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« Reply #255 on Aug 17, 2012, 2:48am » | |
Lebanon aghast as return of sectarian kidnappings raises spectre of civil war
Spillover of Syrian war threatens to unravel regional certainties and exposes fragile foundations of Beirut's postwar settlement
Martin Chulov in Beirut
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 August 2012 20.17 BST
A country born out of crisis and hewn ever since by uncertainty takes a lot to unsettle. But more than 20 years after its civil war ended, Lebanon is again being forced to confront one of its most pervasive fears: sectarian kidnappings.
More than 20 people were kidnapped on Wednesday including a Turk, a Saudi and several Syrians, by members of a prominent Shia family, the Mikdad clan, from the Bekaa valley, not far from the Syrian border.
The men were seized in retaliation to the kidnapping in the past few days of one of their own inside Syria, Hassan Salim al-Mikdad. His captors insist Mikdad is a member of the Lebanese militia and political bloc Hezbollah, a claim the group has strongly denied.
The Mikdad family also confirmed it had kidnapped a Turkish national soon after he arrived at Beirut airport. The man's passport was later given to a local TV station, which broadcast an image. However, Turkish officials are yet to shed light on the claims.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait responded to the mass kidnapping by telling their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately.
Wednesday's developments, and the forced videotaped confessions that accompanied them, have stirred the ghosts of a past that most Lebanese are trying hard to forget. The turmoil in neighbouring Syria is showing that the civil war-era enmity, long since disavowed in Lebanon, remains more of a problem than many here want to acknowledge.
And so, too, do the issues that have plagued Lebanon since its own savage 15-year conflict ran out of steam: a political class that remains implacably divided, a government that cannot assert its sovereignty and an entrenched system of sectarian patronage that cannot allow a representative nation state to rise from the ruins of war.
"I don't want it to become like 1985 again," said Sajida Fahm, in central Beirut. "People want the Sunnis and the Shia to fight again. We can't be led around like this. Where is the state?"
As the Syrian uprising has morphed into full-blown civil war, Lebanon has been fruitlessly looking for ways to safeguard itself from what many people believe will be an inevitable spillover. The giant police state to the east was seen by some Lebanese as a pillar of stability – despite the enormous influence that was inevitably yielded to Syrian officials.
With Syria now teetering, there is a growing fear among all layers of Lebanese society that nothing can be done to save the country from turmoil. And this time, say many Lebanese from all walks contacted in recent weeks, it feels different to the lead-up to the civil war, or any phase of it from its eruption in 1975 to its gradual end in 1990.
Even members of the Lebanese establishment, long accustomed to the byzantine ways of the region and the vagaries of life in a rough neighbourhood, say a potentially historic – and dangerous – shift is underway.
"This is the unravelling of the Sykes-Picot agreement," said Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon's Druze sect, in reference to the secret agreement between the British and French in 1919, which carved up the Levant into spheres of influence in the wake of the Ottoman empire's demise. "We are seeing the end of what was created 90 years ago. The consequences will be very, very, grave unless they are managed properly."
Syria was stitched together as a nation state between the end of the first world war and the start of the second. And Lebanon's development as a country followed roughly the same timeframe.
However, neither state – and especially Lebanon – has ever been truly comfortable in its own borders, or skin. Both are patchworks of sects that have often been at odds with each other and which are very much affected by regional dynamics.
"These agreements are breaking down," said Jumblatt. "The Alawites could move into the north of their country and establish a homeland near Latakia and that would change the situation in Lebanon hugely."
Lebanon's Shias, for decades a minority but now more of a demographic force, are aligned to Syria's Alawites, who are regarded as an offshoot of Shia Islam. Hezbollah, the political bloc that represents most of Lebanon's Shias, is heavily invested in the survival of Syria's leader, Bashar al-Assad, as is the regional Shia heavyweight, Iran.
A potential partition of either country would be a seismic change in the regional dynamic. "There needs to be urgent action," Jumblatt said. "If it doesn't happen, who knows what the consequences could be."
From Beirut's elite, but now largely empty, downtown shopping district to south Lebanon's Shia villages,, it is difficult to find anyone who does not fear what the next six months hold for Lebanon, or to find agreement on who is to blame.
"Something is coming," said Tamir Ali, in the southern city of Tyre. "It will have to break somehow. It could be the Israelis, it could be the Americans, who knows?"
A senior political adviser in Beirut said he feared that Lebanon's much-vaunted resilience may not be able to withstand many months more of tension – let alone a rewriting of the region's boundaries.
"The Shias and Sunnis don't want to fight each other," he said. "I'm convinced of that.
"But where is this leading us? And who can slow the momentum?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug....ings?intcmp=239
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #256 on Aug 17, 2012, 9:10pm » | |
Pussy Riot band members jailed for two years
August 18, 2012
![[image]](http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2012/08/18/1226452/995159-russia-punks-vs-putin.jpg "[image]")
The members of Pussy Riot await their fate in a glass cage inside a Moscow courtroom. The judge said in the verdict that the three band members "committed hooliganism driven by religious hatred''.
A Moscow judge sentenced three members of the provocative punk band Pussy Riot to two years in prison each on hooliganism charges following a trial that drew international outrage as an emblem of Russia’s intolerance of dissent.
The trial sparked a wave of protests around the world in support of the feminist rockers, who have been dubbed prisoners of conscience by international rights group.
Hundreds of Pussy Riot supporters chanted ‘‘Russia without Putin!’’ amid a heavy police presence outside the courtroom, and several opposition leaders were detained.
The three were arrested in March after a guerrilla performance in Moscow’s main cathedral, high-kicking and dancing while singing a ‘‘punk prayer’’ pleading the Virgin Mary to save Russia from Vladimir Putin, who was elected to a third new term as Russia’s president two weeks later.
Judge Marina Syrova said in her verdict that the three band members ‘‘committed hooliganism driven by religious hatred’’ and offended religious believers.
She rejected the women’s arguments that they were protesting the Orthodox Church’s support for Putin and didn’t want to hurt the feelings of believers.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich stood in handcuffs in a glass cage in the courtroom for three hours as the judge read the verdict.
They smiled sadly at the testimony of prosecution witnesses accusing them of sacrilege and ‘‘devilish dances’’ in church. The three women remained calm after the judge announced the sentence.
Someone in the courtroom shouted ‘‘Shame!’’The charges carried the maximum penalty of seven years in prison, although prosecutors had asked for a three-year sentence.
Putin himself had said the band members shouldn’t be judged too harshly, drawing expectations that the band members could be sentenced to the time they already have spent in custody and freed in the courtroom.
Sceptics had warned, however, that a mild sentence would look as if Putin was bowing to public pressure - something he has clearly resented throughout his 12-year rule.
On the street outside, the courtroom, police rounded up a few dozen protesters, including former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who is a leading opposition activist, and leftist opposition group leader Sergei Udaltsov.
Amnesty International strongly condemned the court’s ruling, calling it a ‘‘bitter blow’’ for freedom of expression in Russia.
The Pussy Riot case already has inflicted bruising damage to Russia’s esteem overseas and stoked the resentment of opposition partisans who have turned out in a series of massive rallies since last winter.
It also has underlined the vast influence of the Russian Orthodox church. Although church and state are formally separate, the church identifies itself as the heart of Russian national identity and critics say its strength effectively makes it a quasi-state entity.
Some Orthodox groups and many believers had urged strong punishment for an action they consider blasphemous.
The head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has made no secret of his strong support for Putin, even praising his presidential terms as ‘‘God’s miracle’’ and has described the performance as part of an assault by ‘‘enemy forces’’ on the church.
Kirill avoided talking to the media as he was leaving Warsaw’s Royal Castle following a ceremony in which he and the head of Poland’s Catholic church called for mutual forgiveness and reconciliation.
Microphones were set up for statements in the castle yard and reporters were brought to the site, but Kirill went straight to his car.
Celebrities, including Paul McCartney, Madonna and Bjork, have called for the band members to be freed, and other protests were being timed to just before the verdict or soon afterward.
In the Russian capital, activists put the band’s trademark ski masks, or balaclavas, on several statues across town.Small, but raucous protests were held in a few dozen cities. A few dozen people came out in Barcelona, Spain, a couple hundred in Paris and a handful in Washington.
‘‘This is all nonsense,’’ said Boris Akunin, one of Russia’s best known authors.
‘‘I can’t believe that in the 21st century a judge in a secular court is talking about devilish movements. I can’t believe that a government official is quoting medieval church councils.’’
Before Friday’s proceedings began, defence lawyer Nikolai Polozov said the women ‘‘hope for an acquittal but they are ready to continue to fight.’’
The case comes in the wake of several recently passed laws cracking down on opposition, including one that raised the fine for taking part in an unauthorised demonstrations by 150 times to 300,000 rubles (about $A8600)).
