto the fact that Kana'an and Nasrallah conspired to execute Assad's orders.

Which gets to Syria's role in the conspiracy -- let alone the consequences to Lebanon of the dragnet closing in on Hezbollah.

By any corroborated account, Assad had real motive to get rid of Hariri. Hariri was a real thorn in Syria's side. Hariri not only had an independent power base and a lot of money, but was also close to the Saudis, who reviled Assad and his Shi'ia Alouite minority regime. According to several sources, Assad knew that the Saudis were funneling secret money and arms to Hariri's Lebanese Army to thwart Hezbollah's ascendancy and checkmate Iran's increasing meddling in Lebanon -- all of which were anathema to Assad.

Will there be further indictments by the UN implicating anyone inside Assad's close-knit cabal? Hard to tell? But surely the Obama administration must know more than it is letting on about the indictments and Syria's probable role in the plot itself given the link between Ghazi Kana'an, his untimely "suicide" and Hezbollah.

The potential role that Assad may have directly played in Hariri's assassination is obviously being overshadowed by the revolt against his regime now taking place throughout Syria. But it points to the true nature of the Assad regime.

When coupled together with Assad's murderous rampage against his own people it provokes even more head scratching over the dubious behavior behind the Obama administration's attitude toward Assad.

On July 1, for the umpteenth time Secretary of State Clinton looped around again a tiresome refrain that the Syrian government is "running out of time." And that she was "just hurt by recent reports of continuing violence. Really? How hurt? Over 1,800 Syrians have been murdered by the Assad regime since March according to independent human rights organizations.

This is a rare moment in Mrs. Clinton's otherwise commendable stewardship of America's foreign policy where her credibility is fast eroding since her position on Syria defies logic and reason. It has raised troublesome questions by many in the Middle East who cannot fathom what is driving her to stay soft on Assad. Yes, comparatively soft given the atrocities he has committed against his own people over 5 months. Yet, paradoxically, Mrs. Clinton has shown no reluctance whatsoever to pile on other Middle East dictators who don't even merit an international criminal court investigation.

For good measure, this past Sunday National Security Advisor Donilon stepped right out onto breaking ice in a failed attempt to differentiate President Obama's lightning speed call for Mubarak to go against the President's refusal to do the same against Assad.

No one in the Obama administration has offered a logical explanation for this tongue-twisting policy -- either on record or on background. Either it is genuinely fearful that should Assad go Syria with break out into Iraqi-style civil war (a view widely discredited by knowledgeable Syrian observers) or the Saudis have threatened the White House not to toss Assad under the bus for fear that Iran and Hezbollah will further benefit from the upheaval (hard to figure how that could happen). Or maybe there is some other possibly credible explanation that remains cloistered? If so, the White House needs to better explain itself.

If all crooked roads lead to Assad, what is the better policy than that being served up by the Obama administration?

First, if anyone inside the administration needed further proof, Assad cannot crush the protesters with brute force -- witness the peaceful demonstration in Hama over the weekend which brought out over 100,000 Syrians into the streets there. That means it's about time to toss out the door the administration's increasingly shopworn view that Assad will prevail through the point of a gun in the long run.

Second, it's time to choke off Syria's oil exports by which it is earning desperately needed foreign currency to finance its crackdown. Syria is a net oil exporter and the U.S. has simply not done enough to contain its exports by jawboning Syria's customers.

Third, perhaps there are other ways to deal with Assad rather than succumbing to possible Saudi dictats without tossing Assad under the bus. Today, Amnesty International declared that Assad is engaged in crimes against humanity and that he and his regime should be referred to the International Criminal Court for atrocities against its own people. The allegations set forth by Amnesty include the use of torture, murder, mass detentions, and the firing on families fleeing over the border into Turkey. Amnesty's report paints a gruesome portrait of the Assad regime's rampage against anyone remotely associated with the protest movement.

In the face of these substantiated facts, the United States cannot in good conscience keep to its "sanctions and, oh by the way you still have time to reform" Syrian policy. Amnesty's report has now called into sharp relief the administration's folly of "Assad-lite" wishful thinking. In the face encirclement by human rights monitors and the UN's Tribunal, it really has no viable alternative left but to get behind European efforts to hold Assad accountable for human rights violations, and worse.

