Syria: 30 years on, Hama survivors recount the horror

Amnesty International

28 February 2012

"The Syrian military assault on Homs is now in its fourth week with no sign of abating, prompting memories in nearby Hama of mass killings 30 years ago.

Three decades ago, Syrian troops under the government of Hafez al-Assad – father of current President Bashar al-Assad – unleashed a bloody 27-day assault on Hama.

It followed an ambush of soldiers by members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and attacks on officials and alleged “collaborators”.

The final death toll may have reached 25,000, from both sides.

Some 6,000 to 8,000 soldiers were dispatched to Hama in February 1982, according to news reports and information received by Amnesty International.

Old parts of the city were bombed from the air and shelled in order to allow the entry of troops and tanks along the narrow streets.

The ancient Hadra neighbourhood was apparently razed to the ground by tanks during the first four days of fighting....

No longer isolated

While the survivors’ descriptions of military tactics are similar to those being used in Homs and other cities today, the sense of isolation felt by Hama’s residents in 1982 has diminished.

“Now the people have learnt the lies and crimes of the regime – we know how the political security works now,” said Ayad Khatab, who is originally from Hama but now lives abroad.

“Hama is no longer isolated; there is solidarity between different cities. This raises the morale not just in Hama, but all over Syria … they have no fear anymore.”

‘Mohamed’, an activist from Hama who spoke with Amnesty International on condition of anonymity, said that the lack of independent media coverage of events in 1982 resulted in fewer military defections.

But with more eyewitness accounts and video footage leaving Syrian cities via the internet, mobile phones and satellite communications, the tide has changed.

“The biggest difference is that in 1982 Hama was totally destroyed and the villages nearby found out only a week later,” Mohamed told Amnesty International....."

Report from Kabul: Deadly Protests over U.S. Koran Burning May Be Turning Point for U.S. Occupation

Democracy Now!

"The U.S.-led NATO occupation in Afghanistan is facing a storm of violence and outrage over the burning of copies of the Koran by U.S. troops at the Bagram Air Base last week. Retaliatory attacks and public protests have swept Afghanistan, leaving more than 40 Afghans dead. On Sunday, six U.S. soldiers were injured in northern Afghanistan when a demonstrator threw a grenade at a U.S. base. Two senior U.S. Army officers were shot dead on Friday inside the Afghan Interior Ministry. In private, U.S. officials are expressing worry about the situation in Afghanistan. We go to Kabul to speak with John Wendle, a reporter for TIME and photographer for Polaris Images. "I think we’re going to continue to see attacks," Wendle says. "[This] makes it difficult for the United States to pull out and achieve the one goal that it’s kind of set for itself, which is training the Afghan security forces so they can stand on their own two feet and provide security in this country."....."

WikiLeaks: Leaked Emails Expose Inner Workings of Private Intelligence Firm Stratfor, a “Shadow CIA”

Democracy Now!

"The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has begun publishing what it says are 5.5 million emails obtained from the servers of Stratfor, a private U.S.-based intelligence-gathering firm known to some as a "shadow CIA" for corporations and government agencies. The emails were reportedly obtained by the hackers group, Anonymous. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the files implicate some of the world’s largest firms in corporate espionage. Firms with ties to Stratfor include Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Dow Chemical, and sectors of the U.S. government — including the Department of Homeland Security, the Marines Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Coke asked Stratfor to keep tabs on the protest plans of the group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the stories. It will come out in the next coming days and weeks,” said Kristinn Hrafnsson, a WikiLeaks spokesperson who has been a key member of the project to release the Stratfor emails. “What we were doing yesterday was introducing the project: The nature of Stratfor and how they operate, and their ties.”..."

Al-Jazeera Video: Syria's referendum: Real change or games?

"Syrian has announced overwhelming approval for its new constitution, after a referendum. But the nationwide vote was not well received by all. Inside Story asks: Is this referendum on a new constitution for Syria a real change or is it a sham?"

Al-Jazeera Video: Syrian troops accused of targeting children

"Syrian government forces have been blamed by residents for attacking and killing thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children, during the crackdown on the country's 11-month uprising.

