LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
JANUARY 13/2006

Below News from Miscellaneous resources for 13.1.06
Lebanese PM confers with Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh-KUNA 13.1.06
On Lebanon's Stability. By: Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat - 12/01/06
LEBANON: Trial of human rights defender postponed. IRIN 13.1.06
Syria says U.N. investigators cannot quiz Assad-Reuters 13.1.06
SYRIA: Year in Brief 2005 - A chronology of democratic developments-IRIN 13.1.06
Below News from the Daily Star 13.1.06
Anti-Syrian politicians work on unity
New 'hit list' of prominent Lebanese delivered to ISF officers
Alleged Al-Qaeda statement warns Sabra, Shatila
Released hostage describes his Iraqi ordeal
Gunmen who shot municipality workers could face life in jail
Syria may be finding its own facesaver
AUB alumni reject worldwide association
Palestinians planned coastal attack
Family members deny killing 11-year-old boy
Lebanese NGOs criticize trade policy
Standard & Poor's maintains stable outlook for Lebanese banks
Solidere stocks continue their spectacular surge
Dinner held in appreciation of Baabdat town choir
Scots celebrate their patron saint
A taste of paradise in Tahiti via Casino du Liban
Detainee lauds resistance from his Israeli cell
Palestinians in Lebanon inch closer to recognition with 2005 work law

New 'hit list' of prominent Lebanese delivered to ISF officers
By Jessy Chahine -Daily Star staff
Friday, January 13, 2006
BEIRUT: A new "hit list" of prominent Lebanese personalities whose lives are said to be in danger was delivered to senior officers of the Internal Security Forces, The Daily Star learned Thursday. Several well-known television hosts are included in the list and at least two of them have left the country. Marcel Ghanem, host of "Kalam al-Nass," a popular political talk show on Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC), will for the foreseeable future be broadcasting his show from Paris.
The Daily Star has learned that Ghanem, along with seven other names, was included on a list that was supplied to the ISF by the American Embassy in Lebanon. The other names included Ali Hamade, a senior writer at An-Nahar and also Future TV host of the political show "Al-Istihqaq." He is the brother of Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamade, who is also on the list. Some of the other names are Fares Khashan, host of Future TV political show "Al-Tahkik," Walid Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Tripoli MP Elias Atallah, Social Affairs Minister Nayla Mouawad, and Beirut MP Saad Hariri.
The warning letter from the U.S. Embassy included strong recommendations to enhance the personal safety of those named, while simultaneously advising them to reduce their mobility as much as possible.
This is not the first time such hit lists have been issued. However the latest list of targets was remarkable for the number of new "death nominees" - Ali Hamade, Mouawad, Khashan and Ghanem. Jumblatt, Hariri and Marwan Hamade always made it to the "top 10" of other such lists. Jumblatt, originally a long-time ally of Damascus, later became one of the most outspoken opponents of Syria's control over Lebanon. Hamade, a member of Jumblatt's PSP party and also known in the past year or so for his anti-Syrian stance, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt made on him in October 2004.
Other alleged targets in former hit lists were MPs Wael Bou Faour, also a PSP member, and Samir Franjieh, a prominent partisan of Hariri's Future Movement. Founder of the Movement for a Democratic Left (MDL) and MP Elias Atallah, who has called for the restoration of "Lebanese sovereignty and a re-evaluation of ties with Syria," also featured on previous hit lists.
"All the hit lists of the world will never prevent us from defending our country's sovereignty," Mouawad told The Daily Star. "This killing machine is just moving on, isn't it? Nothing seems to stop it," she added.
"We are still faced by that endless terrorist Syrian regime and we still have to fight it," Jumblatt told The Daily Star.
MP Michel Aoun, whose name was not included on the current list, remained, according to his spokesperson, "extremely exposed to murder attempts." "Now more than ever, it's high time for the government to provide some security and personal protection for those threatened," said Tony Nasrallah, the Free Patriotic Movement's spokesman. "If we cannot look after our own business, how can we be eligible for sovereignty?" Nasrallah said media representatives were being particularly targeted because of the "important role they play in the country's fight for independence."
Ghanem and Khashan flew to France after the warning, while Marwan Hamade set off on a "European tour," according a local news agency. "That tour has nothing to do with the warning and Marwan is coming back shortly," said a source close to Hamade.  When contacted by The Daily Star, the American Embassy refused to deny or confirm any role in distributing the warning.

Anti-Syrian politicians work on unity
Meetings focused on rejection of recent arab initiative
By Majdoline Hatoum -Daily Star staff
Friday, January 13, 2006
BEIRUT: Lebanon's anti-Syrian politicians worked on strengthening their unity Thursday in the face of a reported Arab initiative they accused of "returning Syrian influence" to the country. Talking after a meeting for the March 14 forces, MP Butros Harb said any initiative to tone down the tension between Lebanon and Syria was welcome, as long as it recognizes Lebanon's presence as a main partner.
"We welcome all the initiatives taken to restore Lebanese-Syrian relations to their normal course, but what happened was that some Arab states took the initiative in Lebanon's absence ... These countries met with the Syrian president and did not meet with a Lebanese representative, they agreed on a work plan and announced it ... but we found that this plan does not suit Lebanon, and we agreed to refuse this initiative," Harb said.
The MP added that the recent warming in relations between MP Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and the rest of the March 14 forces was a positive step."We are open to all political forces and parties, and especially to those who share our belief in Lebanon's sovereignty and independence," he said. A recent meeting between a delegation from Aoun's FPM and Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt opened the door for the FPM's return to the country's anti-Syrian coalition. The relationship between the two national leaders has been tense since the end of the parliamentary elections last summer.
The meeting also falls in with efforts being made by Jumblatt to strengthen the anti-Syrian forces.
On Thursday, the Druze leader sent a delegation from his Progressive Socialist Party to meet with several leaders, including the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and former MP Fares Soueid. Following the meeting with Geagea, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the recent Arab initiative - drawn up by Egypt and Saudi Arabia to
moderate relations between Lebanon and Syria - was trying to restore the Syrian influence in the country.
According to media reports, the initiative suggested the formation of a unified Syrian-Lebanese security committee, an agreement to demarcate the borders without setting a time frame by the Syrians, and coordination between Lebanon and Syria on foreign affairs. "These ideas were laid down by Syria, and it is trying to find a foothold back in Lebanon through such attempts," Jumblatt said, "but this has failed and this issue is not up for discussion anymore."
Aridi said Lebanon wanted to demarcate the borders, but blamed Syria for refusing to do so. "We want to demarcate the borders between us and Syria, and we want it to start with Shebaa Farms so that the UN acknowledges they are Lebanese, which in turn would give more legitimacy to the resistance," he said. "As for diplomatic relations between us and Syria, we are the ones who want that, but how can the Syrian's demand that these issues be discussed later on be explained." Geagea reasserted his refusal of any deal that would put Lebanon's sovereignty at risk. The Lebanese Forces leader said Lebanon's politicians would not accept any deal "under pressure threatening the unstable security situation in the country." While most Lebanese politicians agreed to refuse the Arab initiative, Speaker Nabih Berri, in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj, said the ongoing talks in the kingdom aimed at gaining Arab support for Lebanon's internal agreement.
Meanwhile, FPM MP Gebran Bassil said the recent meeting between his party and Jumblatt occurred because the PSP leader realized his policies toward Aoun were "not right."
"After realizing this, Jumblatt put things back in prospect and acknowledged our presence and our input in the battle for Lebanon's independence," Bassil said. The MP added that the recent dialogue between the FPM and Jumblatt did not mean the dialogue taking place between the FPM and Hizbullah had ended. "The dialogue with Hizbullah is still going on, because what we aim at is finding solutions for issues that concern the Lebanese people," he said. However, Bassil stressed that a meeting between Aoun and Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was dependent on the
resistance's decision on a number of issues, including the current boycott by its ministers of the Cabinet.
And as the country's anti-Syrian politicians were asserting their agreement to refuse any initiative that could threaten Lebanon's sovereignty, former MP Talal Arslan - one of Syria's staunch allies in Lebanon - called on Jumblatt to hold a Druze dialogue.
Arslan, Jumblatt's main Druze rival, said: "We are sending an open invitation for dialogue, and - I call [Jumblatt] to a meeting any time he wants."Contacted by The Daily Star, Jumblatt refused to comment on Arslan's open call.
Meanwhile, Hizbullah MP Ali Khreis criticized the U.S. Ambassador in Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman for trying to ruin efforts made by Arab countries to "ease the crisis in Lebanon."