Another measure requires non-government organisations that both engage in vaguely defined political activity and receive funding from abroad to register as ‘‘foreign agents’’.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/pussy-riot-b....l#ixzz23rL12rgf
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #257 on Aug 17, 2012, 10:02pm » | |
South African police say they killed 34 miners in self-defence
AAP
August 17, 2012 11:00PM
![[image]](http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2012/08/17/1226452/959797-south-africa-mine-violence.jpg "[image]")
Policemen in teargas and dust open fire on striking miners at the Lonmin Platinum Mine.
SOUTH Africa's national police chief says her forces opened fire in self-defence after coming under attack by armed mine workers, leaving 34 people dead and 78 injured.
South African president Jacob Zuma has announced an official probe into the deaths, which he said were shocking and unacceptable.
"The militant group stormed toward the police, firing shots and wielding dangerous weapons," Riah Phiyega told a news conference on Friday.
"Police retreated systematically and were forced to utilise maximum force to defend themselves. The total death (toll) of the protesters currently stands at 34, with more than 78 injured."
So far 259 people have been arrested on various charges stemming from the clash on Thursday at the platinum mine run by London-listed Lonmin, she said.
Police played video footage of their efforts to disperse striking miners, including a series of negotiations and crowd-control tactics such as firing teargas, water cannons, stun grenades and rubber bullets.
In one video, an officer begs the miners to disperse, saying: "We are not here to arrest you, our only problem is with the weapons."
Ms Phiyega said police initially tried to break up the crowd into smaller groups to make them easier to disarm, but the miners refused to heed calls to disperse and lay down their weapons.
She insisted this justified the use of force.
"The police started by using minimum force, which is allowed in terms of our policy and the law," she said.
"Only when that did that not stop protesters, we then brought another support," she said. "And therefore I feel strongly and we feel ... that it was justified. We didn't want anyone to die."
But Mr Zuma said there would be a commission of inquiry into the incident.
"We have to uncover the truth about what happened here," he said. "In this regard, I've decided to institute a commission of inquiry. The inquiry will enable us to get to the real cause of the incident and to derive the necessary lessons too.
"It is clear there is something serious behind these happenings and that's why I have taken a decision to establish the commission because we must get to the truth.
"This is unacceptable in our country, which is a country that everyone feels comfortable in. A country with a democracy that everyone envies.
"This is a shocking thing. We do not know where it comes from and we have to address it."
After the extent of the casualties became clear Friday, Mr Zuma cut short his visit to neighbouring Mozambique for a regional summit and flew to Marikana for a briefing from police and other authorities.
He was later expected to visit some of the 78 injured in nearby hospitals.
General Sehlahle Masemola, a crime intelligence official, said police at the scene believed they wouldn't survive if they kept firing rubber bullets.
"For the police to protect themselves and for the police to protect their own colleagues, they realised that the usage of the rubber bullet is not ... applicable and to survive, they escalated the usage of force."
http://www.news.com.au/world/we-shot-in-....v-1226452957479
AND:
17 August 2012 Last updated at 21:49 GMT
South Africa Lonmin mine killings: Zuma announces inquiry
South African President Jacob Zuma has announced an inquiry into violence at a mine in the north-east of the country, calling the deaths there "tragic".
Thirty-four people were killed when police opened fire on striking platinum miners on Thursday.
At least 78 people were injured in the confrontation.
Mr Zuma said he was "saddened and dismayed" at the "shocking" events and offered sincere condolences to all families who had lost loved ones.
He said: "We have to uncover the truth about what happened here. I have decided to institute a commission of inquiry. It will enable us to get to the real cause of the incident and derive the necessary lessons."
The president said his thoughts were with the families of those who had lost their lives but also with the police "who have to intervene in difficult situations".
Mr Zuma added: "Today is not an occasion for blame, finger-pointing or recrimination. Today challenges us to restore calm and to share the pain of the affected families and communities. Today is about reminding ourselves of our responsibility as citizens."
The president said it was a "cornerstone of hard-won democracy" to allow for peaceful protests, but added that today was "a day for us to mourn together as a nation - a day to start rebuilding and healing".
Mr Zuma had cut short his attendance at a regional summit in Mozambique to deal with the crisis.
He will later visit some of injured being treated in hospital.
The violence took place at the Lonmin-owned platinum mine in Marikana.
Some of the strikers' wives gathered near the mine on Friday, chanting anti-police songs and demanding to know what had happened to their husbands.
"Police, stop shooting our husbands and sons," read a banner carried by the women, according to the Associated Press news agency.
'Maximum force'
A strike at the mine began a week ago and had claimed the lives of 10 people, including two police officers, before the incident on Thursday.
Police were then sent to break up 3,000 miners - some armed with clubs and machetes - who had gathered on a hillside overlooking Marikana to call for a pay rise of about $1,000 (£636) a month.
The circumstances that led police to open fire remain unclear, but reports from eyewitnesses suggest the shooting took place after a group of demonstrators rushed at a line of police officers.
Police, armed with automatic rifles and pistols, fired dozens of shots, witnesses said.
Police chief Riah Phiyega said officers "were forced to use maximum force to defend themselves".
She said 259 people had been arrested on various charges.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) accused the police of carrying out a massacre.
"There was no need whatsoever for these people to be killed like that," General Secretary Jeffrey Mphahlele told Reuters news agency.
The miners, who are currently earning between 4,000 and 5,000 rand ($484-$605), say they want their salary increased to 12,500 rand ($1,512).
South Africa is the largest platinum producer in the world and the dispute has already affected production.
Lonmin, the world's third-largest platinum producer, has encountered similar labour disputes at the Marikana mine.
In May 2011, the company sacked some 9,000 employees after what it described at the time as "unprotected industrial action". Lonmin and the NUM said all were later reinstated.
Analysis
Martin Plaut BBC World Service Africa editor
This strike was sparked by a demand for better wages. And - armed with spears and machetes - strikers were in no mood for compromise.
But it goes much deeper than that. The traditional union in the area, the NUM, is a key ally of the African National Congress. Their backing is critical for President Jacob Zuma in his fight to retain his position in the ANC's party elections this December.
Miners accuse their leaders of abandoning their grassroots concerns, focussing instead on politics. So they turned to an alternative union to fight their corner. But - as so often happens in South Africa - this dispute turned violent. Two police had been killed earlier in the week.
The 3,000 police who surrounded the hilltop on which a similar number of miners had gathered were determined not to join their dead comrades. It is in the culture of the force. As one former police commissioner said, they should "shoot to kill" without worrying about what happened after that.
South African commentators are comparing this tragedy to Sharpeville - when the police fired at a crowd in 1960 - leading to the start of the armed struggle against white minority rule. This comparison seems a step too far. But the country is facing the bleakest moment since the end of apartheid.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19301690
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #258 on Aug 17, 2012, 10:23pm » | |
17 August 2012 Last updated at 10:23 GMT
Syria activists 'find 60 bodies in Damascus suburb'
At least 60 bodies have been found in a suburb of Damascus, activists say, following what the opposition described as a "massacre" by government forces.
A poor-quality video posted online showed what appeared to be the charred remains of dozens of people, many with their hands tied behind their backs.
Activists said the bodies were found on Thursday at a rubbish dump outside Qatana, south-west of the capital.
The discovery came as the UN announced the formal end of its observer mission.
The current president of the UN Security Council, Gerard Araud, said the conditions required to extend the mission's mandate beyond midnight on Sunday - a halt to the government's use of heavy weapons and a significant reduction in violence - had not been met.
Kidnappings
Mr Araud also said the Security Council had agreed to back UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's proposal for a liaison office in Syria to support further efforts to end the conflict, which activists say has left at least 21,000 people dead since March 2011.
Russia's permanent representative, Vitaly Churkin, said that in New York on Friday the five permanent members of the Security Council would meet key regional players and international organisations, who agreed on guidelines for a political transition in Geneva in June as part of the so-called Action Group for Syria.
He said he wanted them to make a "joint or parallel appeal to all the parties of the Syrian conflict that they end violence as soon as possible".
Mr Churkin said the appeal should urge both sides to appoint representatives to "negotiate towards a political solution, and in particular towards the establishment of a transitional governing body as provided for in the Geneva document".
As he spoke on Thursday, activists said an estimated 200 people were killed across Syria, as clashes between troops and rebels continued.
The death toll included the 60 reportedly found at Qatana. Activists said they were still trying to find out who the victims in Qatana were and what happened.
They believed government forces had executed the victims before setting their bodies alight, they said.
It is impossible to verify the activists' reports of the alleged massacre, as international media cannot report freely in Syria.
Meanwhile, the wave of kidnappings in Lebanon related to the conflict has continued with reports that two more people have been abducted.
It comes the day after a Shia Muslim clan that had seized a number of Syrian Sunni Muslims and a Turkish citizen said that it would not kidnap any more people.