Fourth, the White House should do much more than it has to date to publicly and more forcefully support the increasingly well-organized and well-intentioned Syrian political protest movement and its leadership that recently met in Damascus. The protest movement has constructed a well formulated reform "roadmap" that is quietly circulating among attendees which would slowly but surely ease Assad out of power via a peaceful transition. The meeting and the document is the best evidence to date that despite the violence throughout Syria there are courageous and credible opposition leaders who are easily identifiable and accessible to American officials -- unlike the early days of the Libyan revolt.

The Obama administration is having a hard time finding any more sand to place its head in when it comes to evolving events in Syria. It's time to reconcile policy and values -- something the president promised to do in his speech to the Arab people a few weeks ago.

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A troublesome town

The Economist online

Jul 6th 2011,

COULD the central Syrian city of Hama come to define president Bashar Assad's rule in the way it did his father before him? The conservative Sunni city was the focal point of the brutal putdown of an armed Islamist uprising a generation ago. Today it is testing the resolve of a regime that has vascillated between violent repression and meaningless reform. After more than 70 people were shot dead during protests in Hama on June 3rd and at least two members of the security forces were killed in reprisals, troops mostly pulled out of the city. Free to protest, tens of thousands took to the streets. Some 300,000 people, including women and children, joined demonstrations on Friday July 1st, the biggest the city has seen. Symbols of over four decades of Assad rule were removed. Protesters chanted that the people of Hama were free.

But on Sunday government forces returned after the local governor was sacked. Several governors have lost their jobs since Syria's uprising broke out in mid-March but mostly in an attempt to placate the protesters. The governor of Hama, widely popular, was reportedly fired because he was too soft on demonstrators. Since Sunday 22 people have been shot dead. Scores more have been injured and detained. Tanks remain outside the city but reported cuts in electricity and water—though as yet not communications—suggest things could get worse.

Hama, like other restive cities such as Deraa and Homs, has been systematically intimidated and attacked. But memories of the slaughter in 1982 give the city psychological and symbolic resonance. Hama's residents have erected barricades; some say they are willing to fight back. While Mr Assad's father Hafez's month-long siege on the city went unnoticed until weeks later, YouTube and Twitter ensure that the world can watch events in Hama as they unfold. More importantly, unlike the religious uprising in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which had limited support, Hama's peaceful protesters reflect the widespread—and seemingly growing—discontent across the country.

We will have a more extensive update in the print edition tomorrow.

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Syrian crackdown underscores new vulnerability for Assad regime, officials say

Joby Warrick,

Washington Post,

Thursday, July 7,

A renewed police assault on the key Syrian city of Hama this week has exposed deep cracks in the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to U.S. officials who say the regime is struggling to contain protests in multiple cities while simultaneously grappling with a rapid fall-off in allies, resources and cash.

After abandoning Hama for nearly three weeks, security forces made a hasty return to the country’s fourth-largest city early Monday to clamp down on protests that were drawing the largest crowds seen since the start of the uprising nearly four months ago. But while opposition leaders decried yet another round of arrests and shootings, U.S. officials said the events underscored a growing disarray within the Syrian government, which just weeks earlier had been forced to withdraw troops from Hama and other cities to deal with unrest in towns along the Syrian border with Turkey.

At the same time, the brief window of relative freedom in Hama — capped by raucous demonstrations last Friday that drew an estimated 200,000 people — appears to have both emboldened the protest movement and hardened opposition to any political settlement that would permit Assad to remain in power, U.S. intelligence analysts and diplomats said in interviews.

One senior Obama administration official described the events in Hama as a possible turning point in the uprising, as the government is increasingly challenged to control the swelling throngs of demonstrators in multiple regions of the country. In Hama, a provincial capital with a population of 700,000, the departure of security forces three weeks ago kicked off a series of jubilant, yet largely peaceful, celebrations evocative of Cairo’s Tahrir Square following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, said the official, who closely tracks intelligence from Syria.

“Over the course of three weeks, the protests had taken on the atmosphere of a fiesta,” said the official, who like several others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence reports. As the crowds grew, the Assad regime “clearly felt they could not allow it,” the official said.