Alleged Al-Qaeda statement warns Sabra, Shatila
Friday, January 13, 2006- Daily Star
BEIRUT: "We have been trying hard to enter the Sabra and Shatila camp, which is considered the symbol of Palestinian camps in Lebanon ... Since this camp needs reform, you have to take these warnings seriously, because today we warn but tomorrow we will liquidate dozens of people," a statement issued by an Al-Qaeda military faction in Lebanon said Thursday. The statement was distributed in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp and was signed by the "Black Leopards: Al-Qaeda Military Faction in Lebanon." "We warn Lebanese government officials against interfering in the refugee camp; do not make orphans of your children and widows of your wives," the statement said. "We warn the women who leave the camp for places of prostitution in Hamra or who work for Lebanese and foreign security bodies; those will be liquidated by gunshots," it said.
The statement also said alcohol shops and pharmacies which sell anesthetic medicine will be detonated and their owners murdered. "Our suicide bombings will target all the United Nations buildings inside and outside the camp, as well as agents such as [Palestinian officials] Abbas Zaki and Khaled Aref and several foreign embassies," the statement added.
"We warn [Saudi Prince] Walid bin Talal against entering the camps," it said. "Our attacks will also target immoral religious men who stole our money, as well as Lebanese security
officers who took advantage of our brothers," the statement added. But camp residents such as Palestinian Nabil Shreh reject the statement. "The residents of Sabra and Shatila rise above such statements," he said. "I believe those who wrote the statement are strangers; they do not belong to the camp."Shreh added that Shatila is "the door" that would lead the refugees to their homeland  in Palestine. "Osama bin Laden should go and fight the Zionists before coming here to reform the camps," he said. "We don't live in an extremist Islamic country; Shatila is the camp of the martyrs, the camp of the struggle," Shreh continued. He added that the only United Nations buildings in the camp were medical clinics and schools. "Do they want to destroy them too?" he asked.

Syria may be finding its own facesaver
By Leila Hatoum -Daily Star staff
Friday, January 13, 2006
BEIRUT: After holding closed meetings with MP Saad Hariri and Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora respectively, French President Jacques Chirac and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Thursday repeated their calls for Syria to extend full cooperation with the UN probe investigating the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri.
Siniora, who met with Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh, said after the meeting he sensed an "inalienable stand" to help Lebanon, and called on Syria to cooperate with the UN.Mubarak, in addition to Saudi King Abdullah, has been leading regional efforts to convince Damascus to cooperate with the international investigations and to defuse tension between Lebanon and Syria.
Syria faces mounting international pressure to cooperate with the international probe and is widely accused of having a hand in Hariri's assassination, a major factor in creating the current tension between the two countries.
On Syrian-Lebanese relations, Siniora said Thursday Lebanon "is doing its best to form true relations with Syria based on respect and a friendship not based on hegemony." He added: "It's about time that Syrian officials get used to Lebanon as an independent and sovereign country."Syria withdrew from its neighbor last April after almost three decades of military and political dominance.MP Saad Hariri, son of slain former Premier Rafik Hariri, met with Chirac, after which Hariri said he hoped that Syria "would fully cooperate with the UN probe because it's in its best interest to do so," adding that everybody should follow the international will. Damascus has refused a request by the UN probe to interview Syrian President Bashar Assad, but said it would allow the international investigators to interview Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa.
Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhlallah, who said early Thursday that as a president with an international immunity, "Damascus strongly rejects" the notion that Assad be interviewed, adding that the probe "has to sign a protocol" with Syria regulating the level of cooperation and respecting Syria's sovereignty. However, Dakhlallah lowered his tone later saying "there is a difference between being interviewed and being interrogated," and Assad "meets with several people every day." He did not rule out the possibility of a meeting between Assad and UN probe investigators.
Assad himself had told an Egyptian weekly last week he has immunity as a president under international law to refuse the UN probe's request. This comes at a time when former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam repeated Thursday on the British Sky television station his belief that Assad gave orders to assassinate Hariri.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Arabic daily As-Safir said Thursday that two top Syrian officers were going to be interrogated in Vienna the same day. The newspaper identified them as Brigadier-General Rustom Ghazaleh, former head of Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon, and one of his assistants Major Samih Qashaami.
Other reports said four Syrian officials would be questioned in Vienna by UN investigators. The UN probe spokesperson refused to comment. Ghazaleh is one of five Syrian officers questioned in Vienna some two months ago, and who were later identified as suspects in a report which former UN Chief Investigator Detlev Mehlis submitted to the UN last December. Mehlis is currently in Lebanon awaiting to hand over his post to his successor, Belgian Magistrate Serge Brammertz, who is also the Deputy Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.
Brammertz is expected to take up his assignment in Beirut "as soon as is practicable," according to a UN statement issued late Wednesday.
Despite media reports that Brammertz is expected in Beirut by next week, Stephane Dujarric, UN Chief Kofi Annan's spokesperson, told The Daily Star Thursday that Brammertz is still in New York and that he has no exact date for his arrival in Lebanon. He said: "Brammertz continues to meet with relevant officials," at the UN. The UN probe's spokesperson in Beirut also denied reports that Brammertz was expected next week, saying the official view is that he is expected "soon." The spokesperson told The Daily Star Thursday that even if there were information on travel schedules for Brammertz or any other members of the UN investigation, it would not be released for security reasons. - With agencies

Palestinians planned coastal attack
Friday, January 13, 2006- Daily Star
BEIRUT: Four Palestinians arrested over the weekend in northern Lebanon said they were planning to carry out military attacks against Israeli targets along the Gaza-Egyptian coast, Al-Hayat reported Thursday. The Palestinians were detained Saturday, a day after the Lebanese Army thwarted their attempt to leave the northern coast of the country in a ferryboat packed with weapons and explosives, a high-ranking official told the London-based daily. He said the Palestinians confessed they belonged to Osbat Al-Ansar, an Islamist armed group based in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, near the southern port city of Sidon. They also said a key figure in the group from the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in the north had planned the unsuccessful operation and provided the boat.
They were planning to attack Israeli targets along the coastal strip between Gaza and the Egyptian city of Al-Arish.
The army reported the arrest of the four Palestinians a day after the Lebanese Navy chased them off the coast of Nahr al-Bared and forced them to abandon their boat. The army initially said it had thwarted an arms smuggling attempt after finding rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and other explosives in the abandoned boat. Osbat al-Ansar came under the spotlight in the mid-nineties when three of its members killed Sheikh Nizar al-Halabi, the head of the pro-Syrian Association of Islamic Philanthropic Projects, better known as Al-Ahbash. The three were executed, but Osbat al-Ansar leader Abdel-Karim al-Saadi, who goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Mohjen, was sentenced to death in absentia. He is believed to be the mastermind of the murder. It is widely believed he is holed up in Ain al-Hilweh, which is controlled by Palestinian armed groups. Lebanese authorities do not enter the camp. - Naharnet

Lebanese PM confers with Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh
CAIRO, Jan 12 (KUNA) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday conferred with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora on the latest political developments in Lebanon and the region, Radio Cairo said.
It added that the talks between the two leaders were even more important following the recent revelations made in France against the Syrian regime by former Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam and against the backdrop of the growing pressure on Syria by the international community over a possible Syrian connection in last year's car bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri.
The two leaders, who met in Sharm El-Sheikh, also discussed the outcome of Mubarak's meetings in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah with Saudi King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
French President Jacques Chirac, who met with Syrian Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal Monday, had called on Syria to implement UN Resolutions 1595 and 1644 "without any preconditions." Mubarak is due to get, from Al-Siniora, the Lebanese attitude with regard to this issue after getting from Al-Assad the Syrian attitude in this connection. (end) an.

