Tag: Syria
A Syrian vision of tomorrow
While the official Syrian Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces has outlined a possible but still unlikely political process, I spent some time in Turkey recently with Syrian activists who produced and have now posted the following paper (also in Arabic) outlining their vision of a post-Asad future:
Syria: Vision of Tomorrow
A group of Syrian civil society activists meeting in Turkey examined the current situation in their country, suggested reasonable goals for a democratic transition over the next three years and defined courses of action to take their country in the desired directions. While Syria’s future depends on how and when the Assad regime finally departs, it also depends on the opposition having clear ideas about what to do once he is gone.
- Equal rights
Goal: Citizens with equal rights participate in building the nation.
Present situation: There is no protection of equal rights in Syria today. People are arrested and killed for what they say. Kurds lack citizenship and property rights. The judiciary is not independent. People are arrested without warrants. There is no freedom of movement, as people are arrested for being outside their residential area or based on their place of origin. Some are executed without trial. The police and courts are corrupt and arbitrary. Security force violence against citizens is common.
Courses of action:
- Syria needs active political parties competing for power. A new parliament should be elected from the people and for the people, based on “one person one vote.”
- New laws are needed to preserve equal rights of all citizens, reducing the role of religion in the state.
- Distribution of state resources should be fair, taking into account destruction during the revolution and discrimination before the revolution.
- Citizens should be encouraged to vote and to participate in unions, syndicates and civil society organizations.
- The backlog of court cases should be cleared and courts should decide cases expeditiously based on the evidence.
- A law on equal opportunity and merit-based employment should ensure that people are treated equally, without favoritism and discrimination in employment and elsewhere.
- Official salaries should be increased and corruption at all levels punished. The public should be given channels through which to complain about corruption and inefficiency of state institutions to an independent authority.
- Civil society organizations should be created to inform citizens about their rights and provide them with legal aid.
- Civil state
Goal: A civil state provides fairness, accountability and social justice.
Present situation: There is no civil state in Syria today. It is a military state composed of the army, security apparatus and civil servants who follow regime orders. Army officers, security officers and high officials determine priorities. They seek to transform the whole nation into an army, imposing military uniforms on school children, military lessons and military training camps, even at university level. Civilians supporting the regime form popular committees and are armed to fight the opposition. Seventy to eighty per cent of the wealth of the nation is concentrated in the hands of 2% of the society, creating fissures between social classes. Eighty per cent of government revenue goes to the military, under the pretext of defending the border with Israel.
Courses of action:
- Religion has to be separated from the state in a new constitution.
- An independent, rehabilitated judiciary and serious legislative body are needed.
- The ruling elite and regime officials with blood on their hands must be held accountable in court, either in Syria or at The Hague, for its past crimes.
- All forms of military indoctrination should be abolished from the schools and universities.
- Military service should be voluntary.
- The Ministries of Interior and Defense as well as the other security services need to be vetted for those with blood on their hands, their mandates limited by law to defending Syria and the public and put under civilian control, including parliamentary oversight.
- The Free Syria Army and other armed groups will need to be disarmed, demobilized and reintegrated, with qualified individuals joining the army or the police and others entering civilian life.
- Nonviolent dispute resolution
Goal: Disputes are resolved by nonviolent means.
Present situation: There is an absence of dialogue throughout the society. The regime today controls nongovernmental and civil society organizations. Peaceful activities like petitions, communiqués and rallies are repressed. The main media are under government control. The opposition media and lawyers working on human rights are persecuted. Martial law is enforced.
Courses of action:
- Dialogue needs to increase throughout Syrian society, especially between sects and with minorities. Open debate and exchange of opinion should be the rule rather than the exception.
- Much more information about minorities should be made available, so as to increase respect and dialogue between sects and ethnicities. This should include mutual visits between groups as well as rallies for minority awareness and nonviolence.
- Militias need to be disarmed and their members reintegrated in society.
- The armed forces, police and other security forces should be retrained to use less force.
- The press should be free and opposition expressed in the media.
- Justice for criminal acts committed during and before the revolution, by all sides, needs to be done.
- Trauma treatment should be made available to those who need it.
- Civil society leaders, including clergy, higher councils of the minorities, tribal leaders, business people, and professors should take the lead in promoting broad societal dialogue
- It should be clearly understood that Alawites, some of whom are pillars of the Assad regime, are not targeted by the opposition, which would welcome their participation and willingness to deal with abuses committed by members of their community.
- Women and children
Goal: Women and children have full rights and women are a main pillar of society.