Security forces roared back into Hama on Monday, arresting scores of protesters and firing at others. An opposition spokesman said Wednesday that more than a dozen demonstrators had died in clashes with police.

The renewed violence came two weeks after Assad pledged in a speech to implement political reforms in a concession to an opposition movement that has spurred the gravest political crisis since the Assad family took power four decades ago. Although Assad has called for national reconciliation talks beginning this Sunday, several opposition leaders have said they will boycott the negotiations because of ongoing violence by government forces.

Even before the Hama incursion, U.S. analysts were documenting a steady weakening of the Assad government as some of its core supporters — the alliance of business, religious and tribal leaders that has kept the Assad family in power since 1971 — have soured on the president and his brutal tactics.

One U.S. intelligence official described a “silent majority” of Syrians — including Sunni businessmen and ordinary citizens who have not participated in protests — that is now deeply opposed to Assad and willing to support almost any credible alternative that would restore stability.

“The support base is eroding, and particularly among the business elite,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity in discussing intelligence assessments. “These guys carry a lot of weight, and until now they have benefited from the regime. Now they’re looking for an alternative, and Assad is not part of the solution.”

The Syrian economy has weakened dramatically since the start of the unrest, as foreign tourism dollars have vanished and trade with neighboring countries has dried up. Meanwhile, Western countries have tightened economic sanctions against Syria, and even key allies and trading partners such as Turkey have sought to distance themselves from Syria’s government.

Assad, who until recently appeared confident in his ability to suppress the protest movement, now appears more vulnerable than at any point since the start of the unrest in March, U.S. diplomats and analysts said. At the same time, he has shown no inclination to step down, and there are no clear signs that his downfall is imminent, the officials said.

Some foreign intelligence agencies have said that Assad is determined to cling to power at all costs, with the backing of allies from the country’s Alawite minority, who dominate the country’s political and military establishment.

“The regime is still intact. The military is still intact, and so is the security apparatus,” said a senior Middle Eastern intelligence official who long has monitored Syria’s internal politics. “We believe that the regime has decided to continue with the bloody conflict.”

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Hama is beacon of resistance 30 years on from massacre

Security forces encircle Syria's fourth-largest city – a focal point of nationwide revolution – for fourth day

Martin Chulov in Beirut and Nidaa Hassan in Damascus

Guardian,

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Residents of Syria's fourth-largest city, Hama, continue to challenge the government's authority in a tense standoff with security forces who have encircled the city for a fourth consecutive day, and were shutting down power and water supplies to most neighbourhoods of the city.

The death toll from the siege of Hama had by Wednesday night reached 28, with dozens more wounded, according to residents and activists. One resident told the Guardian he had counted 93 tanks on the outskirts of the city – an indicator of what may lie ahead if Hama's 800,000 people continue to defy the regime's leaders in Damascus.

After four months of almost daily uprisings across Syria, Hama has become a focal point of a nationwide revolution. Residents claim they are standing up to the might of President Bashar al-Assad's military with rocks, slingshots and some light weapons.

They suggest that the regime no longer knows what to do with Hama, which it has at times during the past two months saturated with troops and at other times abandoned.

The central city was the scene of the biggest demonstration yet seen in Syria last Friday – a huge gathering of at least 200,000 people that electrified the protest movement across the country and sparked the latest military action.

"They are trying to stop this becoming like Egypt," said one vendor, Khaled, speaking from Hama. "If this becomes like Tahrir Square, then they have lost and the people will have won something significant."

The fate of Hama the last time it became a base for a nationwide revolt against the Assad clan is seared into the consciousness of the city. In 1982, Assad's father, Hafez, sent in his military to destroy an Islamist current that he believed had gathered enough strength to subvert the regime.

The ensuing massacre killed between 10,000 and 20,000 people and crushed the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood movement.

"It has never recovered from that," said one activist in Beirut who is in daily contact with Hama residents. "And Hama has never forgotten. What has happened this past week is a direct result of the massacre that took place [on 3 June] when the military killed more than 60 people on a Friday afternoon.