The Mekdads said they had nothing to do with the new kidnappings, but they are still holding several hostages to try to force the release of one of its family members captured by Syrian rebels in Damascus.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19293304
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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Posts: 50,820
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #259 on Aug 18, 2012, 10:33pm » | |
Julian Assange extradition: Ecuador 'willing to co-operate' with Britain
Pledge on protecting WikiLeaks founder from US could lead to deal, says source as embassy complains of 'intimidating' police
Sam Jones and Rajeev Syal
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 August 2012 19.28 BST
Ecuador is still willing to negotiate with the British government over the fate of Julian Assange, despite the Foreign Office's "threat" to arrest the WikiLeaks founder inside its embassy and the "intimidating" police presence in and around the building, according to a senior Ecuadorean diplomatic source.
The South American country's decision to grant political asylum to the 41-year-old Australian, who faces allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, has provoked a bitter political row between Quito and London.
The source complained that the UK government's written warning that it could use the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 to arrest Assange inside the embassy had been accompanied by a large increase in the number of police officers at the Knightsbridge building.
The police presence, it added, had risen from two or three to around 50, with officers on the embassy's fire escape and at every window. This was described as "an absolutely intimidating and unprecedented use of police" designed to show the British government's desire to "go in with a strong hand".
However, the source said that Quito had been encouraged by a phone call made by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Ecuadorean ambassador on Thursday. "The FCO called the ambassador yesterday to confirm that it still had the will to talk and negotiate, so we'll keep talking," it added.
"The fact that they called the ambassador makes us think that the letter with the threat of using domestic legislation to make an incursion into the embassy and arrest somebody inside was a mistake – as was the intimidating increase in the number of police surrounding the embassy on the same day the letter was delivered."
It stressed that Ecuador was willing to co-operate with the British and Swedish authorities over the matter of Assange's extradition to Sweden. "In the negotiations with the FCO, Ecuador has been proposing that we would be prepared to accept an undertaking from the UK and Sweden that, once Julian Assange has faced the Swedish investigation, he will not be extradited to a third country: specifically the US. That might be a way out of it and Ecuador has always said it does not want to interfere with the Swedish judicial process; we could facilitate it."
The source said the Ecuadorean government had been bolstered by the support it had received since deciding to grant asylum to Assange, adding: "We are moved by the overwhelming level of solidarity that Ecuador now has in the [Latin American] region."
Asked how Assange was coping with the pressure of life in the small embassy, where he has been living for 55 days, the source said: "He's fine. He's not stressed out. Given the fact that he has been under pressure for so long and that his legal fight has gone through so many different levels, I think that for his safety he always had a last resort."
Scotland Yard declined to comment on the policing operation at the embassy, while an FCO source said the letter sent to the Ecuadorean authorities on Wednesday was not menacing and that the rights of the country's officials would continue to be respected by the government.
"The letter was not a threat," said the source. "There had already been many meetings with the Ecuador government. It was just that it was quite clear that they were close to making a decision and we wanted them to know the law. It was merely signposting the fact."
The foreign secretary, William Hague, was informed about diplomatic developments on the Assange case, although a spokeswoman declined to divulge further details, saying: "We are not providing a running commentary."
At a press conference on Wednesday, Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, released details of the contentious letter, which he said was delivered through a British embassy official in Quito.
The letter said: "You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy." It added: "We need to reiterate that we consider the continued use of the diplomatic premises in this way incompatible with the Vienna convention and unsustainable and we have made clear the serious implications that this has for our diplomatic relations."
Patiño said that Ecuador rejected the "explicit threat" made in the letter, adding: "This is unbecoming of a democratic, civilised and law-abiding state. If this conduct persists, Ecuador will take appropriate responses in accordance with international law. If the measures announced in the British official communication materialise they will be interpreted by Ecuador as a hostile and intolerable act and also as an attack on our sovereignty, which would require us to respond with greater diplomatic force."
Hague has denied suggestions that the FCO was threatening "to storm an embassy", saying: "We are talking about an act of parliament in this country which stresses that it must be used in full conformity with international law."
He has also said that Assange will not be allowed safe passage out of the UK despite the asylum decision, and that diplomatic immunity should not be used to harbour alleged criminals.
It is unclear whether Assange will address his supporters at the embassy on Sunday, as has been reported. He has described the granting of political asylum by Ecuador as a "significant and historic victory".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug....ecuador-embassy
BUT WHAT IS REALLY BEHIND ECUADOR'S STAND ON ASSANGE:
Rafael Correa's domestic agenda behind Ecuador's Assange asylum
Ecuador's granting asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is connected with President Rafael Correa's re-election effort
Renard Sexton
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 August 2012 17.39 BST
Thus far, much of the coverage of Julian Assange's successful political asylum application to Ecuador has focused on the international legal and diplomatic aspects and implications of the case. In fact, domestic Ecuadorian politics have played a vital role in the decision-making process for the administration of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa.
The backdrop to the Assange case has been the upcoming presidential election in Ecuador, slated to be held just six months from now in February 2013. President Correa, who was first elected in 2007, will be seeking a second term under Ecuador's 2008 constitution.
Opinion polls published in the Ecuadorian media in 2012 have shown Correa with a commanding lead over his prospective opponents, largely because there is no consensus challenger. Polling from CMS in March showed Correa with just under 49% of the vote, more than 40 points ahead of the five included challengers, who polled between 1% and 9% each. Thiry percent of voters, however, said that they had not chosen a candidate to support. More recent polling has shown the emergence of Guillermo Lasso as the closest prospective candidate with 17% of the vote, while undecided voters fell to 17%. Correa held fast with 50% of the vote.
With a split field, Correa is practically guaranteed a win. Ecuadorian electoral law does not require the winning candidate to garner a majority of the popular vote; if a candidate receives at least 40% of the vote and is at least 10 points ahead of the next finisher, he or she wins in the first round.
Election observers, including the Correa campaign, view Guillermo Lasso as the candidate most capable of forcing a runoff and, indeed, possibly winning the election. Despite being the former head of a major bank (the Bank of Guayaquil) and an economic adviser to former President Lucio Gutierrez, Lasso began the campaign unknown to most voters (he pulled just 4.6% in the March 2012 poll). However, Lasso and his team have launched aggressive efforts to promote him in television and print media. Thus far, with a focus on domestic issues and image cultivation, Lasso in particular has been able to start to close the gap with Correa, hoping to push out the other prospective opposition candidates and turn the contest into a two-horse race.
This brings us back to the Julian Assange case, which has been used to great political effect by President Correa to redirect the nation's focus from the presidential campaign to a riveting legal and diplomatic affair of international significance. Each day that Assange and the asylum case dominates the airwaves is one fewer day for Lasso to introduce himself to voters and work to find a consensus platform for the opposition.
The forceful anti-imperialist and anti-colonial rhetoric of Correa and Foreign Minister Patiño in the context of the UK's threat to remove diplomatic protections from the Ecuador Embassy in London have been couched in nationalistic terms for the Ecuadorian population. Essentially, Correa has wrapped himself in the flag – in a such a way that his conservative opponents are not able to criticize him effectively, lest they seem unpatriotic.
This is a familiar approach for Correa. He used similar tactics back in 2010 when he declared that the police riot and strike represented an attempted coup d'etat. Stirring nationalist and populist furor, he shut down both a brewing internal rebellion among leftists within his party and efforts from the opposition on the right to slow down his left-leaning reform agenda.
Though the six months until February's vote is a long time in electoral politics, Ecuador's new elections law make the current period particularly important. According to the reforms passed in January, political speech in the media, such as campaign advertising, is severely restricted for the final 90 days before election day. In effect, it means that Guillermo Lasso and the opposition have only until November to make a serious dent in Correa's lead by way of campaign advertising.
Therefore, the longer and more dramatic the Assange case is, and the longer Ecuador's diplomatic dispute with the UK and Sweden continues, the more the Ecuadorian election campaign will dwell on international affairs – a sphere the incumbent Correa dominates in relation to his opponents. With far fewer risks than the major electoral benefits it delivers, the diplomatic spat is clearly in Correa's political favor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/....-assange-asylum
It is really just that simple - BB
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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« Reply #260 on Aug 18, 2012, 10:47pm » | |
Sometimes justice is a long time coming:
PC Blakelock: police poised to arrest suspect, according to claims
A suspect will soon be prosecuted over one of Britain's most notorious unsolved murders, according to reports
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 August 2012 22.21 BST
![[image]](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/8/18/1345324760577/PC-Keith-Blakelock--010.jpg "[image]")
Detectives are poised to bring murder charges over the killing of PC Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm riots, it has been reported. Photograph: PA
Detectives are poised to bring murder charges over the killing of PC Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm riots, it has been reported.
The suspect, who was under 18 at the time of 1985 riots, will be prosecuted over his involvement in one of Britain's most notorious unsolved murders, the Sunday Telegraph has reported.
Sources told the newspaper that after reviewing the evidence against the man, two QCs agreed there is a realistic prospect of conviction - the hurdle which investigators must clear in order to win the backing of the Crown Prosecution Service.