Two fathers in central Damascus, which has seen a protest movement smaller than other cities like Homs, Hama and Idlib due to a heavier presence of security forces, have told Al Jazeera how their sons were either murdered or shot by troops.

One of them blames a soldier for his son's death in this exclusive report."

Real News Video : Israel's "New West Bank"

New plan reveals gov't relocating Bedouins in Negev Desert to create Jewish contiguity south of the West Bank.

Real News Video: The Syrian Opposition and the External Players

Bassam Haddad: The Syrian revolution must guard against interference by external powers and the Syrian National Council

Judge throws out Israel-backed lawsuit against Olympia Food Co-op, upholds right to boycott

By Ali Abunimah

"In a major setback for Israeli efforts to suppress the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement in the United States, a judge in Olympia, Washington today dismissed a lawsuit designed to force the Olympia Food Co-op to rescind its boycott of Israeli goods.

The judge ruled that the lawsuit, brought by opponents of the boycott, violated a Washington State law designed to prevent abusive lawsuits aimed at suppressing lawful public participation. The court said it would award the defendants attorneys’ fees, costs, and levy sanctions against the plaintiffs......"

Obama, the Jewish lobby and the bomb

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Asia Times

"As Barack Obama prepares to face the pro-Israel lobby in America, he confronts one of the toughest choices of his presidency: whether to appease the warmongers. Much like the false pretexts of the Iraqi war [Iran supported that one!], a picture is being painted that exploits Iran for political gain and is far from the reality of its nuclear intentions....."

Syria timeline: how the conflict has escalated - interactive

From the first ripples of discontent that stirred in Syria almost a year ago to a government crackdown that has claimed more than 5,000 lives, this interactive timeline charts a conflict that grows more brutal by the day

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 February 2012

Paul Conroy safe in Lebanon after Syria ordeal

Sunday Times photographer is smuggled out of Homs but William Daniel, Edith Bouvier and Javier Espinosa remain

Martin Chulov in Beirut
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 February 2012

"Paul Conroy, the British Sunday Times photographer who was wounded in the besieged city of Homs, has been smuggled out of Syria and is safe in Lebanon.

Conroy arrived alone in Lebanon while efforts continued to evacuate three other reporters – the French photographer William Daniel, French reporter Edith Bouvier, and Spaniard Javier Espinosa.

Conroy had twice refused to leave the Baba Amr district of Homs without the body of his colleague, the Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin who was killed during a rocket attack last Wednesday. The group of reporters had been holed up in Baba Amr ever since and protracted negotiations to evacuate them failed.

Bouvier is the most seriously wounded of the group. Medics say she needs specialised care to stop her leg injuries from clotting.

Attempts to broker a ceasefire in Homs have failed. Tanks from the Syrian army's elite fourth division were on Tuesday morning reported to be close to Baba Amr after a 24th consecutive day of shelling."

Jordan: Advocate of a Republic Jailed

Attack on Critic of Prince Further Blow to Free Expression

Human Rights Watch
February 26, 2012

"(Beirut) – The criminal charges against a man who has peacefully advocated making Jordan a republic violate freedom of expression and should be dropped immediately, Human Rights Watch said today. Jordan’s military prosecutor at the State Security Court ordered the detention of and brought criminal charges against Dr. Ahmad al-Oweidi al-‘Abbadi, a prominent opponent of King Abdullah, because al-‘Abbadi peacefully argued in a media interview for making Jordan a republic rather than a monarchy.

In a separate incident reflecting an assault on free expression, an unidentified assailant stabbed Inas Musallam, a student, apparently in response to an article she wrote that was critical of a royal prince...."

Bahrain: Hundreds Railroaded in Unjust Trials

Politically Motivated Prosecutions Flagrantly Disregard Rights

February 28, 2012

"(Beirut) – Bahrain has routinely convicted hundreds of opposition activists and others of politically motivated charges in unfair trials, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government should void the convictions in trials before Bahrain’s military and civilian courts that fell far short of international fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch said.