"Damascus was clearly alarmed by that and hasn't known how to manage the city ever since."

The army withdrew to the perimeter of the city shortly after the killings and made few further incursions until withdrawing completely in the middle of last week – a move that emboldened residents to take to the streets in huge numbers.

"Friday's protest was huge, the biggest yet, and I don't think the regime liked it," said one small business owner from Hama. "On Saturday when they sacked the governor, we knew there would be a problem."

"On Monday and Tuesday, security forces and thugs came into the outside neighbourhoods of the city – though some security forces are already anyway inside the city in the Ba'ath [party] headquarters. They shot people. They even shot a child. Why? Why?

"We are protecting the central square area. We have checkpoints and roadblocks of burning tyres.

"If the boys manning the checkpoints see security forces coming, they shout, everyone picks up that shout, and people go inside. So far they haven't broken through into the city centre being protected."

Syrian officials denied an army operation was taking place in Hama. They blamed the violence on "armed gangs" a reference to Islamists whom they claim are moving around the country attempting to ignite sectarian chaos.

"Anything can happen in this country right now," said the small businessman. "We are worried – not scared – and people in Hama know what the regime can do. But many would rather die than stop protesting.

"People say they can't do another Hama today but they will kill a million people if they have to. And we have seen that the international community aren't pushing him to go, they are worried. And people in Damascus and Aleppo often have an interest in the regime staying. I don't understand how after all the bloodshed," he added.

"You cannot believe the atmosphere in Hama. After Friday's protest, teams went round and picked up rubbish. You wouldn't see this sort of behaviour in Switzerland, let alone here. People are asking for their basic rights. What sort of distorted country is it where you get shot, detained or tortured for it? The ruling family is the only armed gang here."

Nidaa Hassan is a pseudonym for a journalist in Damascus

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After 41 years, Syria begins to imagine a future without an Assad in charge

These are strange times in Damascus – where all appears normal on the surface but dark undercurrents swirl just beneath

Nidaa Hassan in Damascus,

Guardian,

6 July 2011,

From the crumbling houses and narrow alleyways of Damascus's old city to the sleek cafes and government buildings of Abu Rummaneh and Mezze, posters of President Bashar al-Assad are taped on to windows. Syrian flags flap in the breeze.

In the 41 years since the Assad family seized power in a coup led by Bashar's father, Hafez, it has tried to equate the country with the ruling family: "Syria, al-Assad." Soldiers are told to pledge allegiance to the leader, not the country. Statues of Hafez tower over city centres.

But now, across the country, and right here in the capital, Damascus, this vision is being torn apart: people are beginning to imagine a Syria separate from Assad rule.

"The family has run the country like its personal fiefdom rather than a state that belongs to all the citizens," says a prominent writer in the capital, surrounded by tottering piles of books in a living room where a large, traditional silver coffee pot sits on a table.

It is that new idea of national identity free of oppression now driving the protests that crisscross the country, which were initially calling only for reforms rather than revolution.

But if the uprising has brought the protesters together under this new identity, it has also divided them from the vehement regime supporters, who apparently are fighting to keep the regime intact – and, at least on the surface, nowhere more so than in Damascus.

Some offer genuine support due to their connections to the regime, others through fear. "Do these protesters want to drive us into a war?" asks one middle-aged man.

Though protests in Damascus are growing – they have spilled out in the neighbourhood of Midan and small groups have dared to step out in central Baghdad Street and in the swanky central shopping district of Shaalan – just as visible are the noisy, placard-waving pro-Assad rallies, and banners lauding Russia and China for blocking a UN resolution.

Al-Jazeera logos are stencilled on the city's green dustbins as a sign of disgust for the channel that has helped drive the Arab spring.

The cult of personality has grown during the uprising, and verges on the hysterical. State radio blares out chants lauding Assad. Increasingly aggressive pro-regime protesters shout "Abu Hafez", the Father of Hafez, in reference to Assad's eldest son and his potential ascendency to the presidency.

But most of all, as security forces raid the city of Hama and bloodshed is reported in Homs, both of which lie between Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, it is the apparent normality in the capital that is most noticeable.