Officially, Scotland Yard has insisted that no final decision had been made and that detectives were not yet ready to bring charges.
A spokesman said: "The re-investigation into the murder of PC Blakelock is ongoing.
"Regular consultation with the CPS has been taking place in relation to this case as is usual in all such investigations.
"We have not reached a decision regarding any charges against any individual."
The newspaper reported that sources believed the suspect was set to be charged within weeks.
Detectives' confidence was said to have been buoyed by the conviction in January of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence.
The officers believe that if such a long standing and legally complex case can be resolved then justice can also finally be secured for PC Blakelock.
PC Blakelock, 40, was attacked as he tried to protect firefighters who were tackling a supermarket blaze at the height of the riot on October 6, 1985.
After stumbling, the father of three was surrounded by a mob screaming "Kill the pig".
He was stabbed dozens of times and the machete-wielding killers then tried to decapitate him. A later trial heard the mob intended to parade the constable's head on a pole to taunt other officers.
Winston Silcott, Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip were convicted in March 1987 of PC Blakelock's murder but all three convictions were quashed four and a half years later, after forensic tests on pages of key interview records suggested they had been fabricated.
Silcott accepted £50,000 compensation from the Home Office but remained in prison for an unrelated murder and was released in 2003. None of the three men originally convicted is the suspect in the new case.
In 2003, Scotland Yard reopened the murder investigation after a review indicated there were possible new lines of inquiry.
It was revealed on the 25th anniversary of his murder, in October 2010, that 10 men had been arrested in London and Suffolk for questioning over the crime.
All were aged in their 40s or 50s and had lived in the Tottenham area at the time of the riot.
New forensic tests were carried out on PC Blakelock's flame-retardant overalls, which for years had been on show to criminologists and trainee police officers at Scotland Yard's "Black Museum".
The garment and more than a dozen murder weapons - several machetes and a kitchen knife found embedded up to the hilt in the constable's neck - were analysed using updated DNA techniques for the first time.
Evidence gathered by the new inquiry is also believed to include significant new witness statements.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/18....-arrest-suspect
BUT OFTEN THERE IS NO JUSTICE FOR THE VICTIM OR THEIR LOVED ONES:
Winnie Johnson, mother of Moors murders victim Keith Bennett, dies
Mother of 12-year-old boy murdered by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in 1964 dies without knowing where her son is buried
Conal Urquhart
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 August 2012 11.55 BST
![[image]](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Politics/Pix/pictures/2012/8/18/1345284912034/Winnie-Johnson-010.jpg "[image]")
Winnie Johnson, who has died aged 78. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA
The mother of Moors murders victim Keith Bennett has died without knowing where her son is buried.
Winnie Johnson died in a hospice at 12.35am on Saturday following a long illness and renewed controversy over the location of the grave of her son, who was murdered by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in 1964.
Brady's mental health advocate, Jackie Powell, was arrested after she told Channel 4 that she was aware of a letter from Brady to Johnson in which he tells her where the grave of her son can be found.
She was held on suspicion of preventing the lawful burial of a body but later bailed. Police also searched Brady's cell at the high security hospital at Ashworth, Merseyside, but found no relevant documents.
In a statement, John Ainley, a senior partner at Oldham-based solicitors North Ainley Halliwell, said: "She will be sadly missed and was much loved by her family and friends.
"She has died without knowing Keith's whereabouts and without the opportunity to finally put him at rest in a decent grave.
"It is a truly heartbreaking situation that this opportunity has now been irrevocably lost.
"Winnie's health deteriorated in the last few days. She died not knowing of the letter's possible existence but [with] the steadfast conviction Ian Brady can resolve the situation."
Keith's brother, Alan Bennett, issued a family statement about his mother's death on his website, Searching for Keith. It said: "Winnie fought tirelessly for decades to find Keith and give him a Christian burial. Although this was not possible during her lifetime, we, her family, intend to continue this fight now for her and for Keith. We hope that the authorities and the public will support us in this."
Johnson pleaded for years with Brady to be allowed to bury her son; experts suspect Brady has manipulated her and the media by promising information about the grave location and then withholding it.
Paddy Wivell, the producer of the Cutting Edge documentary which will be broadcast next week, said he was shocked to hear of Powell's letter and that she intended to return the letter to Brady. He suggested Powell felt a loyalty as she worked with the killer for so long and "apparently she took it back to him".
Powell said she received a letter of instruction and a sealed envelope from Brady via his solicitors. The letter of instruction said the envelope contained three letters – one addressed to Johnson.
The producers urged Powell to tell police about the letter, and when she declined they informed the police – who informed Johnson and began an investigation on 30 July.
Powell later told the Daily Mirror that Brady did not want "to take his secrets to the grave", and the letter could afford Johnson "the means of her possibly being able to rest".
Martin Bottomley, the head of investigative review of Greater Manchester police's major and cold case crime unit, said: "Our thoughts are with Winnie's family at this very difficult and sad time.
"Winnie spent the majority of her life courageously fighting to get justice for Keith.
"All she wanted was to know where Keith was buried so she could lay him to rest.
"Sadly, almost all of her life, she has had to live with the knowledge that Ian Brady refused to show compassion and do the right thing and disclose where he had buried her little boy."
Bottomley called on Brady to "do the decent thing" and reveal where he had buried Bennett.
Brady's lawyer, Richard Nicholas, declined to comment on the news of the death.
A quarter of a century ago, Brady returned with police to Saddleworth moor, along with Hindley, who died in 2002. But police could only identify where Pauline Reade was buried.
Brady was jailed for life in 1966 for the murders of John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans.
Hindley was convicted of killing Downey and Evans, and with protecting Brady. She was jailed for life. They finally admitted killing Bennett and Reade in 1987.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/18/winnie-johnson-keith-bennett-dies
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #261 on Aug 19, 2012, 8:57pm » | |
Britain wears backlash from unlikely 'club of the persecuted'
August 20, 2012
Harriet Alexander
ONE was an Australian computer hacker; the other a head of state. They did not speak each other's language; and their first encounter was a videolink conversation across 9000 kilometres. Yet, when Julian Assange's eyes met those of the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, clearly there was an instant meeting of minds.
''Welcome to the club of the persecuted!'' a beaming Correa told the grinning Australian. During a half-hour interview on Assange's chat show in May, the Ecuadorean discussed at great length his resentment of American ''imperialism'' and his vehement dislike of big business, media barons and ''elites''.
Assange, a self-styled crusader for freedom, who delights in irritating the US, the rich and the powerful, claimed to be ''on a quest for revolutionary ideas that can change the world tomorrow''. The two laughed as they congratulated each other on their pariah status. Last week, however, the mutual appreciation morphed into something more significant, when Correa's government announced its decision to grant Assange asylum.
The authorities in Quito had been weighing up since June how to deal with their London lodger. Should they risk infuriating Britain, which under international law is compelled to extradite Assange to Sweden? Or should they seize the opportunity to rile ''arrogant'' Britain and, by association, their nemesis the US? The temptation was too great.
The news was greeted with fury in London, where diplomats had held seven meetings in two months to try to persuade Ecuador to hand over Assange.
''We will not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the UK,'' Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said. ''Nor is there any legal basis for us to do so. Moreover, it is well established that … diplomatic asylum should not be used for the purposes of escaping the regular processes of the courts.''
In Sweden, the Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, said there had been no extradition request from the US. ''This seems to be ideas taken from a fantasy world.''
Yet Ecuador's decision was greeted with glee among many of its South American allies.
''The underdogs have won one at last,'' one diplomat said after Friday night's emergency meeting of the Organisation of American States in Washington.
What really seems to have riled Ecuador was the note sent by Britain's charge d'affaires in Quito reminding Ecuador that Britain retained the right to enter a diplomatic building if it was not being used correctly. ''You should be aware that there is a legal basis in the UK … which would allow us to take action to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy,'' the letter said. Britain passed the law in 1987, after the 1984 killing of Constable Yvonne Fletcher when a Libyan diplomat opened fire on demonstrators from within his London embassy.
Ecuador exploded at the note, claiming Britain was planning to storm its embassy in London. ''No one is going to terrorise us!'' Correa proclaimed on Twitter. Unsurprisingly, the left-wing leader received vociferous backing from his ideological allies Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia.
Foreign ministers from UNASUR, the Union of South American Nations, planned to meet yesterday, and Ecuador wants the issue raised at the United Nations Security Council.
The diplomatic hysteria seems to have caught Britain's Foreign Office off guard. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, and his Liberal Democrat coalition partner, Nick Clegg, both on holiday, were said to be so concerned at South America's fury that their offices called Hague to appeal for calm.
But isn't it ironic that Assange has sought asylum in a country known for persecuting journalists? The Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez said it was like ''Robin Hood seeking shelter in the castle of the Sheriff of Nottingham''.
''That's a good point,'' said one masked supporter in London. ''But I'm sure Julian knows what he is doing.''