On Lebanon's Stability
Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat - 12/01/06//
The least that may be deduced from targeting municipal policemen doing their job in a Lebanese town, close to the capital, is that the perpetrators have a program. The perpetrators belong to a military base for the "General Command" whose leaders keep on declaring their non-Lebanese alliances and goals that are attached thereto. If it is naïve to believe that the two injured policemen were "operatives" for Israel, then it is also naive to believe that the presence of this military base has anything to do with the confrontation with Israel or the Palestinian program of the "General Command".
With the incident taking place only few days after discovering arms smuggling from a Palestinian camp in northern Lebanon, by sea, to the Lebanese heartland, the use of these arms would probably be only similar to their use in Naameh. This means that Palestinian weapons outside camps will only be exploited in internal Lebanese issues especially that the Lebanese situation is entering quasi fundamental debates, regarding constitutional agreements stemming from the Taef Accord, the role of the State, the limits of the roles and sizes of the sects.
Consequently, defending these weapons, regardless of the strength of arguments revealing Israeli hostility against the Palestinian people and the Israeli appetite to swallow Arab land, does not fall away from the pre-designed Lebanese program pushing towards undermining stability as a prelude to switch roles.
In light of the internal congestion and the status quo of the governmental crisis, initially stemming from the disagreement between the Lebanese government and "Hezbollah", the ally of the "General Command" and other factions clinging to weapons outside camps, the will to trigger an armed confrontation may be aimed at wiping out the remaining hope of a self-driven Lebanese stability, i.e. re-exposing the country to a crisis that may be much stiffer than the ones witnessed before.
Arab intervention may be needed, immediately and urgently, to inquire about the program that is linked to the Palestinian weapons and their purpose. Wishing stability for Lebanon and supporting its government may remain without real effect as long as the situation on the ground is still volatile. People concerned with this stability must also solicit effective guarantees to extinguish the spark.
The Secretary General of the Arab League, Mr. Amr Moussa, should have been in Beirut and Damascus to clarify that stability in the region is a one and indivisible. This time, the spark that would set fire to Lebanon will neither benefit Syria nor the region, especially at a stage where search is ongoing for solutions in the framework of the international investigation in Hariri's assassination, because the International Community is watching, with the strength of its decisions, what is going on in Lebanon. The IC knows the strings that are stirring tension and jeopardizing stability in Lebanon, as it grasps well the meaning of having the weapons of one faction brandished in the face of the others.

LEBANON: Trial of human rights defender postponed
BEIRUT, 12 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - The trial of a prominent human rights lawyer due to appear in a Beirut court earlier this week has been adjourned to 20 March due to procedural errors.
Muhammad Moghraby was accused of "slandering the army establishment and its officers" after delivering a speech to a European Parliament delegation in Belgium on 4 November 2003. In the speech, Moghraby criticised Lebanon’s military-court system and the inadequate legal training provided to judges.
He also denounced the alleged ill-treatment and torture employed by military courts to extract confessions from suspects.
“Moghraby was not legally summoned,” said his lawyer, Fouad Sfeir. “They [the authorities] did not use legal procedures."
Sfeir explained that the prosecution had wrongly accused Moghraby of committing the alleged “crime" on Lebanese territory. "They don't even know what they are talking about," the lawyer said.
Under Lebanese law, any attempt to undermine the respect due to the nation and its institutions is a crime. Human rights activists, however, say that security forces use the law to conduct arbitrary arrests.
After the withdrawal of Syrian troops in April 2005 after 30 years of control over Lebanon, many hoped that national institutions would become more democratic.
"But it’s still the same old mentality," complained Sfeir. "From a political point of view, no change has happened in these institutions – military or judicial."
If found guilty, Moghraby could be sentenced with up to three years' imprisonment.
Local and international human rights groups, meanwhile, have called for the government to drop the charges.
In a statement issued last week, human rights watchdog Amnesty International defended Moghraby, saying he was simply exercising his right to freedom of expression. The organisation pointed out that such freedoms were guaranteed by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Lebanon is a party.
It also stated its concern that the case against Moghraby comes within “a pattern of harassment” against him, possibly related to his work in defence of human rights.
"It’s not the first time they tried to prosecute me; it might be something like the ninth," said Moghraby.
No comments on the case have been available from the government.

Syria says U.N. investigators cannot quiz Assad
Thu Jan 12, 2006 -By Nadim Ladki- BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.N. investigators probing former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri's killing cannot question Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Damascus said on Thursday.
But Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah said Syria would still cooperate with the inquiry and sources close to the probe said four Syrians would be questioned in Vienna next week.
The U.N. Security Council has threatened Syria with "further action" if it did not fully cooperate with the inquiry into the February 14 assassination of Hariri in a Beirut truck bombing.
Former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam has accused Assad of ordering the killing. The inquiry has implicated Syrian officials and loyal Lebanese security chiefs in the murder.
Asked if Syria rejected a meeting between Assad and the investigators, Dakhl-Allah told Egyptian radio: "Certainly, because the issue is related to Syria's sovereignty."
"Syria is committed to its independence and sovereignty. This is a red line that cannot be crossed," Dakhl-Allah added.
The interview was monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Asked about his remarks, Dakhl-Allah told Reuters it was taking it out of context to say Assad refused to meet the inquiry team and suggested that he was willing to receive a visit so long as it did not represent a breach of sovereignty.
"There is a difference between a questioning and an audience. The president receives visitors from Syria and outside Syria," he said.
"Syria reaffirms the principle of cooperation with the international investigation committee on the principle that any request it presents should be based on acknowledged legal foundations and international immunities," he told Reuters.
He repeated Syria's demand that it signs a legal framework with the inquiry "that entails the procedures of dealing with Syria at all levels with affirmation on respecting Syria's sovereignty".
KHADDAM'S CHARGE
The U.N. team conducting the inquiry into Hariri's death has been trying to interview Assad. Diplomats had said previously that the Syrian leader had refused.
Syria has strongly denied any role in Hariri's killing.
Asked if he thought Assad was directly responsible for Hariri's killing, the former vice president Khaddam, now based in Paris, told Britain's Sky Television: "In my belief, yes, my personal belief is that he ordered it."
"But at the end of the day there is an investigation. They must give the final decision."
Lebanon's staunchly anti-Syrian politician Walid Jumblatt said Syria's refusal for Assad questioning was serious.
"It is like he is trying to say he has nothing to do with it and that he does not control his security agencies," he told Reuters. "I never thought that Bashar al-Assad is innocent."
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened on Wednesday to send the Hariri inquiry back to the Security Council if Syrian "obstruction" continued.
Sources familiar with the inquiry said it would question four Syrians, including the former chief of intelligence in Lebanon Lieutenant General Rustom Ghazali, in Vienna on Monday.
Investigators had already questioned him and identified him as a suspect.
The four also include Hosam Hosam, a witness who had implicated Syrian officials in the assassination but who later fled Beirut for Syria, where he said his accusations were false.
The inquiry team requested last month to interview Assad, his foreign minister, Farouq al-Shara, and other officials.
Diplomats have said Syria has indicated Shara will be allowed to meet the inquiry. He will not be among those questioned next week, the sources said.
Syria was the dominant force in Lebanon since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. It ended its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April amid international outcry over Hariri's murder.
(Additional reporting by Alaa Shahine in Beirut, Inal Ersan in Damascus, Amil Khan in Cairo and London newsroom)