The 94-page report, “No Justice in Bahrain: Unfair Trials in Military and Civilian Courts,”documents serious due process violations in high-profile trials before Bahrain’s special military courts in 2011 – including one trial of 21 prominent political activists and another of 20 doctors and other medical personnel – and in politically motivated trials before ordinary criminal courts since 2010. Serious abuses included denying defendants the right to counsel and to present a defense, and failure to investigate credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment during interrogation.

“Grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should remedy the hundreds of unfair convictions of the past year by dropping the cases against everyone convicted on politically motivated charges and by adopting effective measures to end torture in detention.

”The egregious violations of fair trial rights in political cases do not just reflect the poor practices of individual prosecutors and judges, but serious, systemic problems with Bahrain’s criminal justice system, Human Rights Watch said......"

Download the full report (PDF, 752.66 KB)

Finkelstein, BDS and the destruction of Israel

Norman Finkelstein's views on the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement may be somewhat shortsighted.

By Ali Abunimah
Al-Jazeera

"Chicago, IL - In a recent and highly controversial interview, Norman Finkelstein, long a scourge of Israel, turned his guns on Palestinians and their supporters. He accused the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement of being a "cult", and claimed that its achievements were mostly exaggerated.

But what exercised Finkelstein most was his conclusion that if implemented, the demands of the2005 Palestinian civil society call for BDS, would amount to "the destruction of Israel".

Finkelstein lay into the three "tiers" of the BDS call: that Israel end its occupation of Arab lands conquered in 1967; that it end all forms of discrimination and guarantee equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel; and that it respect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees, including the right of return.

"They don't want Israel," Finkelstein declared, "They think they're being very clever. They call it their three tiers... We want the end of the occupation, we want the right of return, and we want equal rights for Arabs in Israel. And they think they are very clever, because they know the result of implementing all three is what? What's the result? You know and I know what's the result: there's no Israel."

Finkelstein demanded that Palestinians drop this programme, "Because, if we end the occupation and bring back six million Palestinians and we have equal rights for Arabs and Jews, there's no Israel." He also insisted that a "two-state solution" was the only outcome supported by international law.

Putting the BDS call to the test

For the sake of argument, let's put Finkelstein's thesis to the test. But before I do that, let me make clear where I stand. As is well known, I support, and believe, that the eventual outcome in historic Palestine will be a single state.

Many supporters of the BDS movement, including some of its founders are on record calling for the same. But the BDS call itself is agnostic, focusing on the rights of Palestinians, not on state arrangements - something Finkelstein insisted was mere deception.

Here, I am going to do what I normally never do. Argue the case for a two-state solution that meets all the demands of the BDS call. Moreover, it should meet fully with Finkelstein's approval as well, because it will be based on a solution that he himself endorsed....."

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

Do you see that going to the Security Council is enough to prevent the Judaization of Jerusalem?

With about 300 responding, 95% said no.

On Syria: Where the Left is right and the Right is wrong

Both the Left and the Right in Syria are "statists" - power hungry, reaching to gain control of the state apparatus.

AN EXCELLENT PIECE AND RECOMMENDED READING

By Hamid Dabashi
Al-Jazeera

"....The centre cannot hold

There can be little doubt that US, European, Israeli, Saudi and other Gulf states' special forces and financing are at work in covert operations in Syria, pulling and pushing the uprising in their own directions and for their own advantages. The gloves are now in fact completely off and the Saudis have come out clean that they must arm (meaning they have been arming) the Syrian rebels.

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch," the colloquial American saying goes in the realm of economics - and in politics too, there ain’t no such thing as a free Uzi. The hand that giveth the Uzi today, taketh back a share of post-Assad politics tomorrow....

The Left contends that what started as genuine protests has now been hijacked by "extremist Sunni groups" inside Syria and by outside forces that extend from the US to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and by extension, the Gulf states - all lining up against Iran and Hezbollah, which, for them, is evidently the forefront of resistance against imperialism. Some on the Left who approve of the Arab Spring even suggest that the Arab revolutionaries ought to develop a strategic alliance with the ruling regime in the Islamic Republic. Yes, they say, the regime in Iran might be murderous towards its own citizens, but it is standing up to imperialism. Again: the moral depravity of the position is informed by its political illiteracy....