Whether Ecuador knows what it is doing is another thing. The stage could well be set for a long diplomatic stand-off; Correa said on Friday that Assange could stay in the embassy indefinitely.
''What we want now is an assurance in writing that Britain recognises the sovereignty of our embassy and that it will not storm our diplomatic buildings,'' said Maria Isabel Salvador, Ecuador's representative to the OAS. ''This is a very delicate issue. It does not make us feel good about the UK.''
Given the diplomatic firestorm that Ecuador has ignited, it is probably fair to bet that feeling is mutual.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/b....l#ixzz24308zaaf
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #262 on Aug 19, 2012, 9:19pm » | |
Syria revolution divides Druze of the Golan
August 20, 2012
Ruth Pollard
Middle East Correspondent
The old apple farmer sits upright on his lounge, photographs of the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, and his father, Hafez, proudly displayed on the wall behind him. His daughter quietly fusses to one side, leaning two large Syrian flags against the wall.
''It was heaven there before the attacks,'' 78-year-old Salman al-Maqet said of his beloved Syria before the start of the revolution on March 15 last year.
He describes the 18-month-long uprising as ''a conspiracy of the West against Syria'' backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and refuses to acknowledge those pushing for the overthrow of the Assad regime are a legitimate opposition.
''I wish the West would look on the situation differently and … stop financing the terrorists, stop the sanctions,'' he said.
Like all Druze families in the Golan Heights, Mr Maqet has relatives in Syria, identifies as Syrian and calls Syria his ''homeland''.
Although the area was captured by Israel in 1967 and annexed in 1981 - a move rejected by the United Nations - the Druze villagers of the Golan have refused to give up their Syrian citizenship. Until the revolution began, most publicly backed Mr Assad, choosing to believe he would one day take back the area from Israeli control.
But now the Assad regime itself is under threat - accused of committing multiple war crimes and implicated in the deaths of up to 20,000 Syrians.
And in the mountain towns of the Golan, the once unshakeable public unity behind Mr Assad has fractured, pitting children against parents, family against family.
Majdal Shams - the northernmost of the four Druze villages of the occupied Golan - is a community divided. Surrounded by apple and cherry orchards, it overlooks the mountains bordering Lebanon and into Syria. Damascus is just 60 kilometres to the north-east.
It is home to the ''shouting hill'' where, in the days before mobile phones and Skype, families separated by Israel's occupation came to shout to their relatives standing just beyond the security zone and UN observation post in Syria.
''The first apple tree that was planted in Syria was here, in 1946, by my father,'' Mr Maqet said proudly. ''Britain planted Israel in this area two years later … the British fruit is evil, not like the sweet apples we planted.''
The effect of Israel's occupation of the Golan is felt everywhere in the region. Mr Maqet's sons have all been imprisoned for ''anti-occupation activities'' and his son Bushar, now 47, was jailed for 37 years. One of the longest-serving prisoners in Israel, he was released in 2009 after serving 25 years.
''We have two eyes - one watching Israel and one watching what is happening in Syria.''
He is furious the Free Syrian Army captured his relative, Air Force Major-General Faraj Shahadeh al-Maqet, chief of the central headquarters command, and says only terrorists, not the opposition, would act this way.
At the beginning of the revolution, the Druze - a small, secretive offshoot of Shiite Islam who live mostly in Lebanon, Syria and Israel - stood with the regime, continuing their mostly unshakeable loyalty to the countries in which they live.
Since then the opposition movement has grown, along with the realisation that as the situation in Syria deteriorates, their allegiances may need to change.
For opposition activists such as Shefaa Abu Jabal, it is inconceivable that after all the bloodshed anyone in her community could still support the Assad regime.
She has been at the forefront of the small opposition movement in Majdal Shams since the uprising began and the 26-year-old university graduate has paid dearly for her stance.
Three weeks ago, her relatives were attacked by pro-Assad supporters and an upcoming family wedding has become a political battleground that is threatening to derail the celebrations.
Ms Abu Jabal helped to gather 100 signatures on a local petition in support of the students whose arrest in the Syrian town of Deraa kicked off the uprising.
''We were told, 'Stop, do not do this, you have to be loyal to Assad' and people were asked to withdraw their signatures,'' she said.
Supporters dropped from 100 to 83, but the weekly gatherings protesting against the arrests in Deraa continued - as did the pressure on those involved.
Friday protesters have been pelted with eggs and shoes, larger groups of pro-Assad supporters have overtaken the protests, and the tension in the town keeps rising.
''The religious leadership here decided we cannot be against Assad and they waved the most powerful weapon at us, the social and religious one,'' Ms Abu Jabal said.
Since then attempts to isolate the tiny group have been unrelenting - some have been prevented from attending funerals, others not invited to weddings, while a cafe that supported the local cultural centre, whose artists are determinedly anti-Assad, suffered such a severe boycott it was forced to close this month.
''Nothing is going to change in this place … we enjoy a high standard of living here and they do not want to interrupt their sweet reality,'' Ms Abu Jabal said.
Artist Randa Maddah is another devoted opposition supporter - she went to university in Damascus for six years and is dismayed at what is happening to her homeland.
After months studying in the capital, her sister came home last week with grim news, one of many Druze students forced to flee as the conflict worsened.
''The situation in Damascus has gone from bad to worse,'' Ms Maddah, 29, said. When the arts centre exhibited anti-regime cartoons this year, the threats from Assad supporters escalated.
''People threatened our parents … they said they would prevent apples being sent to Syria and would stop children from studying in Syria. It is partly a generational split,'' she said of the division tearing her town apart.
But it is not just the older members of the community who have maintained support for Mr Assad.
Ammad Maree runs a pro-government website - baladee.net. The 33-year-old, whose three-year-old daughter is named Damascus and his wife Sham (the classical Arabic name for Damascus), says he is deeply hurt by what is happening in Syria. ''I have full trust in Syria as a country and its leadership,'' Mr Maree said.
He too speaks of a Western conspiracy - he acknowledged the regime had made mistakes but said it also had a right to defend itself.
As the conflict spills into Lebanon, with a spate of kidnappings and violence shaking the country's already fragile state, Israel is looking at the bloodshed with increasing alarm and has worked to fortify its northern border.
''We must be prepared for the worst, which requires high alert to defend Israeli communities and readiness to target any terrorist that might attempt to enter Israeli territory,'' the Northern Division Commander, Brigadier General Tamir Heyman, said this month.
The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has expressed concerns about Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons falling into the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
''Could you imagine Hezbollah, the people who are conducting with Iran all these terror attacks around the world - could you imagine them having chemical weapons? It would be like al-Qaeda having chemical weapons,'' he told Fox News.
For now, Israel has taken no action over Syria's stockpile - instead it is talking of an attack on Iran's nuclear plants and handing out thousands of gas masks to its citizens, raising the fear levels in an already tense region.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/syria-revolu....l#ixzz2435NNjT0
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #263 on Aug 19, 2012, 9:24pm » | |
Gaddafi's son faces hanging if found guilty
August 20, 2012
Nick Meo
TRIPOLI: Libya's newly elected government intends to put Saif al-Islam Gaddafi on trial next month in the mountain town of Zintan, after striking a deal with the independent militia that caught him trying to escape across the desert last November.
The son of the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi will be charged with urging supporters to kill demonstrators and revolutionaries during last year's uprising, and he faces execution by hanging if he is found guilty.
Previous attempts to bring him to trial had foundered on the insistence by Libya's transitional government, formed soon after his father was driven from Tripoli a year ago, that he face justice in the capital.
The fiercely anti-Gaddafi Zintan fighters who took him prisoner refused to hand him over, fearing he might escape with the help of sympathisers in Tripoli, or that he would be treated leniently. The breakthrough came after Libya's first democratic elections, held last month, and a decision by ministers of the new government to compromise on the trial's location, as long as it was conducted under the national legal code.
Some feared the long delay was encouraging Gaddafi loyalists to view the dictator's second son - the most charismatic of his surviving children and the only one still inside Libya - as a figurehead.
The decision was also complicated by a demand from the International Criminal Court that Saif be tried in The Hague. But now Libya's prosecutor has made clear the ICC will play no role in the trial. An official of the prosecutor-general's office, Taha Naser Bara, said: ''We are sure that the evidence we have gathered is solid and it will shock and surprise the world. We believe we are capable of holding a fair trial.''
Libya's new rulers still fear a terrorist campaign by Gaddafi loyalists, hundreds of whom escaped to exile in Egypt and Algeria with billions of stolen dollars. They have been blamed for bomb attacks in recent weeks.
Three judges will hear the case, expected to last six months.
Dozens of witnesses will be called to give evidence, but the charges, which have not yet been finalised, will relate only to February 15 to August 20 last year, when Saif allegedly had a leading role in repression.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/gaddafis-son....l#ixzz2436AfHrI
MEANWHILE:
20 August 2012 Last updated at 01:34 GMT
Libya holds 32 'Gaddafi loyalists' over Tripoli attack
The Libyan authorities say they have arrested 32 members of a network loyal to former leader Muammar Gaddafi in connection with Sunday's twin car bombing in the capital, Tripoli.