SYRIA: Year in Brief 2005 - A chronology of democratic developments
DAMASCUS, 12 Jan 2006 (IRIN) -
2000
June 2000 - President Hafez al-Assad dies of heart failure after 30 years as president, ushering in a new political age. The Regional Command of the ruling Ba’ath party nominates al-Assad’s son, Bashar, for president. The national constitution is amended to lower the age requirement for president to allow Bashar to stand.
July 2000 - Bashar al-Assad is elected president in a national referendum, winning 97 percent of the vote. In an inaugural address, he pledges to reform the state-run economy and reject western-style democracy.
September 2000 - Syrian intellectuals issue the "Statement of 99," which calls for democratic reform.
November 2000 – President al-Assad pardons 600 political prisoners, from a political prisoner count then estimated at 1500.
2001
January 2001 - A thousand intellectuals sign a petition demanding democratic reforms. The statement triggers a government crackdown, bringing an end to the brief thaw in political life, known as the "Damascus Spring," that came in the wake of the presidential succession.
May 2001 - The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which led an armed uprising against the regime in the early 1980s, issues a statement calling for a modern, democratic state, and rejects political violence.
June 2001 - Syrian troops in Lebanon begin their first major redeployment, with some 6,000 pulling out of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. An estimated 20,000 are left in the country.
August-September 2001 - A number of civil society activists, including some members of parliament, are arrested and imprisoned.
September 2001 - President al-Assad calls for international help to eradicate terrorism following attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon in the US, which kill almost 3,000 people. Al Queda claims responsibility for the attacks.
November 2001 - A further 122, mainly Islamist, political prisoners are granted an amnesty.
2002
March 2002 - President al-Assad travels to Lebanon to meet Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, the first visit by a Syrian head of state to that country since 1975.
April 2002 - A second major withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon takes place. President al-Assad rejects a proposal by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, during an unscheduled trip to Damascus, of a new Arab-Israeli summit.
May 2002 - The US adds Syria to its list of "Axis-of-Evil" states, which Washington claims are deliberately seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction.
2003
February 2003 - A third major withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon leaves an estimated 16,000 troops stationed in that country.
March 2003 - A US-led coalition invades Iraq with the aim of toppling Ba’athist President Saddam Hussein. Within days, the oil pipeline between Kirkuk in northern Iraq and the Syrian port of Banyas is destroyed by US forces, cutting off an estimated 150-200,000 barrels a day of oil into Syria.
President al-Assad criticises the invasion, saying it serves Israel’s interests. He goes on to predict that the US will be unable to pacify Iraq.
April 2003 - Washington accuses Damascus of aiding the transit of foreign fighters into Iraq and demands Syrian cooperation.
May 2003 - In Damascus, US Secretary of State Colin Powell says a US war with Syria is "not on the table," confirming that al-Assad had promised to close the offices of Palestinian militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
July 2003 - The UNDP annual Human Rights Development Report on global economic and social development ranks Syria 110th place –down from 97th in 2001 – out of 175 countries.
September 2003 - The US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq announces that 123 of 248 "foreign fighters" captured in the country are Syrian.
October 2003 - Israel attacks an alleged Islamic Jihad camp near Damascus in a missile attack, its first strike inside Syria since the 1973 war. Syria seeks a UN resolution condemning the attack, to no avail.
November 2003 - The Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act is passed overwhelmingly on Capitol Hill. The act threatens Damascus with sanctions if it continues its alleged support of terrorist groups; maintains its military presence in Lebanon; pursues weapons-of-mass-destruction programmes; or engages in actions aimed at undermining US efforts to stabilise and rebuild Iraq.
Syria ranks 155th out of 166 countries in the second annual index on media freedom, issued by Reporters without Borders, down from 126th previously.
December 2003 - The EU and Syria agree on a free trade agreement worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Syrian exporters, although the deal has yet to be ratified by EU member states. US President George Bush signs the Syrian Accountability Act into law.
2004
February 2004 - A further 120 Islamist and Iraqi Ba’athist political prisoners are released. President al-Assad abolishes the Economic Security Courts, in place since 1977, which try defendants under emergency laws that deprive them of their constitutional rights.
March 2004 - Nearly 100 protesters demanding democratic reform are arrested outside parliament in Damascus but released soon after. In the north-eastern city of Qamishli, riots between rival Kurdish and Arab football fans leave 25 people dead after security services intervene. Hundreds of Kurds are imprisoned.
May 2004 - Bush implements selected provisions of the Syrian Accountability Act, banning all exports to Syria except food and medicine and freezing the US-based assets of Syrians associated with terrorist organisations; the development of WMD; the occupation of Lebanon; or efforts to undermine stability in Iraq.
June 2004 - Bush and French President Jacques Chirac meet in Paris to discuss a possible UN resolution on Syria.
August 2004 - Rafik Hariri, five-time Lebanese prime minister, meets President al-Assad in Damascus and is told to drop his opposition to Syria’s role in Lebanese politics. The Lebanese parliament subsequently amends the constitution to grant Pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud a three-year extension of his term.
September 2004 - The UN Security Council, led by the US and France, passes Resolution 1559, calling for a "free and fair election process" in Lebanon, the disarmament of all Lebanese militias and the withdrawal of "all remaining foreign forces." Syria subsequently withdraws some 3,000 of its soldiers from Lebanon, the fifth major redeployment since 2000.
October 2004 - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan singles out the Syrian military as "the only significant foreign forces deployed in Lebanon," and cites Damascus’s admission of "a substantial presence of non-uniformed military intelligence officials" in Lebanon.
On the same day, Druze MP Marwan Hamadi, who had resigned his cabinet post to protest Lebanese President Lahoud's three-year term extension, is seriously injured by a car bomb. The bombing represents the first reported assassination attempt on a senior Lebanese official since 1989.
President al-Assad calls resolution 1559 a "flagrant interference in the affairs of Lebanon" and denies "Syrian hegemony" in Lebanon.
2005
January 2005 - Waleed Mualem, former ambassador to Washington, is sworn in as Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister with a mandate to institutionalise Syria’s role in Lebanon, taking some control from Rustom Ghazali, Syria’s then head of security in that country.
February 2005 - Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is killed, along with 22 others, by a massive explosion in Beirut. On the same day, Asef Shawkat takes over as head of Syrian Military Intelligence upon the retirement of Hassan al-Khalil. Hariri's funeral, attended by hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, turns into an outpouring of anger against Syria, receiving massive coverage in the western media. Pro-Syrian Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami resigns amid the anti-Syrian furore.
March 2005 - President al-Assad tells parliament that Syrian troops will begin a complete withdrawal from Lebanon. An estimated 800,000 people, mostly Lebanese Shi’ites, flood central Beirut in a huge pro-Syrian rally organised by Shi’ite militia Hezbollah. In Syria, tens of thousands rally in support of their president’s stance.
Later, more than a million anti-Syrian protestors stage the largest demonstration in Lebanon's modern history, as Syrian intelligence agents vacate their Beirut headquarters.
Shortly afterwards, a series of bombs go off in the Christian suburbs of Beirut, killing three and wounding dozens.
An initial UN fact-finding mission concludes that "the Government of Syria bears primary responsibility for the political tension that preceded the [Hariri] assassination."
April 2005 - The UN Security Council issues resolution 1595, which provides for an independent commission based in Lebanon to assist the Lebanese criminal investigation into the Hariri killing. The last Syrian soldiers leave Lebanon.
May 2005 - Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian and staunch rival of Syria, returns to Beirut after 14 years of exile. The first of a series of parliamentary elections hand all 19 seats in Beirut to supporters of Sa’ad Hariri, son of the slain prime minister. Hariri’s block goes on to win 72 out of 128 seats in parliament.
June 2005 - Samir Qaseer, a prominent anti-Syrian journalist for independent daily An-Nahar, is killed in a car bombing in Beirut. George Hawi, the Christian and anti-Syrian former leader of the Lebanese Communist Party, is also killed in a Beirut car bomb. Both killings are popularly blamed on Damascus, which staunchly denies responsibility.
July 2005 - Elias Murr, President Lahoud’s son-in-law and a pro-Syrian Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, survives a bomb attack. The attack is the first on a pro-Syrian Lebanese official since Resolution 1559 was adopted by the UN Security Council in 2004.
Later, another bomb explodes on Mono Street, the centre of nightlife in Christian East Beirut, just hours after the departure of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
August 2005 - President al-Assad says Syria has "nothing to do" with the Hariri assassination, reiterating his certainty that the Syrian security services were not involved. At the request of a UN investigation headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, Lebanese authorities detain four pro-Syrian security chiefs who served in Lebanon at the time of the killing.
September 2005 - Mehlis meets with Syrian officials responsible for security in Lebanon. Broadcaster Mae Shadiak, who worked for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation and who presented programmes critical of Syria, is maimed by a car bomb in Beirut.
October 2005 - The UN Security Council adopts resolution 1636, threatening Syria with "further action" after noting the conclusion of an initial report by the Mehlis investigation that that the decision to kill Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials."
The resolution demands that Damascus arrest and make available for questioning suspects in the case. Assef Shawkat, President al-Assad’s brother-in-law and Head of Syrian Military Intelligence, and Mahar al-Assad, the president’s brother and head of the powerful Republican Guards, are named in a leaked version of the report as having planned the assassination.
Shortly afterward, Ghazi Kanaan, Syria’s interior minister and head of intelligence in Lebanon for two decades, is found dead in his office. A 24-hour official inquiry by the Attorney General rules the death a suicide.
November 2005 - In a rare, nationally broadcast speech, President al-Assad strikes a defiant tone: "Resistance has a price and chaos has a price, but the price of resistance is much less than the price of chaos…If they believe they can blackmail Syria, we will tell them they have the wrong address," he says.
Some 190 political prisoners, the majority of whom are members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, are released after a presidential pardon which the state news agency SANA says is meant to "fortify national unity."
December 2005 - Syria is widely blamed for the killing of Gibran Tueni, the publisher of An-Nahar, a prominent MP and vocal critic of Syria’s role in Lebanon, who dies after his car is blown off a mountain pass by a roadside bomb east of Beirut.
A day later, a second report from UN investigators finds that Syria has burned intelligence documents relating to Lebanon and attempted to hinder the UN inquiry. It also finds further evidence of Syrian involvement in the Hariri assassination.
Five of the six Syrian security officials requested to be interviewed as part of the inquiry are made available by Damascus.
Former Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam goes into exile in Paris, saying that President al-Assad and other top officials had threatened Hariri before his death. Damascus denies the claims, condemning Khaddam as a traitor to Syria.
 