More than 1,500 civilians have been killed across Syria since protests broke out in mid-March, according to human rights groups. Thousands more have been injured or arbitrarily arrested and tortured in what Amnesty International says may amount to crimes against humanity.

These are eye-watering figures that an outsider might assume would have a whole country up in arms. But in the capital, cars rattle around, puffing exhaust fumes into the polluted air. People sip coffees in the upmarket cafes or small, sweet glasses of tea in shops and houses. Markets bustle with women weighed down by bags of produce and men crouch over backgammon games in the old city as the sun goes down and the call to prayer rings out.

But the normality belies a city that may not yet have been rocked by the protest movement, but has been torn apart under the surface. The protests and the regime's violent response – which it has blamed on armed gangs of foreigners and extremists – triggered an emotional reaction in the capital that has shifted from denial and confusion to anger and, finally, polarisation.

For the first weeks after the protests began in mid-March, the streets were empty in the evening as people stayed in, glued to the TV. Taxi drivers would anxiously ask the opinion of passengers as to what was going on.

But as the protests rolled into their third and now fourth month, Damascus came back to life. Come the evening, families stroll down the streets of Midan to buy sweets piled in gravity-defying heaps in brightly lit shops.

The divide between regime loyalists and opponents among the capital's estimated 6 million residents – 30% of the population – is becoming starker.

Friends fall out over political differences, often played out for all to see on their Facebook walls. Commentators exchange fire on their blogs. Some adhere tightly to the president. Only a few assert nothing is happening or that armed gangs are running amok, but even they seem less convinced – and they too have glimpsed a vision of a new Syria.

"I've seen different sides of friends and colleagues," says one middle-aged businesswoman. "We have been very suspicious about saying our real thoughts but now they are coming out and it is causing violent differences between people."

While support for the president is manifest across the city, dissenters are there – just below the surface.

Certain cafes have always had their intellectuals. Older men have long gathered in traditional tea shops to talk shop – including in Havana cafe, where Hafez al-Assad plotted his 1970 coup.

Now, they are meeting in bigger groups and conversations that were once reserved for the privacy of the home are being held in public. During a conference in the Semiramis hotel, figures such as the writer Louay Hussein referred to the "tyranny" of rule in the country. Subsequent threats from the regime have not deterred them.

"We have been docile for too long," says one older regime critic who has become ever bolder, hosting meetings of veteran opposition figures in his house.

And a younger, often well-off, generation of activists have joined, and overtaken the traditional opposition, forming into tight-knit independent groups or linking into the local co-ordinating committees, a grassroots grouping centred on Damascus but spanning the country.

In the elite central cafes in Damascus, swirling smoke does little to conceal a tangibly revolutionary atmosphere among those exchanging the latest news. Some tap away on MacBooks, posting videos and information to support the uprising in the rural areas.

"Regardless of what you thought before, what they are doing to people is absurd and reason enough to fight for them to go," says one young woman who is helping to connect activists in different cities.

After protesting in April, she was detained for a week – during which time she was blindfolded and made to strip naked in front of three security men.

Other activists monitor the protests outside the capital from scruffy flats around the city. Facebook has become a vital tool for updates on human right violations, with videos uploaded from towns and villages across the country. Such activists have numerous virtual friends – and often spend more time talking to them than they do with close family and friends.

Some Damascenes slip between the two realities, going to work as normal and interacting with colleagues, then protesting on a Friday. "We're living in two worlds, in a bubble," says one man from a suburb of the city, talking in his office on a weekday. "I have to navigate between the two depending on who I am with."

If polarisation and normality reign, the city has been irrevocably changed. At the beginning of the Arab spring, when some pushed for demonstrations here, the streets were empty other than for the ubiquitous security services, huddled in groups with leather jackets and cigarettes their only identifying uniform.

But protests do now pop up, small in the centre but ever more sustained. Cafes and shops that would nervously flash on al-Jazeera or al-Arabiya for a few minutes now show the channels more defiantly.

People openly use Bashar al-Assad's name, where in the past they would have referred to "him", or left an easily interpretable blank, with accompanying tilt of the head. The older Syrian writer puts it disparagingly, mockingly calling him "the boy".