Two people were killed by the two blasts near the former military academy for women and the interior ministry.
An official of Libya's top security body said the network had been linked to the bombs.
It was the first deadly bomb attack since Gaddafi's overthrow last year.
The attack happened on the eve of the anniversary of the fall of Tripoli to rebel fighters last year.
The bombs struck at dawn, one of them close to the interior ministry's administrative offices, and the other near the military academy on Omar al-Mokhtar Avenue.
The city's head of security, Col Mahmoud Sherif, said the blast outside the military academy left two people dead and four or five injured.
No casualties were reported from the other explosion, he said.
Mr Sherif blamed Gaddafi supporters for the attacks, who he alleged were receiving financial backing from contacts based in neighbouring countries.
Another official, from the Supreme Security Committee that has been supervising security matters since Gaddafi's fall, told Reuters news agency later that connections between the group and the attacks had been established.
Challenge of violence
The attacks took place as crowds prepared for mass morning prayers to mark Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim celebration at the end of the fasting month Ramadan.
Earlier this month, Libya's interim National Transitional Council handed power to a newly elected assembly, in the first peaceful transition in the country's modern history.
But violence remains a challenge for the government, with several attacks taking place in the eastern city of Benghazi in recent months.
The BBC's Rana Jawad, in Tripoli, says that the government has often blamed these attacks on Gaddafi loyalists.
For many Libyans, she says, it is easier and more plausible to believe that loyalists of the former regime are behind them, but this is difficult to assess.
Security forces have also struggled to assert control over armed men who took part in last year's uprising and who refuse to lay down their weapons.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19314714
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #264 on Aug 19, 2012, 9:37pm » | |
19 August 2012 Last updated at 21:10 GMT
Pakistan disabled girl arrested for blasphemy
Pakistani police have arrested a mentally disabled 11-year-old girl after a mob accused her of desecrating pages of the Koran.
The mob demanded the Christian girl's arrest and threatened to burn down Christian homes outside the capital Islamabad, local media say.
Officials said the girl could not properly answer police questions.
Her parents have been taken into protective custody following threats and other Christian families have fled.
It is thought that the girl has Down's syndrome.
Paul Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for National Harmony, told the BBC that the girl was known to have a mental disorder and that it seemed "unlikely she purposefully desecrated the Koran".
"From the reports I have seen, she was found carrying a waste bag which also had pages of the Koran," he said.
"This infuriated some local people and a large crowd gathered to demand action against her. The police were initially reluctant to arrest her, but they came under a lot of pressure from a very large crowd, who were threatening to burn down Christian homes."
He said more than 600 people have fled from the Christian neighbourhood.
Rights activists have urged Pakistan to reform its controversial blasphemy laws, under which a person can be jailed for life for desecrating the Koran.
Many of those accused of blasphemy have been killed by violent mobs, while politicians who advocate a change in legislation have also been targeted.
Last year, Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minority affairs, was killed after calling for the repeal of the blasphemy law.
His death came just two months after the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who also spoke out about the issue.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19311098
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #265 on Aug 20, 2012, 11:41am » | |
20 August 2012 Last updated at 14:32 GMT
Syria: Mapping the insurgency
Since the beginning of the conflict in 2011, mapping exactly what is happening inside Syria has been very difficult.
Few international journalists are present and conditions are difficult and dangerous. Reports of violence often comes via accounts posted on social networking sites, accompanied by grainy camera phone footage.
But based on detailed analysis of rebel and regime activity since October 2011, a map showing an assessment of the general situation on the ground has been produced by Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
![[image]](http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62382000/gif/_62382873_syria_insurgency464x595.gif "[image]")
Reports from opposition groups, such as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as well as from the official Syrian Arab News Agency and international journalists in Syria were all taken into account when compiling the map.
In roughly 25% of incidents, ISW analysts were able to cross-reference accounts of fighting and events from official government and rebel sources.
The ISW says that the "rebel-held zones" on its map are under de facto Free Syrian Army (FSA) control.
The FSA operates as a highly mobile guerrilla force and front lines and zones of control constantly shift.
When challenged by government forces, their main tactic is not to defend territory but to withdraw, with the aim of avoiding losses and preserving manpower.
Explaining the methodology behind the map, ISW analyst Joseph Holliday told the BBC: "The regime can go into 'rebel held' areas if they choose, but only at great cost.
"The regime has isolated outposts within those areas, from which they routinely shell surrounding villages. However, these outposts don't have the ability to project ground forces outside their walls, and in many cases are resupplied only by air or at all.
"What's more, the regime is collapsing these positions one at a time, and the rebels are massing on and over-running others."
The FSA has strengthened and become more co-ordinated in its operations this summer, mounting attacks on both the capital, Damascus, and second city of Aleppo.
The largest areas under de facto rebel control are currently to the north and east of Aleppo, which saw fierce fighting in July and August, and in the centre of the country between Idlib and Hama.
Analysts say the recent success of rebel tactics has forced President Bashar al-Assad to divert forces from other parts of the country, allowing the FSA to gain greater influence if not complete control of these weakened areas.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19285076
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #266 on Aug 20, 2012, 11:54am » | |
Syrian shelling and torture claims mar Eid
Festivities neglected as violence continues, with cities under fire and 10 bodies reportedly found bearing signs of torture
Haroon Siddique and Mona Mahmood
guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 August 2012 17.00 BST
![[image]](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/8/20/1345477936478/Shelling-of-Aleppo-010.jpg "[image]")
An image grab from a video allegedly showing shelling of Aleppo. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The second day of Eid al-Fitr was marked in Syria by renewed shelling of key cities and the discovery of 10 bodies allegedly dumped in the street in a suburb of the capital after being tortured by pro-regime militia.
Activists said the usual Eid festivities had been largely neglected. "There is no one inside Damascus, inside Syria, that doesn't have a friend or relative who has been lost or detained or killed, so it's a very sad Eid we are having," said one activist, Tarik, of the Revolutionary Leadership Council Damascus.
As UN observers left their hotel in the capital, their mission having ended at midnight on Sunday, activists relayed details of another atrocity they said had been committed by the Shabiha, the pro-Assad militia.
Ten bodies were reportedly found in the Qaboun district bearing signs of torture. Video footage posted online showed bloodied and bruised bodies lying in the street.
"When we got to the site, we found 10 naked bodies, some of them were handcuffed," said Abu Omer al-Qabouni, a Qaboun resident. "They were tortured in a barbaric way. They were tortured by electricity, stabbed by knives and burned by cigarette butts. Some of the bodies had crushed heads."
He said he was able to personally identify two children among the victims – a seven-year-old boy and his sister, aged five.
Shelling was reported in Damascus suburbs, with Mouadamiyeh and Daraya among the hardest hit, and in Aleppo, where the collapse of two buildings reportedly killed 14 people. In Deraa, activists said four members of the same family, including two children, were killed. Restrictions placed on foreign journalists make it impossible for the Guardian to independently verify activists' accounts.
Kofi Annan's successor as UN and Arab League envoy to Syria was given an indication of the size of his task when he stepped straight into a row with an opposition group.
The Syrian National Council demanded an apology from Lakhdar Brahimi after an interview he gave over the weekend in which he said he would not ask the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to resign because he did not "know enough about what is happening".
His comments contrasted with those of Annan, who said on his departure from the role that Assad must leave office. The SNC said Brahimi had shown "disregard for the blood of the Syrian people".
Turkey warned that it might soon run out of space for refugees. Ahmet Davutoglu, the foreign minister, told the Hurriyet newspaper that the UN might have to establish camps in a safe zone within Syria, as Turkey, which has already taken in 70,000 refugees, could only accommodate 100,000 in total.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/20/syrian-shelling-torture-claims-eid
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #267 on Aug 20, 2012, 4:47pm » | |
Behind the Paralympics, the reality for disabled people in Britain 2012
The disability movement is at a crossroads as spending cuts threaten the advances made since the 1970s
David Brindle
guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 August 2012 19.05 BST
The Paralympics will be a celebration not only of sporting prowess, but also of the huge advances made in the emancipation of disabled people in Britain. Although there remains far to go – and there are major concerns that the coalition's welfare cuts will set back those advances – that fundamental change is surely irreversible: as a leading expert puts it, the genie is out of the bottle. We are becoming accustomed to seeing disabled people in the community, in the workplace and in the media. Forty years ago, many would have been in residential care.
Much of this has come about through the efforts and organisation of disabled people themselves. Led initially by a handful of activists, a nascent disability rights movement seized the initiative in the 1970s and began campaigning for legislative and welfare reforms that now underpin striking societal change.
But in 2012, just as the opportunity comes to make a show of Britain's progress before a global audience, the disability movement finds itself at a crossroads – and, some say, becalmed. The leaders who emerged in the 70s and 80s have gone, or are departing, and the agenda, perhaps understandably, seems dominated by a struggle to preserve gains won.