Must-See Hezbollah TV: Part II
The MEMRI Report
By STEVEN STALINSKY
January 11, 2006
One of the most authoritative books written on terrorist groups operating in America, Steven Emerson's "American Jihad," has asserted that Hezbollah is active in American cities, including Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. Most notable was a Hezbollah cell operating in Charlotte, N.C. It was taken down following an FBI sting in July 2000 whereby 18 people were charged. According to the indictment, they were guilty of providing training, communication equipment, and explosives to Hezbollah, "in order to facilitate its violent attacks."
Hezbollah does maintain an elaborate network in America. Staff from its television network Al-Manar have lived and been educated here, including a translator, Mohammad Abdullah, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts. Al-Manar also reportedly has a Washington-based correspondent named Muhammad Dalbah.
Al-Manar's Web site, www.manartv.com, is registered in Seattle, Wash., by a company called eNom, with Internap Network Operations. Previously, the Web site was hosted in New Jersey. According to a May 31, 2005, report in the St. Petersburg Times, it was taken down temporarily but was up again a week later with another provider. Al-Manar Webmaster Mohammed Obeid explained: "Companies that do hosting for us are getting afraid of the consequences by the U.S."
Anti-American figures are occasionally interviewed on Al-Manar from Washington. For example, the editor in chief of the Washington-based Middle East Magazine, Ahmad Yusuf, appeared on December 30, 2004, and said Muslims were not involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001. He called them a grand scheme designed by Israelis and American right-wing forces, including "evangelical Christians." He also said the American government itself attacked Pearl Harbor as an excuse to enter War World II.
In its broader strategy to reach out to Americans, Al-Manar has been useful to Hezbollah. During the last two years, delegations from families of victims of the September 11 attacks, along with members of the Presbyterian Church, have appeared on the channel in meetings with the terror organization. In one instance, the deputy leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Nabil Qauq, called President Bush's and America's "aggressive inclination a real danger to all monotheistic religions." A Presbyterian elder, Ronald Stone, stood at Mr. Qauq's side and said, "We treasure the precious words of Hezbollah and your expression of goodwill toward the American people."
In May 2004, Al-Manar invited foreign college students studying in Lebanon, from countries such as Australia, Russia, and America, to participate in a documentary in support of Hezbollah. Three American students took part, including an American University of Beirut graduate student, Stephanie Tournear. She was quoted in the Daily Star as saying, "It's a shame you can't state your opinion or observations regarding Hezbollah in the U.S." Another American student who would not be identified said, "I decided not to be involved in the documentary, as it could have security and employment implications for me upon return to the U.S."
In an important step in the war on terror, the State Department added Al-Manar to its "Terrorism Exclusion List" in December 2004 for incitement to terrorism. Among other things, the designation means that anyone working for or helping the network can be barred from America.
Yet Al-Manar maintains vocal Arab and Muslim-American supporters. Osama Siblani, publisher of Dearborn Michigan's Arab American News, which according to its Web site, "is the largest, oldest, and most respected Arab American newspaper in the United States" was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, "I disagree with the State Department that it [Al-Manar] incites violence. ... By that standard, they should shut Fox News for inciting against Muslims." Texas Muslims for Islamic Change issued a statement that it was "dismayed at this development and considers it to be part of the American government's assault on constitutional rights" adding, "to date we have not seen properly documented evidence brought forward that would support the State Department's claim that Al-Manar 'preaches violent and hatred' or 'serves to incite ... terrorist violence.'"
Since it has been put on the State Department's terror list, the station has continued to attack America, describing it as a "plague" with commentators calling for jihad against the country. As Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Nasrallah, declared to a rally of thousands yelling "Death to America," covered live on Al-Manar in February 2005: "We consider the current administration an enemy of our [Islamic] nation. ... Our motto, which we are not afraid to repeat year after year is 'Death to America.'" Next week's column will focus on anti-American incitement on Al-Manar.
**Mr. Stalinsky is the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Lebanon's bishops urge government leaders to strive for stability
Posted on January 12, 2006
Lebanon's Maronite Catholic bishops urged government officials to work toward strengthening stability in the country and said recent allegations about Syria's involvement in the assassination of a former Lebanese leader demonstrate the strong influence Syrian intelligence and military have wielded in Lebanon.
"The series of bomb explosions and assassinations which occurred in Lebanon last year spread a heavy atmosphere of fear and caution throughout the country," said the Maronite Council of Bishops in a statement following their monthly meeting.
"The Lebanese authorities should exert their utmost to resolve this atmosphere, which has greatly damaged the country on all levels, especially the economy." The bishops also referred to the recent statements made by a former Syrian vice president alleging that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad had personally threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri before Hariri's assassination.
The bishops said the allegation "brought to light the great effect which the Syrian military and intelligence presence had in shaking the bases upon which stands the Lebanese state. Nevertheless, it is a statement which should inspire the authorities in both countries to establish true relations that will yield a benefit for both peoples." The council also denounced the crises in Lebanon's Parliament, in which Shiite ministers suspended their participation in the government in early December to protest a call for an international investigation into the assassinations targeting anti-Syrian political figures and journalists. This "is not a sign of health," the bishops said. "It shows that official institutions in the country are not working properly, as commanded by duty and realism".
" They urged an agreement "for the benefit of the whole homeland." Commenting on the economic crises in Lebanon, the bishops urged officials to "seriously address the economic situation, the living conditions and the decrease in job opportunities." The country cannot afford this, the bishops said, "as long as the security situation is a failure and does not inspire tranquility." They also appealed to the authorities to rely on competence rather than nepotism in appointing officials. "Let us strengthen our internal unity and establish our relations among ourselves and with our neighbors, to whom many historical and geographical links attach us," the bishops said.

Rice issues stern warning to Syria
Thursday 12 January 2006
The United States has threatened to take Syria back before the UN Security Council if it does not help the international inquiry into the murder of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, issued a stern new warning on Wednesday to the Damascus government as Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz took charge of the UN investigation into the assassination of al-Hariri in Beirut in February 2005.
Rice launched a broad attack on Syria, accusing it of creating an "atmosphere of fear" in Lebanon to maintain its influence in its small neighbour.
"The United States has grave and continuing concerns about Syria's destabilising behaviour and sponsorship of terrorism," she said in a statement.
Rice said Syria has "failed" to implement five UN Security Council resolutions over the assassination.
"Syria must cease obstructing the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Hariri and instead cooperate fully and unconditionally, as required by UN Security Council resolutions."
No compromises
Rice continued: "We call upon the Syrian regime to respond positively to the requests of UN Independent International Investigation (UNIIIC). We intend to refer this matter back to the Security Council if Syrian obstruction continues.