Beyond the clichés

The problem with both these positions - Left and Right - is that they speak from a position of power or counter-power - from a statist position, a 100-metre spree to grab hold of the state apparatus and replace it as it falls. The Right speaks from behind the US-Israeli guns and from behind the Saudi bank accounts, and the Left speaks from a position of resisting that power and wishing to support an existing, evolving or emerging state apparatus that can ensure that resistance. The Assad regime is falling, and now we have a rush to get hold of the state apparatus, the military in particular. What the Left and the Right share is their identical statism, because, for them, these entire Arab revolutions are about taking control of the state apparatus, of state power, of steering (or more accurately trying to steer) the falling regimes of power to their own direction.

Categorically absent from the calculations of both the Left and the Right are the people, the real people, ordinary people, those who occupy the public space, people it, own it. For the Left and the Right, these people are mere puppets that are either used, abused for facilitating the US-Saudi machinations, or else duped into revolutionary uprising that has been hijacked from them. Neither the Left nor the Right has the slightest trust, confidence, or even a politically potent conception of the public space that ordinary people physically and normatively occupy.....

Open-ended revolutions are what we are witnessing in the Arab world - and open-ended revolutions mean people matter, mean the Egyptians are still out in Tahrir Square, and they mean that these states, however they turn out and are manufactured by external machinations, need a populace to rule - and that populace will never be subject to one or another sort of tyranny or treachery.

The Saudis and the Islamic Republic, as with the US and the Russians/Chinese, can perform all their machinations - but resistant and defiant will remain the Syrian people - and their open-ended revolution, which is integral to the Arab Spring.

They say you can conquer a land on horse, but you must descend in order to rule it - the same is true about Syria: From the US and Israel to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, and then from Russia and China to the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah, there certainly are many machinations at work to conquer Syria. But when all the dust is settled and these mighty machinations end, the new conquerors must come down to rule it - and when they do, they will find themselves facing the indomitable spirit of the people that have left their inner dungeons of fear - and who will never ever again be subject of either domestic tyranny or external treachery. Syrians have already won their revolution - for the next tyrants now wishing to conquer Syria will come down from their horses, facing a nation refusing to be frightened or fooled into obedience.

The Arab Spring has unleashed the power of ordinary people and staged the public space they occupy and the civic associations they will eventually and inevitably form on that space. The Arab Spring has already given birth to a robust revolutionary gemeinschaft that will stay with these societies no matter who and what is in power. Unbeknown to the political machinations that have divided the Left and the Right, people of Syria - as indeed people from across the Arab and Muslim world - are dispelling their agoraphobia and realising the power of their communal gatherings."

Al-Jazeera Cartoon: The Syrian Regime's "Referendum"

Al-Jazeera Video: Syria's uprising hurting Lebanese economy

"The international border is still open between Lebanon and Syria, but the volume of traffic and trade has been reduced as a result of 11 months of violence in Syria.

In exchange houses, where people can change the Syrian currency into Lebanese, the dealers say business is down by 80 per cent.

Furthermore, tourist bookings are said to be down by about 25 per cent and taxi drivers say they rarely find any customers who want to go to Syria.

Al Jazeera's James Bays reports from Shtoura, a Lebanese town 30km away from the Syria border."

Al-Jazeera Video: Damascus residents tell of daily struggle

Al-Jazeera Video: Artists use graffiti to tell Egypt revolution's stories

"Running south from Tahrir Square toward Egypt's interior ministry in central Cairo, Mohamed Mahmoud street has become one of the revolution's most violent battlegrounds. Twelve people died in the area during February street battles between protesters and police stemming from a deadly football riot in Port Said.

With the neighbourhood calm, at least for the moment, Mohamed Mahmoud now serves as a canvas for some of Egypt's most creative revolutionary street art.

Murals portraying the revolution's dead as martyrs and the military as a predatory monster spread along walls next to figurative paintings that draw inspiration from millenia-old pharaonic art. Nearby, the artists debate with anxious business owners, and the revolution continues.

Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh reports from Cairo."