Snatches of political conversation can now be heard on the streets. People meet and discuss the future as horizons have been widened from the day to day grind of life under the Assads.

But everyone knows the calm in the centre may not last. Stories of detention and torture circulate widely, opening eyes to the brutality of the regime, which under Assad's rule has positioned itself as reformist, with some success, far from the dark days of his father's time in power.

That era was epitomised for many by the 1982 siege on Hama to put down an armed Islamist uprising, which left up to 20,000 dead – an image that is being recalled in whispers as forces appear to move back into Hama this week.

A relatively high standard of living – Damascus does not have the absolute poverty of other Middle Eastern capitals – is deteriorating as the economy suffers from the unrest.

The uprising has been driven by the rural areas, which the Ba'ath party represented when it came to power but neglected as it mingled with the urban elite over time. Official exchange rates are 10% out as the Syrian pound falls in value. Black market traders are quickly clamped down on. Tourism has disappeared.

Meanwhile, the prices of basics such as eggs and sugar have shot up, and long queues form for petrol after the price was dropped, leading to rumoured shortages.

One trader, propped up on a stool in a shady spot in his carpet shop in the old city, says he has made no money this week. "This is hurting the regime's last support base," he says.

Disgruntled Damascenes bemoan the heavy security presence – the mukhabarat are everywhere. A cafe customer happily mocking the president suddenly notices a man watching. A second sits down at the next table, wearing a T-shirt and a baseball cap, both imprinted with the president's face. The mocker quickly points to a TV screening a pro-Assad rally and loudly says how amazing – but expected – the huge crowds are, playing to his audience, before quickly leaving.

"This country does not belong to Assad and we need to make that clear," he says outside. "Damascus's day will come because the whole country, including here, has already witnessed a revolution in horizons and aspirations."

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Prolonged Libya War Puts Defected Diplomats in Limbo

CHRISTOPHER RHOADS And NEANDA SALVATERRA

Wall Street Journal,

JULY 6, 2011

Libya's war has thrown many diplomats who abandoned Col. Moammar Gadhafi's government into a curious limbo, as they attempt to hold together stateless embassies while the conflict drags into its fifth month.

Their challenges range from securing new office space and visas to looking after family members who have gone into hiding back in Libya. No longer credentialed as diplomats, they are still working—but in many cases on behalf of the new opposition government based in Benghazi.

Ibrahim Dabbashi, the deputy head of Libya's mission to the United Nations until he defected Feb. 21, now must use a "courtesy pass" to enter the U.N. for meetings. He and the former head of the mission, Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham, who defected several days after Mr. Dabbashi, are trying to persuade more governments to back the rebels. More than 20 countries recognize the opposition government in varying degrees.

"We didn't think it would take this long," said Mr. Dabbashi, referring to the war. He said he figures the mission has enough money in reserve to last until the end of the year.

In the meantime, he said, the mission has pared spending on travel, some medical costs and private-school education for staff children. He added he believes many more Libyan diplomats support the rebel cause than is publicly known, since rebel supporters have instructed diplomats not to publicly state their allegiance as they continue to serve local Libyans.

It wasn't possible to verify those claims of wider support.

Libya's enduring war is testing the commitment of parties on several fronts, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. British military commanders participating in NATO operations against Col. Gadhafi recently warned their forces would become stretched if air operations continued at the current pace. U.S. lawmakers are questioning the legality of the U.S.'s continued participation in the operations.

For the Libyan diplomats in exile, waiting brings different challenges. In Paris, Abdoulsalam El Qallali, who in February resigned as Libya's ambassador to Unesco, the U.N. agency, is looking for a cheaper apartment since he no longer receives a salary. Like other defected diplomats, he says he is receiving support from fellow Libyans abroad, as he assists the opposition government.

"I continue to consider myself as a representative of the Libyan people," Mr. El Qallali said in a telephone interview.

The Canadian government, which is participating in the NATO operation in Libya, expelled five Libyan diplomats in mid-May after police received harassment complaints from Libyan Canadians sympathetic to the rebels. The one member of the Libyan Embassy staff in Ottawa who defected, a low-level diplomat, couldn't be located.