"The United States stands firmly with the people of Lebanon in rejecting any deals or compromises that would undermine the UNIIC investigation, or relieve Syria of its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions.
Rice mentioned Gebran Tueni'skilling in her speech on Syria
"We are firmly committed to seeking justice and pursuing the investigation to its ultimate conclusion."
The UN investigation has already implicated Syrian officials in the killing but this has been strongly denied by the Damascus government.
Also on Wednesday, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, named Serge Brammertz, 43, as the new head of UNIIIC after a meeting with the Belgian prosecutor.
Brammertz, currently deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), replaces German investigator Detlev Mehlis in charge of the inquiry.
UN mission
A UN spokesman said Brammertz would head to Beirut "as soon as is practicable" and that Annan would soon send a mission to Lebanon to help authorities "identify the nature and scope of the international assistance needed for those charged with the crime to be tried by a tribunal of an international character". Mehlis has released two reports on the murder in Beirut, implicating Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officers and casting doubt on Damascus' cooperation with the UN probe.
Mehlis said Syria was behind al- Hariri's murder last year In an interview with a Lebanese newspaper last month, he unequivocally accused Syria of being behind the car bombing that killed al-Hariri last year.
Last month, the Security Council passed a resolution endorsing a six-month extension of the murder probe and renewing its call for Syria's full cooperation with the investigation.
The resolution also authorised technical assistance to Lebanon to help authorities probe recent murders of anti-Syrian politicians.The other murders were referred to by Rice when she accused Syria of seeking to maintain its influence in Lebanon.
Continuing assasinations
Rice said: "Continuing assassinations in Lebanon of opponents of Syrian domination, including most recently the murder of journalist and member of parliament Gebran Tueni on December 12, 2005, create an atmosphere of fear that Syria uses to intimidate Lebanon.
"Syria must cease this intimidation and immediately come into compliance with all relevant Security Council resolutions," she said. "The United States stands firmly with the people of Lebanon in rejecting any deals or compromises that would undermine the UNIIC investigation"
Rice also reaffirmed calls for the implementation of UN resolution 1559, which includes the disarmament and disbanding of Hizb Allah and other militias.
"Syria's continuing provision of arms and other support to Hizb Allah and Palestinian terrorist groups serves to destabilise Lebanon, makes possible terrorist attacks within Lebanon, from Lebanese territory, and impedes the full implementation of Security Council resolutions," she said. "As Resolution 1559 demands, Syria must once and for all end its interference in the internal affairs of Lebanon."

Saudi Chains of Oppression
By Jamie Glazov-FrontPageMagazine.com | January 11, 2006
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dr. Ali H. Alyami, Executive Director of The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC.
FP: Dr. Ali H. Alyami, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Alyami: Thanks for inviting me, Jamie
FP: Your Center is doing impressive work in informing the public and our leaders about the current situation in Saudi Arabia and in working toward a new democratic political structure for that country.
I would like to talk to you today about the Saudi tyranny and the steps that can be taken to democratize the nation in a real way. First, let’s talk a bit about your background. You were born and raised in Saudi Arabia. Tell us a bit about your youth and how it shaped your intellectual journey.
Alyami: I was born into a semi-nomadic environment. Life was tough, but rich in values. There were no schools to speak of at the time, so learning was very limited. There were no role models to emulate either.
FP: Ok, expand a bit on your experiences and observations growing up in Saudi Arabia – especially in terms of the place of women in the society.
Alyami: I grew up in the southern part of the country. Women were working alongside men. They did not wear the dark abayah, the black cloak. Women did not cover their faces and girls did not cover their hair before they get married. There were lively gender interactions, discussions, consultations, sharing of ideas and very relaxed social mingling.
This environment started to change when the Saudi-Wahhabi men strengthened their presence and implemented their austere religious and tyrannical political rules on the southern region. The exclusion of Saudi women from the decision-making process and participation in the building of their country’s institutions, especially the educational curriculum, is one of the reasons extremist ideologues teach school children hate of other people, their religions and democratic values.
FP: Tell us a bit about the Wahhabis and why they were able to gain power and why they are so influential today.
Alyami: Wahhabism is a revisionist religious movement predicated on the austere Hanbali brand of Islam. The movement was named after its religious extremist founder, Mohammed Ibn Abdul Wahhab who was infatuated with religious domination under the guise of purifying Muslims whom he believed to have had strayed too far from the straight path. Abdul Wahhab heard of a prominent chief of a small tribe in Nejd, Central Arabia, by the name of Mohammed Ibn Saud who was aspiring for an economic and political domination over the areas of Arabia where trade, agriculture, and water were thriving and in abundance in comparison with the arid and poor areas of his region.
The two men formed an alliance (in or around 1744) with the intent of conquering other tribes, confiscate their land, convert them to Wahhabism, and kill those who resisted. From what is known about the Saudi-Wahhabi religious, economic, and political movement, its executers left a trail of death, looting and destruction. After almost two hundred years of wars with other tribes, the Saudi-Wahhabi allies prevailed and declared their state in 1932 which they named after the Saudi clan, Saudi Arabia. The Saudi wing was given the authority over the economic, political and security operation and the Wahhabis were put in charge of the religious, social and educational institutions. This division of powers between two clans and their total control over every aspect of the Saudi people's lives are the biggest obstacle to political participation, empowerment of women and development of democratic and tolerant institutions.
FP: What is the impulse to marginalize and disempower women? What are its sources? And why do you think misogyny is so inter-related with tyranny in general?
Alyami: Without defending or justifying the Saudi system of the dehumanization and nationalization of women, subjugation of women existed through human history. Misogyny comes from “misein” a Greek term for hate of women “gyne.” Discriminations against and humiliation of women can be found in every major religious books and in every culture, but nothing is as severe, destructive and damaging as the Saudi-Wahhabi inhumane exclusion of women, especially at this stage of human history. The sources of the exclusion of Saudi women can be found in religion, tradition and man fear of women empowerment. Sadly, in the Saudi state, segregation of and discrimination against women are institutionalized and reinforced on daily basis.
Contrary to the Saudi ruling family's repugnant claims that the causes of marginalizing Saudi women is religious and tradition; it is more economic and political plot. It's divide, conquer, turn the population against each other and exonerate the system of its full responsibilities toward all of its citizens. The government's owned and operated political, educational, social, religious and economic institutions are designed to deny women the rights to be treated as full citizens.
FP: What kind of democratic reforms are badly needed in Saudi Arabia today?
Alyami: There needs to be transformation of the Saudi political, economic, religious, social, and educational institutions. Presently, all powers and pillars of oppression reside in the hands of the Saudi ruling family and its religious extremist supporters. Without public active political participation, the same extremists will keep doing what they have done for the last eighty years and the results will be devastating for the people of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and the international community, especially the US.
FP: Would you say that the roots of the terror war reside in Saudi Arabia?
Alyami: Ideologically, I would say Saudi Arabia is the major source of terror incitements and probably financing. Even though, the Saudi government, ruling princes, have deleted some anti-Semitic and anti-Christian hate phrases from its school curriculum, the fact remains that hate for non-Muslims and Muslim minorities are very strong in Saudi schools, mosques, media and living rooms. Without drastic political, educational, economic transformation of all Saudi institutions and empowerment of women, Saudi Arabia will remain the hotbed for extremism, terrorism and incitements.
FP: Is Saudi reform today real or artificial? Is it designed for political participation or to strengthen the status quo?
Alyami: The Saudi reform is mostly done to appease the system’s critics, especially the US, whose intense pressure is necessary if any meaningful reforms in Saudi Arabia are to take place. The Saudi reforms hitherto have been artificial, meaningless, misleading and designed to strengthen the status quo and neutralize the Saudi reformers’ efforts to expose the tyrannical policies of the Saudi ruling princes. An example of the Saudi reform duplicity is the partial municipal elections, which ended in April 2004. Only half of the candidates were allowed to run for office. The other half is to be chosen by the government. The government scrutinized all candidates and anyone who was perceived to be a potential non-conformist was eliminated.
The voted-in candidates were elected by less than 10% of the population. This is because women were barred from voting and so was everyone below the age of 21, the arms and security forces. The 10% who were allowed to vote are mostly members of the society who have already bought into and support the system as is. The elected candidates were told to wait until the government decides what to do with them. They waited for eight months and were told that they can only be another government’s observers. They have no power to enact and laws or even ask for anything from the central or local government officials. They were assigned the tough job of sending their complaints to the proper authorities. In short, the government created another agency to strengthen its grip on every corner of the country.
In Washington and in European capitals, the elections in Saudi Arabia were a milestone of more good things to fellow. This optimism is based on wishful thinking and avoidance of calling the Saudi elections by their true name, deceptive, flawed and designed to paint a positive image of a system that is anti-democracy and among the most violators of basic human rights. All a person has to do is look at the Mijles al-Shurah, Consultative Council. It was established in the early 90s and still yet to be anything other than a rubber stamp. It has no power to do anything other than meeting and praising the king and his family.
FP: Paint us a portrait of the persecution and oppression women in Saudi Arabia suffer today.
Alyami: The best person to be asked would be a Saudi woman. However, most Saudi women are still considered property. They still have to get male approval to travel, to open a bank account, to visit neighbors and even to deliver their babies in hospitals. Only six percent of able Saudi women are working in segregated areas and are not allowed to work at night for fear of sexual encounters.
FP: If you were to give the Bush administration advice on policy toward Saudi Arabia what would you recommend?
Alyami: Contrary to President Bush's bashers, he of all American Presidents has been able to change the political landscape in the Arab and Muslim countries. There is no more evidence of this than in Saudi Arabia. Bush’s public pressure on the Saudi princes to share power with their oppressed citizens have empowered Saudi democratic men and women reformers to speak up and demand fundamental changes in their politically stagnant society. My recommendation would be to continue public demands and pressure on the Saudi ruling family to share power with educated, democratic and tolerant Saudi men and women or step aside and let the people rule themselves. There are alternatives to the present system that can be put in place. Millions of educated Saudi citizens are capable of doing superior a job than the geriatric and uneducated princes who are in charge now.
FP: Mr. Alyami, thank you for joining us today and keep up the great work.
Alyami: Thank you for having me and for your interest in the important educational work the Center for Democracy and Human rights in Saudi Arabia is doing.
***Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Soviet Studies. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s new book Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of the new book The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
 