"In some ways we are much closer to the 70s than to where we were in the 90s," said Ian Macrae, the editor of Disability Now magazine. "As a community we are having to fight a very particular battle [over] what the government is doing ... which is preventing us from making the wider case about why we need more in the way of independent living.
"We have got so completely trapped in the tunnel of argument over welfare reform that disabled people are increasingly happy to present themselves as victims. The leaders of the movement of the 80s and 90s fought [against] that tooth and nail."
Some of the most influential of those leaders had shaped their views through visits to the first centres for independent living in the US, where disabled students were provided with personal assistants to enable them to live in the community while at university. Their lifestyle made a profound impression on the visitors, several of whom were living in residential homes where the regimes had scarcely progressed since before the second world war.
A letter published in the Guardian in September 1972, proposing a consumer group to represent disabled people living in institutions, is often seen as the start of the UK independent living movement, leading as it did to the creation of the Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation (Upias) (pdf). The early 1970s were heady days on the political left and the group's founders drew parallels with the struggles for equality of women, black and gay people: Vic Finkelstein, one of its prime movers, was a psychologist with a spinal cord injury who came to the UK from South Africa as a refugee after being banned by the apartheid regime for civil rights activism.
A second key organisation was the Disability Alliance, founded in 1974 with the goal of a comprehensive income scheme for disabled people and chaired by Peter Townsend, a leading poverty expert. A paper, titled Fundamental Principles of Disability, summarising discussions in 1975 between the alliance and Upias, is regarded as the first statement of the "social model" of disability.
The social model, as distinct from a medical model, treats physical or mental impairment separately from disability in the way in which disabled people are excluded from full participation in society. Finkelstein – who helped develop the idea of the social model with its prime architect, the disability academic Michael Oliver – used to describe a hypothetical village in which all the residents used wheelchairs and everything was tailored to their needs. When able-bodied visitors arrived, it was they who experienced problems and felt excluded.
The social model became the dominant philosophy of the emerging UK disability movement after its adoption by the British Council of Organisations of Disabled People (BCODP), founded in 1981. As disability researcher and commentator Tom Shakespeare has argued, the model's importance was that it gave the movement a strategy – barrier removal – and it replaced in the minds of disabled people the idea that they were in some way deficient with the notion that they were in fact oppressed.
The effect was liberating. "They didn't have to be sorry for themselves: rather, they could be angry," he wrote in his book Disability Rights and Wrongs. "Rather than a demeaning reliance on charity, disabled activists could now demand their rights." Such demands were given practical form initially by centres for independent living. The first were founded in Hampshire and Derbyshire in 1984, although some universities – notably Oxford, Essex, Southampton and Cardiff – had already been developing US-style schemes whereby disabled students shared accommodation with others without disabilities who provided support and assistance.
Funding for those starting to live independently came from enlightened local councils, acting at the time with dubious legal authority, and a social security benefit called the domestic care allowance. When the government set out to withdraw the allowance in 1986, triggering outrage, the resulting campaign was the first indication of the gathering strength of the disability movement. Within a year, ministers had announced the independent living fund, a state-funded quango to award discretionary grants worth hundreds of pounds a week to disabled people to live in the community. The bigger prize, however, was a legitimised and universal system of direct payments by councils. The BCODP began to campaign for this in 1989. The statute took effect in the last days of the Major administration in 1997.
That a Tory government passed the measures was highly significant: the idea resonated well with Conservative principles of individualism and self-determination. Under Labour, in a subtle switch of tactics, the disability movement deployed a human rights argument to sustain the case for disabled people having greater choice and control over their lives. Indeed, "choice and control" have been watchwords espoused by politicians of all hues since the mid-90s.
The focus shifted under Labour to equality of opportunity and equality before the law, following the landmark legislation passed towards the end of the Tory government in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 – which for the first time required employers and providers of services to help disabled people by making "reasonable adjustments" that would remove barriers to their access and participation.
For an employer, this might mean varying a job specification to take account of a person's disability or providing adapted equipment, such as desk or chair. For a retailer, it means making "reasonable" arrangements for disabled shoppers to be served: not just providing step-free access where possible, but ensuring someone is available, for instance, to assist a blind person who requests help.
The DDA was amended and strengthened in 2005, imposing a duty on public bodies to promote equality. It was superseded, except in Northern Ireland, by the Equality Act 2010, which consolidated all anti-discrimination legislation in a statutory mirror of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Since 2007 the commission has combined the advisory and watchdog functions of formerly separate equalities bodies including the Disability Rights Commission.
Many lament the passing of the DRC, which Labour had set up in 2000. Bob Niven, who was its chief executive, said: "Having a joined-up commission has not been as good as disabled people would have hoped; most people would say it has not lived up to expectations. Of course there are similarities [across all groups at risk of discrimination] but I think the experience of being totally blind is not comparable with any other experience; having serious mental health difficulties is different from anything else."
Niven is nonetheless convinced that the position of disabled people in Britain is markedly improved. "It's very different than 10 or 15 years ago in terms of access to buildings, trains and public spaces, employment opportunities and application of technology. And it's much, much better in terms of public attitudes." Richard Howitt, Labour MEP for the east of England and vice-chair of the disability group in the European parliament, says the UK lags behind some other countries in meeting special educational needs, and that too many disabled people still live segregated lives. But he considers it to be out in front on non-discrimination. "If you had to go to court and say you had been treated less than fairly, Britain would probably be the place to do it," he said. For Frances Hasler, a leading figure in the social care sector who has worked closely with the disability movement, the acid test is public transport. "Every time I see a wheelchair user waiting at a bus stop in London, that gives me pleasure," she said. "You can't turn that kind of thing back. You can't stick the genie back in the bottle. There is a lot of doom and gloom at the moment, but overall there has been a massive move forward. Although deinstitutionalisation is not yet complete, it's pretty mainstream. The idea that young disabled people don't belong back in institutions is certainly well embedded."
All agree that there remains much to do. Disabled people continue to suffer persistent disadvantage in almost all aspects of life: one in three live in poverty; one in two of working age are unemployed; and older teenagers are twice as likely as their non-disabled counterparts not to be in education, employment or training. Hate crime has become a serious issue, with recorded incidents growing by 60% between 2009 and 2011.
Yet just as the disability movement needs fresh impetus, there is a seeming crisis of leadership and direction. Many of the movement's leaders have gone or are, by their own admission, burnt out. Where will the new generation come from?
Some argue that, as talented young disabled people can now enjoy rewarding careers, they have little time for campaigning: research by the charity Radar in 2009, though far from exhaustive, traced 110 disabled "high flyers" earning £80,000-plus salaries.
Another suggestion is that a sense of complacency may have set in after the remarkable gains of the 1990s. Macrae said: "After the DDA, a lot of people, including some of the activists, said: 'That's it, we have got what we want now.' They stopped protesting, stopped saying, 'This is not enough.' A lot of the spirit and a lot of the anger went out of the movement."
Anger is certainly evident now, in reaction to the coalition's disability benefit changes, and much of it is being expressed by new grassroots networks of disabled people linked by social media. But there is a frustration among veterans of past struggles that they have been drawn into an agenda not of their choosing and are having to fight a rearguard action to try to preserve entitlements. Some are seeking to regain the initiative.
In a recent paper for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Jenny Morris, who was a disability policy adviser to the Labour government, has argued that disabled people need to instigate and lead a wider debate about the nature and purpose of the welfare state, applying to it the concept of reasonable adjustments that lies at the heart of the DDA, and thereby challenging the creeping prejudice that benefit payments are merely a drain on the economy.
Liz Sayce, chief executive of the charity Disability Rights UK, which now incorporates Radar and the Disability Alliance, believes there are significant issues – potential "quick wins" – that could be taken up even at a time of austerity. These include campaigning for the government's forthcoming disability strategy to have real teeth, and exposing the failure of Whitehall departments to work together on disability issues; ensuring ministers fulfil their promise to overturn the ban on jury service for people with a mental disorder and to scrap the legal provisions that can have them stripped of company directorships, and pressing for tougher action against negative portrayals of disabled people in the media.
Sayce is more sanguine than others about the emergence of new, young leaders of the disability movement. Some 450 people have been through leadership programmes initiated by Radar and the charity established a network of high flyers, Radiate, with the support of Lloyds bank. Her Radar predecessor Kate Nash has gone on to help establish networks of disabled employees in more than 220 companies and public bodies including Lloyds, BT and the houses of parliament.
"Many of these people won't become leaders in the classic, activist sense," said Sayce. "But we shouldn't forget those who are leading opinion in different ways, across all sorts of sectors. Twenty or 30 years ago, there simply wouldn't have been disabled people in these positions."