Present situation: Women and children suffer particular deprivation of their rights in Syria today. Children have been arrested and tortured. Their schooling is riddled with Ba’athist propaganda. Children born without a father cannot have the mother’s family name. Women are murdered in so-called “honor” killings. Divorce, inheritance, custody and alimony laws are biased towards men. Women married to non-Syrians cannot pass citizenship to their children. Rapists are given the opportunity to marry their victims.
Courses of action:
- Civil society organizations should devote their attention to protecting the rights of women and children and informing women of their rights.
- The civil status law has to be amended.
- Child labor should be abolished and laws enacted that punish parents who allow children to work.
- Recreational centers are needed for children and orphans.
- Full a citizen rights should be guaranteed at age 18.
- Economy
Goal: A stable economy satisfies citizens’ needs.
Present situation: The Syrian economy is weak. Mainly monopolized by the governing minority, no local or international investments can operate without control by the Assad family. The revenues from sale of oil and gas go directly to the pockets of the ruling family. High customs duties make many goods too expensive for ordinary Syrians. Some customs border points are controlled by influential members of the regime, in addition to free-market shops at the borders. Smuggling is common and known to state officials. Lattakia port is a particular problem.
Unemployment is high. Suitable jobs are scarce. New ones are not being created. Ordinary people have difficulty meeting necessary expenses. Employees have few guaranteed rights in either the public or private sectors. Agricultural land is confiscated without compensation. Infrastructure was in bad shape even before the revolution. Services in the provinces and villages are poor, which encourages migration to cities. That causes more poverty, unemployment and congestion. Regime economic policy—like free trade with Turkey—has not benefited the Syrian economy.
Courses of action:
- Syria should be opened to foreign and domestic investment, which will create jobs and contribute to stability.
- Taxes need to be lowered and the system made more equitable.
- Agricultural products should be subsidized and support provided to rural communities, in order to decrease migration to cities.
- Foreign exchange should be free and reserves of foreign currency held by the central bank restored.
- Labor rights need to be enacted in law and guaranteed in practice.
- Corruption should be punished. An independent accountability office should ensure efficient and non-corrupt use of state resources.
- Religion
Goal: All Syrian citizens should have a free choice of religious practice and affiliation.
Present situation: The Syrian regime has been built since its beginnings on ethnic and racial discrimination, creating fissures between the various ethnicities and sects. For some sects, the freedom to practice religion has been limited. The regime has closed mosques and prevented people from praying. The regime exploits religion to serve its own interests, fooling large numbers of people in the society. Unfortunately, some of the opposition is also exploiting religion for its own interests.
One of the regime’s tactics has been to make minorities afraid of the majority and possible future extremism, thus portraying itself as a protector of minorities. At the same time, the regime has brutally oppressed certain ethnicities and religious sects and marginalized some areas due to their ethnic and religious affiliation.
Courses of action:
- A constitutional provision should establish free choice of religion and equal rights for minorities.
- The Ministry of Religion should encourage moderate Islam as well as awareness and respect for other religions.
- The judiciary, the state and the educational system should discourage extremism.
- Civil marriage should be made available to all citizens.
- In reconstructing Syrian cities, mixed neighborhoods should be encouraged.
- The government should establish cultural centers for different ethnicities and sects.
The group looks forward to renewal of nonviolent mobilization on March 15, the second anniversary of the revolution. This will include boycotts of regime-affiliated companies intended to compel the regime to end its reign of terror against the Syrian people and enter a serious dialogue for peaceful transition of authority.
February 11, 2013
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Treachery could go a long way
With appreciation to the Etilaf (National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces) media department, here is the Interim Political Advisory Committee “framework for any political solution.” It was adopted in Cairo last Friday. I am publishing it in full here because I haven’t seen it elsewhere:
The Interim Advisory Political Committee of the Syrian Coalition held its regular meeting to discuss the latest political and field developments. Members of the committee examined the domestic, regional and international developments that relate to the Syrian revolution. As the Syrian Coalition is keen on elevating the suffering of the Syrian people, the protection of Syria’s national unity, saving Syria from the crimes committed by Assad’s regime, and preventing foreign interference, the committee developed the following framework for any political solution:
1. Achieving the objectives of the revolution in achieving justice, freedom, and dignity, as well as sparing the country from any further devastation and preserving the unity of Syria in order to achieve a transition to a civil and democratic system that ensures equal rights for all Syrians.
2. Bashar Assad and security leadership who are responsible for the current destruction of the country are outside the political process and must be held accountable for their crimes.
3. All Syrians will be part of any future political solution, including those currently serving with the state institutions, Baathists, political, civil and social forces as long as they did not participate in any crimes committed against other Syrians.
4. Any acceptable political initiative must have a clear timeline and clearly stated objectives.
5. Member States of the Security Council, especially Russia and the United States of America, must secure appropriate international support and adequate safeguards to make this process possible. They should adopt such political initiative, which could result in issuing binding resolution from the UN Security Council.