Syria In Their Sights
The neocons plan their next “cakewalk.”
Robert Dreyfuss



January 16, 2006 Issue
Copyright © 2006 The American Conservative



It’s happening again. It all sounds depressingly familiar, and it is. The Bush administration accuses the leader of a major Arab country of supporting terrorism and harboring weapons of mass destruction. The stable of neoconservative pundits begins beating the drums of war. American forces begin massing on the country’s border, amid ominous talk of cross-border attacks. Top U.S. officials warn that American patience with the country’s leader is running out, and the United States imposes economic sanctions unilaterally. There are threats about taking the whole thing to the United Nations Security Council. And, in Washington, an exile leader with questionable credentials begins making the rounds of official Washington and finds doors springing open at the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and at Elizabeth Cheney’s shop at the State Department.

This time it is Syria. The pressure is on, and it will likely get a lot worse very soon. On Dec. 15, the second installment of the report by a UN team investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is delivered. The first report, released in October, implicated several members of President Bashar Assad’s family in the Hariri murder, though without hard evidence. It would be wrong, however, to see the Bush administration’s campaign against Syria only through the lens of the Hariri case. Like the attack on Iraq, it is a longstanding vendetta.

Three years ago, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was widely viewed as the first chapter of a region-wide strategy to redraw the entire map of the Middle East. After Iraq, Syria and Iran would be the next targets, after which the oil-rich states of the Arabian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, would follow. It was a policy driven by neoconservatives in and out of the Bush administration, and they didn’t exactly make an effort to keep it secret. In April 2003, in an article in The American Prospect entitled "Just the Beginning," I wrote, "Those who think that U.S. armed forces can complete a tidy war in Iraq, without the battle spreading beyond Iraq’s borders, are likely to be mistaken." The article quoted various neocon strategists who sought precisely that. Among them was Michael Ledeen, the arch-Machiavellian and Iran-Contra manipulator-in-chief, who argued from his perch at the American Enterprise Institute: "I think we’re going to be obliged to fight a regional war, whether we want to or not. As soon as we land in Iraq, we’re going to face the whole terrorist network. It may turn out to be a war to remake the world."

Since then, of course, the conventional wisdom has evolved in a rather different direction. As the war in Iraq bogged down, and as a public outcry developed against the neoconservatives over the bungled war, the belief took hold that the United States had bitten off more than it could chew in Iraq—so that Syria, Iran, and the rest of President Bush’s evildoers can rest easy. According to this theory, the United States no longer has the stomach, or the capability, to spread the war beyond Iraq as originally intended. Our troops are stretched too thin, our allies are reining us in, and cooler heads are prevailing in Washington—or so the theory goes.

But the news from Syria shows that the conventional wisdom is wrong. The United States is indeed pursuing a hard-edged regime-change strategy for Syria. And it isn’t necessarily going to be a Cold War—in fact, it could well get very hot very soon. In Washington, analysts disagree over exactly how far the Bush administration is willing to go in pursuing its goal of overthrowing the Assad government. In the view of Flynt Leverett, a former CIA Syria analyst now at the Brookings Institution, the White House favors a kind of slow-motion toppling. In a forum at Brookings, Leverett, author of Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire, announced his conclusion that Bush was pursuing "regime change on the cheap" in Syria. But others disagree, and believe that Syria could indeed be the next Iraq. For neoconservatives, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. For the rest of us—watching the war in Iraq unfold in horror, lurching toward breakup and civil war—the prospect ought to be both tragic and alarming.

Having ridded itself of one of its own inside neoconservatives, reporter Judith Miller—who once co-authored a book with the always apoplectic Laurie Mylroie, the originator of the novel idea that Saddam Hussein was behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing—the New York Times now warns correctly that any chance for positive change in Syria can only occur "if President Bush rejects the counsel of neoconservative advisers who have learned nothing from Iraq and now dream of overthrowing Mr. Assad with unilateral force." So far, at least, there is no sign that the president has rejected them at all.

The fall of the Assad regime could open Syria, and the region, to widespread instability. "No one knows what is going to come out of it," says Wayne White, the former deputy director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research on Middle East issues. "It’s making me nervous. What, exactly, is 'Syria’? There are cleavages there. The place could just break up." White says that no one knows the extent to which Sunni Islamic radicals have organized themselves in Syria, especially through the Muslim Brotherhood. "There could be a lot more Islamic militancy there than we’re aware of."

For Assad, none of this is exactly a surprise. On March 1, 2003, as U.S. forces massed for the attack on Iraq, Assad addressed an emergency summit meeting of the Arab League. "We are all targeted," he said. "We are all in danger."

On Oct. 6, in his saber-rattling declaration of war against "Islamofascism," President Bush not-so-subtly warned Syria that it might be next. "State sponsors [of terrorism] like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror," said Bush, speaking to the National Endowment for Democracy. "The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they’re equally as guilty of murder. Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization. And the civilized world must hold those regimes to account." Echoing Bush, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad warned bluntly that "our patience is running out with Syria," and like other U.S. officials Khalilzad blamed the Assad government for America’s troubles in Iraq.

Just before the president spoke, according to Knight Ridder, senior Bush administration officials met in a high-level powwow to discuss U.S. options for dealing with Syria. Among the alternatives reportedly discussed at the meeting was "limited military action," and despite the fact that intelligence on Syria’s actual role in supporting the resistance in Iraq is hazy at best, the story, by reporter Warren Strobel, revealed that "one option under consideration was bombing several villages 30 to 40 miles inside Syria that some officials believe have been harboring Iraqi insurgents." On Oct. 15, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration was threatening "hot pursuit" and other attacks into Syrian territory. It added, "A series of clashes in the last year between American and Syrian troops, including a prolonged firefight this summer that killed several Syrians, has raised the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war, according to current and former military and government officials."

Over the past several weeks, U.S. forces in Iraq have conducted massive air and ground attacks in cities along the Iraq-Syria border, in a sweeping offensive in advance of the Dec. 15 election in Iraq. In Syria—whose military is already in turmoil over its hurried evacuation from Lebanon and whose government is rattled to the core because of charges that top Syrian officials may have been involved in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri—the prospect of a second front along its eastern border is raising alarm. Although intelligence analysts assert that Syria could weather a series of limited strikes along its border without undue consequences for the regime, in fact such attacks could have unforeseen results, even if they don’t presage a wider war by the United States. Still, in his Washington Post online column "Early Warning," William M. Arkin wrote on Nov. 8 that the U.S. Central Command has been "directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to prepare a 'strategic concept’ for Syria, the first step in the creation of a full-fledged war plan."