The disability movement faces a further, more fundamental question about its future direction, however. Shakespeare has come to the conclusion that for all the strengths of the social model of disability as a campaign umbrella, by adopting it uncritically in the 1980s and adhering rigidly to an unchanging interpretation of it since, the movement has taken a wrong turn. The importance of people's individual and shared impairments has been played down; the potential of medical intervention and advance has been dismissed; and the disability community has turned inward and failed to make alliances with other groups in society, he said.
Shakespeare threw down his challenge in his book in 2006, calling for a reappraisal of strategy to galvanise disabled people once again. "Since 2000, the disability movement in Britain appears to have stagnated," he wrote. "Despite important and progressive changes in wider society, the politics of disability seem to have run out of steam." Six years on, his challenge remains.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/a....e-spending-cuts
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #268 on Aug 23, 2012, 11:13am » | |
Syria: a long war lies ahead
Assad's army is intact and he retains no shortage of options despite high-level defections and deaths of senior figures
Editorial
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 August 2012 20.51 BST
Some wars do not end. Russian forces – Tsarist, Bolshevik, and post-Soviet – have been fighting in the North Caucasus for the best part of three centuries, and the conflict stubbornly refuses any attempt by the Kremlin to declare its mission there accomplished. What confidence can anyone have that the civil war in Syria, a land just as riven with old scores and ancient rivalries, will reach a definitive conclusion – the ousting of Bashar al-Assad and the establishment of a government committed to free elections, reconciliation and reconstruction? At the moment, very little.
The battle taking place in Aleppo is a case in point. Syria's second city is key and by general consent will, in theory, provide the tipping point so desperately sought in a conflict that has already claimed over 19,000 lives. In practice this is proving to be an elusive concept. The regime holds the west of the city, and the militias that comprise the Free Syrian Army the east. The regime has only committed troops to one front, Salaheddine district in the south-west, and is reluctant to throw in the rest of its infantry, opting to shell and bomb from the air. There are theories as to why there have been no serious attempts to recapture the city, one of them being the fear of defections if units became detached from their officers. But in theory the eastern half of Aleppo, which is being contested by only 4,000 rebel fighters, should be relatively easy for a well-equipped army to retake.
The fight from the rebels' perspective is not going well either. As they openly acknowledge, their presence is contested by much of the city's population. The fighters are not seen here as liberators, but as harbingers of terrible suffering to come. The FSA fall between two stools. They are ill equipped to shoot down Assad's warplanes, but eminently visible enough to attract the regime's aerial firepower. Assad's warplanes are also using bigger bombs in civilian areas. If this is a deliberate strategy by the regime that has strewn the city with craters, it may be working. Aleppines blame the FSA for military operations in their city, rather than Damascus for its brutal response. Whatever the cause, the rebels are by their own admission not getting the support in the city that they got in the countryside. This is not just a function of the demography of Aleppo. Support for the FSA in Damascus also depends on whether the insurgents are local. This may change, and could be more a result of the Balkanisation of Syrian society than the product of any lingering sympathy for Assad, which surely has evaporated. If the space for non-violent protest has shrunk – although there are still opposition groups who cling on to this hope – the road ahead for the armed revolt can only be long and bitter. Despite high-level defections and the deaths of four senior security figures in a bombing last month, Assad's army is intact and he retains no shortage of options.
One of them is to make a Lebanon out of Syria. Assad has withdrawn his forces from Kurdish parts of Syria, and Turkey claims he has invited the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) back in. Turkey blamed a car bomb attack on a police station near its south-eastern border on the PKK and Syrian intelligence. Another sign of things to come is the bombing in Azaz, only kilometres from the border, which killed 40 civilians. Assad is doing his utmost to provoke a Turkish incursion. Gun battles have broken out between rival groups in Tripoli, Lebanon's second city, as fears of contagion grow. The possibilities of exporting chaos are legion, and that is before Iran's Revolutionary Guards or Hezbollah, the two most powerful foreign forces in Assad's armoury, are deployed.
One ethnic group fleeing the country is Syria's Circassians. They are part of a worldwide diaspora created when Russian troops expelled them from the North Caucasus, in what Circassians claim was a genocide. The world will be literally skiing on the graves of their forefathers in the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. The date of their expulsion was 21 May 1864.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/....ahead-editorial
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #269 on Aug 23, 2012, 11:24am » | |
Syrians are torn between a despotic regime and a stagnant opposition
The Muslim Brotherhood's perceived monopoly over the Syrian National Council has created an opposition stalemate
Hassan Hassan
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 August 2012 16.00 BST
A year ago this week, the Syrian National Council was formed in Istanbul by a coalition of political forces and figures that presented themselves as society's representatives. In the absence of a mechanism to determine the power base of each political force, the Muslim Brotherhood came to dominate the council, benefiting from its relations with Islamist-leaning Turkey.
The Brotherhood's perceived monopoly over the council has led to a chronic political stalemate within the opposition and will most likely undermine an orderly transition if the situation persists. But the appointment of Algerian veteran diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi as the new UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, along with the recent defections of high-level technocrats, presents a new opportunity to reverse the group's domination.
Brahimi is unlikely to succeed where his predecessor Kofi Annan failed in terms of ending the violence, but he can secure a political settlement and mediate a representative, inclusive political body that will help to avert chaos in the wake of the regime's downfall.
It is difficult to precisely gauge the Brotherhood's power base inside Syria, as the organisation has been banned since 1963. But past experience, when the Brotherhood was part of the country's political system for more than a decade, and well-established social dynamics offer useful insights.
Moulhem Droubi, a senior member of the Brotherhood, has said the organisation represents 25% of the Syrian population. That is certainly disputable. In the 1949 parliamentary election, the movement won around 2.5% of the vote and in subsequent elections never rose above 6%.
At the time, the Brotherhood was viewed largely as a moderate organisation that preached more about socialism than religion, though it later started to alienate minorities. In 1950, it successfully campaigned to amend the constitution to make Islam the religion of the state and the president.
With the ascension of the Ba'ath party and its totalitarian rule in the 60s, the Brotherhood turned violent, splintered and formed militias that would later target civilians and military officers along sectarian lines in the 70s and 80s. Its power base has since dwindled significantly after four decades of systematic cleansing by the Ba'athist regime.
Activists from various parts of Syria have told me that, prior to the uprising last year, the country had almost zero Brotherhood presence. The organisation's presence then started to return in some areas, particularly in Homs, Hama and Idlib.
Salama Kayla, a Christian Palestinian-Syrian who was recently deported by the regime for his role in the uprising, said he had visited several protest spots, including in Homs and Hama, in the early months of the uprising.
He said there were "negligible groups" of Brotherhood members with the protests in few areas. He said that activists in Hama complained that a small Brotherhood-affiliated group was pushing for "violent conflict". It was surprising, he said, that the Brotherhood had such a small presence in a city widely considered as its stronghold.
"I am a middle-class Halabi [from Aleppo] and everyone I knew hated them," one activist told me. "The only time I ever met an MB member is during an embassy protest outside Syria. They seem to be more popular among exiles."
A senior member of the SNC who is close to the Brotherhood told me the organisation tends to believe that any person who receives aid through the group is expected to support it electorally in the future.
Even if the Brotherhood succeeds in establishing a palpable presence, its influence is likely to be limited to certain areas. At least seven out of 14 provinces will be outside the Brotherhood's sphere of influence for the foreseeable future: Hasaka, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and Deraa (tribal and Kurdish areas that make up over 30% of the population, loyal to their local leaders), Suweida (the Druze stronghold, nearly 2% of the population) and the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus (where Alawites, Ismailis and other minorities are based and make up nearly 8.5% of the population).
Demographically, non-Sunnis form 30% of the population and Sunni Kurds make up 9%. These bases of ethnic and religious minorities, plus the tribes – altogether making up at least 70% of the population – had been outside the group's influence in the past and will remain so in the future.
When the Brotherhood was part of the political system, the business community in both Aleppo and Damascus allied itself with the People's party, a nationalist non-Islamist party, and then to the Ba'ath party. Politically, the business community today is also more likely to ally itself with non-Islamist groups.
Also, in both of these significant cities, the business community is socially tied with a local pragmatic clergy that adheres to a classical Sunni religious school similar to that of al-Azhar in Egypt.
The Brotherhood realises the limits of its power and seeks to establish levers of influence during the uprising and in the transition period. According to different accounts, the Brotherhood is using its control over the two key offices within the SNC, the aid and military offices, to establish leverage in certain areas and among the Free Syrian Army.
The group has formed its own brigades under the so-called Body of Civilians Protection, naming some of the brigades after the Brotherhood's historical leaders. According to one informed source, the group has additionally about 13 brigades operating in Hama, known as Abulfidaa brigades.
Meanwhile, the country appears set for a war that will continue until the regime falls. Significant segments of society in Syria are torn between a despotic regime that is committing atrocities on a daily basis and a stagnant political opposition that has so far failed to present a viable alternative and is dominated by a group they view suspiciously. That is a torn majority, not a silent majority.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/....nant-opposition
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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