6. We expect Russia to turn its statements about not adhering to having Bashar Assad into practical steps. Any agreement between Russia and Syrians must be done with legitimate representatives for the Syrian people. Such agreement will not be implemented as long as Assad and his regime are controlling the government.
7. The Iranian leadership must recognize that its support of Bashar Assad is pushing the region towards sectarian conflict, which is not be in the interest of anyone. Iranian government should realize that Assad and his regime have no chance to stay in power nor will they be part of any future solution for Syria.
8. The friends of the Syrian people should understand lasting political solution that ensures the stability of the region and preserves the institutions of the state will only take place through changing the balance of power on the ground which requires supporting the Syrian coalition and Joint Chiefs of Staff with all possible means.
I take this to be the political committee’s effort to reframe the proposal by the Coalition’s leader, Moaz al Khatib, for talks with the regime. That “personal” (i.e. uncoordinated) proposal was conditional on release of political prisoners and renewal of passports for expatriates, two conditions that were not met within the time limit al Khatib proposed.
Now we have this more elaborate, and more opaque, proposition from al Khatib’s followers. It does not suggest talks with the regime but rather an internationally sponsored political process backed by both the US and Russia and approved in a Chapter 7 resolution of the UN Security Council. While the details of that process are unspecified, the committee asks for a timeline and clear objectives, which clearly include a democratic Syria. Bashar al Asad is not to be part of the political process envisaged.
There’s the rub, the same as almost a year ago. So far, Asad has refused exclusion from the political process and backed his refusal with brutality. The regime has cracked but not broken. The Coalition is saying only a military response to its brutality (“changing the balance of power on the ground…with all possible means”) will enable a “lasting political solution.” But the Europeans yesterday refused to lift their arms embargo in order to help the opposition. The Americans are likewise still sitting on their hands.
Serious international negotiations don’t sound likely. Moscow and Washington are still unable to agree on a plan. But the interim political committee is correct that ultimately it will be conditions inside Syria, not the best laid plans of those outside, that will determine what happens. Both the expatriate opposition and the regime leadership are insulated from the violence, which is creating a much bigger humanitarian problem than has been acknowledged so far. My admittedly limited contact with opposition people inside the country suggests they are more inclined to negotiate, albeit not with Bashar. I can only hope that the same is true of some within the regime. Treachery could go a long way to ending this criminally violent regime.
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Talk is cheap
Calls for negotiated solutions are all the rage. Secretary of State Kerry wants one in Syria. The Washington Post thinks one is possible in Bahrain. Everyone wants one for Iran. Despite several years of failure, many are still hoping for negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Ditto Israel/Palestine. Asia needs them for its maritime issues.
It is a good time to remember the classic requirement for successful negotiations: “ripeness,” defined as a mutually hurting stalemate in which both parties come to the conclusion that they cannot gain without negotiations and may well lose. I might hope this condition is close to being met in Syria and Bahrain, but neither President Asad nor the Al Khalifa monarchy seems fully convinced, partly because Iran and Saudi Arabia are respectively providing unqualified support to the regimes under fire. Ripeness may well require greater external pressure: from Russia in the case of Syria and from the United States in the case of Bahrain, which hosts the US Fifth Fleet.
It is difficult to tell where things stand in the Afghanistan negotiations. While the Taliban seem uninterested, Pakistan appears readier than at times in the past. The Americans are committed to getting out of the fight by the end of 2014. President Karzai is anxious for his security forces to take over primary responsibility sooner rather than later. But are they capable of doing so, and what kind of deal are the Afghans likely to cut as the Americans leave?
Israel and Palestine have one way or another been negotiating and fighting on and off since before 1948. Objectively, there would appear to be a mutually hurting stalemate, but neither side sees it that way. Israel has the advantage of vast military superiority, which it has repeatedly used as an alternative to negotiation to get its way in the West Bank and Gaza. A settlement might end that option. The Palestinians have used asymmetric means (terrorism, rocket fire, acceptance at the UN as a non-member state, boycott) to counter and gain they regard as a viable state.