The wider war that the Bush administration seems to be pursuing was telegraphed long ago by the various neocon pundits and prognosticators. Charles Krauthammer used his Washington Post column in March to suggest that the way to advance the "glorious, delicate, revolutionary moment in the Middle East" is to go after Syria. "This is no time to listen to the voices of tremulousness, indecision, compromise, and fear," he wrote. Instead, the Bush administration’s commitment to spreading democracy should take it "through Beirut to Damascus." William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and co-author of The War in Iraq ("The mission begins in Baghdad, but it does not end there"), helpfully suggested some options that the Bush administration is clearly thinking about now. In The Weekly Standard last year, Kristol wrote, "We could bomb Syrian military facilities; we could go across the border in force to stop infiltration; we could occupy the town of Abu Kamal in eastern Syria, a few miles from the border, which seems to be the planning and organizing center for Syrian activities in Iraq; we could covertly help or overtly support the Syrian opposition. ... It’s time to get serious about dealing with Syria as part of winning in Iraq, and in the broader Middle East."

All that is consistent with the neocons’ long-held view about Syria and the region. For years they’ve been calling for regime change in Syria, which was a major target in the now infamous paper written a decade ago by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," prepared as a study-group project for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In it, the authors called for "striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper" as a "prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria’s territorial integrity." Wurmser, a former AEI Middle East specialist, played a key role in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, which helped Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld manufacture false intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Wurmser is currently an aide on Vice President Cheney’s national-security staff.

In 1997, the same circle—Perle, Feith, Ledeen, Wurmser, et al.—created the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon. The USCFL—like the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which involved the same cast of characters—lobbied hard for the so-called Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act (SALSA), which was passed by Congress and signed into law in 2003. It was SALSA that set into motion the Bush administration’s current squeeze on Syria, beginning with limited U.S. economic sanctions on Damascus triggered by the act. One of the chief problems with SALSA, which was opposed by just about all of the foreign-policy professionals in the State Department and among Middle East experts, is that it created a slow-motion confrontation with Syria precisely at the moment when the United States most needed Syrian co-operation both in the war against Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and in helping to stabilize Iraq. "In Iraq, the two countries we most need the help of are Syria and Iran," says Chas W. Freeman. "We’re not trying to involve them. We’re trying to up the ante by confronting Syria and Iran."

Wesley Clark, a retired Army general who served as supreme allied commander in Europe, wants to see the United States engage Syria in a diplomatic dialogue. "The very last thing we need to do is to engage in hot-pursuit raids into Syria," he says.

The fact is, after 2001, Syria worked closely with the United States in tracking down al-Qaeda cells and, according to former U.S. intelligence officials, Syrian intelligence was very helpful. (Perhaps even too helpful, since the United States apparently "rendered" suspects captured in the war on terrorism to Damascus for less-than-civil interrogation by Syrian authorities.) "In the aftermath of 9/11, Syria provided the United States with actionable intelligence on al Qaeda affiliates, as administration officials publicly acknowledge," wrote Flynt Leverett, the former CIA Syria expert. "While I was serving on the National Security Council, this information let U.S. and allied authorities thwart planned operations that, had they been carried out, would have resulted in the deaths of Americans."

Even after the war in Iraq, while some U.S. officials threatened Syria for its alleged, but unproven, support for Iraqi resistance groups, other U.S. officials worked to establish better relations between Washington and Damascus. It isn’t hard to guess which was which: the Bush administration’s neocons wanted a showdown with Syria, while the realists at the CIA and the State Department sought a settlement. The prospects of a U.S.-Syria deal reached their high-water mark in September 2004. During that period, top U.S. officials, including William Burns of the State Department, visited Syria to talk about getting Syria’s help in shutting down the Syria-Iraq border, establishing joint U.S.-Syrian border patrols, and providing Syria with high-tech surveillance gear to help stop the infiltration of Islamist radicals into Iraq. There were rumors everywhere, too, about Syrian-Israeli peace talks over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. And Secretary of State Colin Powell, visiting the region, went so far as to praise what he saw as "positive" news from Syria. "I sense," he said, "a new attitude from the Syrians." So obvious was the effort that Time magazine published a story entitled "Cozying Up to Syria," an idea that seems quaint now.

That all came to a crashing end a few days later after an assassination that stunned the world—no, not Hariri’s, but the murder of Izzedine Sheik Khalil, a top official of Hamas, apparently by Israel’s Mossad, in a huge car bomb in Damascus. It was the latest in a string of Israeli provocations against Syria, including the killing of a Hamas leader in Beirut, an Israeli air force strike at a Palestinian training camp outside Damascus, and Israeli overflights that buzzed the Assad family’s home in Latakia. Not without reason, Syria’s Foreign Minister Farouq Sharaa charged that the Israeli assassination was meant specifically to disrupt the progress in U.S.-Syrian relations. And so it did.

Not coincidentally, the end of the thaw in relations between Washington and Damascus occurred as the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1559, aimed at putting pressure on Syria to end its presence in Lebanon. Along with SALSA, Resolution 1559—which followed a stupid and clumsy attempt by Assad to extend the presidency of the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud of Lebanon—set into motion the train of events that led to Hariri’s assassination on Valentine’s Day 2005. By October 2004, a full-blown crisis between the United States and Syria was underway. Even the Washington Post began calling for war. "Syria’s government has been a longtime sponsor of terrorism, a stockpiler of missiles and chemical weapons, and an unapologetic ally of Islamic extremists; it has allowed hundreds, if not thousands, of insurgents to stream across its borders to fight U.S. forces in Iraq," thundered the Post, though utterly wrong about nearly every one of its charges. Concluded the Post, the United States could no longer tolerate Syria and had to consider "breaking off of relations [and] military retaliation."

Since then, the United States has moved closer and closer to war with Syria. In this history-as-farce rerun of the war with Iraq, there is even a Syrian Ahmad Chalabi, namely Farid al-Ghadry, the founder of the exile Reform Party of Syria, which is mixing it up with a varying cast of characters among Syrian exiles and reformers, from those with democratic ideals all the way to Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood. Earlier this year, Ghadry and a cohort of allies won an audience with a gaggle of top U.S. officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Defense Department.

Virtually no one believes that Ghadry, a U.S. businessman, has any future in Syria. But the astonishing thing about the Bush administration’s destabilization of the Syrian regime is that no one in Washington has any idea who or what might emerge to replace Assad’s government. Asked to guess, most intelligence analysts throw up their hands. Some argue that the most likely heir to a post-Assad Syria would be the Muslim Brotherhood, an underground secret society that has long been at war with the regime in Syria, ever since President Hafez Assad inaugurated a new constitution in the early 1970s that proclaimed Syria to be a secular, socialist republic. But Syria, a nation of just 18 million people, has as many as two million Christians, two million Kurds, and many other non-Sunni minorities—including the ruling Alawite group, to which the family of the president and his chief backers belong. As a result, Syria would not be ruled easily by Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamists.

Meanwhile, the UN investigation into Hariri’s murder is a ticking time bomb for Assad. Already beset by the conflict with Israel, the war in Iraq, and a crisis in Lebanon, Bashar Assad will have to summon all the wiliness of his late father to survive the next few months. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour—who, in parroting the White House line, seemed to be auditioning to reprise the role of Judy Miller in this Middle East war—Assad plaintively pointed out that there is little that Syria can do to stop insurgents from crossing the long desert border between Syria and Iraq, and he added that the United States had failed to control the Iraqi side. "There is nobody on the Iraqi side, neither Americans nor Iraqis," said Assad. (Amanpour was unmoved. "Why cannot your forces go house to house? Why cannot you actively stop this, close it down?") "We are interested in a more stable Iraq," insisted Assad. "[The United States] only talks about a stable Iraq, but the mistakes they make there every day give the opposite result."

Imad Moustapha, Syria’s ambassador to the United States, told the Boston Globe in November that the United States recently refused yet another proposal from Syria to revive co-operation with Damascus on intelligence. "What we see in general is an administration that is categorically refusing to engage with Syria on any level," said Moustapha. "We see an administration that would really love to see another crisis in the Middle East, this time targeting Syria. ... Even before the Iraq war started, they had this grand vision for the Middle East."
Less grand is the vision of Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News host, who ripped a page from Pat Robertson’s assassination handbook. "It’s Bashar’s life," said O’Reilly on Oct. 5. "I mean, we could take his life, and we should take his life if he doesn’t help us out."
_______________________________________________
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. He covers national security for Rolling Stone and writes frequently for The American Prospect, The Nation, and Mother Jones.