Some, shorn of diplomatic status, are braving new bureaucracies in their bids to stay in the countries of their former posting. Libya's ambassador to the U.S., Ali Suleiman Aujali, was locked out of his country's Washington embassy by staff members loyal to Col. Gadhafi after defecting in February, prompting him to call the police.

"I'm hoping we will be able to free our country from this regime so we can regain our status," said Mr. Aujali, who was Libya's first ambassador to the U.S. in about three decades. He defected in February. He just received special papers allowing him to travel and has applied for a visa allowing him to stay.

Ten diplomats in the embassy loyal to Col. Gadhafi were sent back to Libya. The U.S. State Department turned over the embassy to an American custodian chosen by the Libyan government. The State Department has terminated the diplomatic status of all Libyan diplomats in Washington.

Gone are the more than dozen luxury cars, including brands like Mercedes, BMW and Lexus, that had been at the disposal of Mr. Aujali's staff. Mr. Aujali and his five remaining Libyan diplomats recently found temporary work space in a Washington law office.

His makeshift team helped unfreeze more than $200 million in Libyan assets to help finance the thousands of Libyans studying in the U.S. and Canada, and are working on individual cases of Libyans in the U.S. fearful of having to return to their war-torn country.

"It's brave and courageous for them to do this, particularly when they have family still in Libya," said Daniel Shepherd, press officer of Britain's U.N. mission, referring to the members of Libya's U.N. mission.

Some diplomats reportedly have been confronted with televised images of family members back in Libya, who have publicly denounced them for changing sides. The diplomats said they believe the statements were forced.

The U.N. passed two far-reaching resolutions, the first in late February, referring those attacking Libyan civilians to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and the second in mid-March—when the entire Libyan mission in New York was in exile—imposing a no-fly zone in Libya and authorizing the use of military force to protect civilians.

Last week, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Libyan leader, his son and his intelligence director.

In some cases, where the diplomats have known Col. Gadhafi for years, they stayed loyal at first, hoping they could bring their influence to bear on restraining the government and rebels.

Hafed Gaddur, Libya's ambassador to Rome and considered a longtime power broker in Italy with deep ties to Col. Gadhafi, initially tried to act as a mediator between the government and rebels, according to a person familiar with the matter.

But as the conflict dragged on with casualties mounting—some estimates place the number of dead in the eastern part of the country alone at more than 15,000—Mr. Gaddur in recent weeks became convinced a diplomatic solution was no longer possible, this person said. Libya's embassy in Rome recently raised the tricolor flag of the opposition. Mr. Gaddur couldn't be reached to comment.

Mr. Shalgham, the former head of Libya's U.N. mission, had held several high-ranking positions in Col. Gadhafi's government and was considered a supporter of the Libyan leader.

At the end of February, when his No. 2, Mr. Dabbashi, defected, Mr. Shalgham at first remained loyal, calling Col. Gadhafi "my friend." As his mission began to defect following the lead of Mr. Dabbashi, it was unclear where Mr. Shalgham stood, or even where he was.

A few days later, he emerged on the floor of the U.N. and tearfully denounced the regime. He has since been meeting with governments around the world to try to convince them to back the opposition government.

In a video that recently appeared on the website of Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Mr. Shalgham, who has been in Rome, declared government forces didn't have enough food and fuel to last more than two to three weeks.

"There is only one solution," he said. "Gadhafi leaves Libya."

In the meantime, he and Mr. Dabbashi must find a way to pay bills on their largely empty 24-story building on New York's East Side, since they're no longer on the payroll of the Libyan government. The building was meant to house a tourist office, businesses and other Libyan interests, until U.S. sanctions years ago dashed those plans.

Now, all but about six floors lie empty. "You could play soccer up there," said one mission employee riding an elevator. The mission consists of 25 people, about 10 of whom are local personnel.

Since the diplomats who defected in Washington had to abandon the embassy there, it was unclear how the Libyans who defected in New York were able to remain using the country's U.N. offices. Mr. Dabbashi replied, "We are the legitimate representatives of the state of Libya. There is no doubt in my mind that we are legally in the mission."

Mr. Aujali, the former ambassador to the U.S., isn't surprised the conflict has lasted this long.

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