The Iran nuclear negotiations are critical, as their failure could lead not just to an American strike but also to Iranian retaliation around the world and a requirement to continue military action as Tehran rebuilds its nuclear program. The United States is trying to bring about ripeness by ratcheting up sanctions pressure on Tehran, which fears that giving up its nuclear program will put the regime at risk. It is not clear that the US is prepared to strike a bargain that ensures regime survival in exchange for limits on the nuclear program. We may know more after the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, China + Germany) meet with Iran February 26 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Asia’s conflicts have only rarely come to actual violence. China, Korea (North and South), Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines and India are sparring over trade routes, islands, resources and ultimately hegemony. This risks arousing nationalist sentiments that will be hard to control, driving countries that have a good deal to gain from keeping the peace in some of the world’s fastest growing economies into wars that the regimes involved will find it difficult to back away from. Asia lacks an over-arching security structure like those in Europe (NATO, OSCE, G8, Council of Europe, etc) and has long depended on the US as a balancing force to preserve the peace. This has been a successful approach since the 1980s, but the economic rise of China has put its future in doubt, even with the Obama Administration’s much-vaunted pivot to Asia.
This is a world that really does need diplomacy. None of the current negotiations seem destined for success, though all have some at least small probability of positive outcomes. Talk really is cheap. I don’t remember anyone complaining that we had spent too much money on it, though some would argue that delay associated with negotiations has sometimes been costly. The French would say that about their recent adventure in Mali.
But war is extraordinarily expensive. Hastening to it is more often than not unwise. That is part of what put the United States into deep economic difficulty since 2003. If we want to conserve our strength for an uncertain future, we need to give talk its due.
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Behind the curve is not leading from behind
President Obama had little to say on international affairs in the State of the Union speech last night, which did not break new foreign policy ground. On Syria, this was it:
We’ll keep the pressure on a Syrian regime that has murdered its own people, and support opposition leaders that respect the rights of every Syrian.
There is nothing wrong with this formula (except grammar, since by my lights it should be “who respect”), but there is a good deal lacking in what the Administration is doing. Most Washington commentary has focused on military intervention. I think there are good reasons to hesitate on that front: the unpredictable regional impact, possible consequences for US relations with Russia and the political ramifications inside Syria.
But it is hard for me to understand why the Administration is not throwing 100% political and financial support behind the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces that it helped to create. One of its main purposes was to give a stronger voice to opposition people inside Syria, many of whom want an early end to the fighting. The Coalition’s leader, Moaz al Khatib, stuck his neck out calling for a conditional dialogue with the regime. Why would the US government continue to sit on its hands?
I don’t have an answer to that question. Some officials tell me money is flowing to the Coalition, but those I know in the Coalition haven’t seen it. What is needed is not only humanitarian aid, some of which should be administered through the Coalition, but also basic operational expenses to allow the Coalition to begin to govern in liberated parts of Syria. I would happily write a check for $50 million and tell these folks to come back in six months for more, provided they are able to give me a full accounting (with receipts) of what they did with the first slice and what its impact was.
That isn’t how it works, some say. But that is how it works when the US really backs a cause. If we want the Coalition to appoint an interim government, we need to provide the resources and flexibility required. There is little point in saying something in diplomacy if you are unwilling to act on it.
There are other things to be done besides money. Washington could formally recognize the Coalition as the legitimate government of Syria and give it possession of the embassy in Washington, which I am told is already in the hands of officials sympathetic to the revolution. The UN seat is another issue. Even if a credentials challenge mid-session is not possible, we could signal that come next fall the US will back a Coalition government bid for the seat.
I am told some in the Coalition are hesitant about US support. This would not be surprising. Attitudes in Syria towards the US are distinctly negative, and our inaction has not improved our image. Syrians resent the designation of Jabhat al Nusra, an extremist Sunni militia, as a terrorist organization, since its militants are among the most effective fighters and its treatment of the population better than that of at least some of the more secular Free Syrian Army fighters, whom Washington has been anxious to support.
The Administration is correct to want the Syrians out front fighting their own civil war and negotiating their own political settlement, if there is to be one. But Washington needs to make sure that the “opposition leaders” who “respect the rights of every Syrian” get what they need to prevail in what is likely to be a chaotic and bloody post-Asad Syria. There is a difference between leading from behind and being behind the curve.
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Keeping an eye on Asia
Trying to catch up on my Asia reading, as things are heating up there:
- The Japanese scrambled jets last week in response to a Russian violation of airspace over the Kuril Islands.
- China has been pressuring North Korea not to conduct an announced nuclear test.
- Tokyo is complaining that Chinese radar “locked on” to Japanese ships, a step generally associated with initiating an attack, in the East China Sea (where the two countries dispute sovereignty over the Senkaku/Daioyu islands).
The smart money is still betting that China and Japan won’t go to war over uninhabited islands that Japan administers but China claims. There have been recent rumblings of a possible accord between Russia and Japan on the Kurils. It is of course welcome that China should restrain its North Korean friends from defying the UN Security Council again with another nuclear test. It is unclear whether Beijing will succeed.
The US Navy, facing budget and reducing its presence in the Middle East, has found a useful “hegemon” and bully in China. In the mist of preparations for the Quadrennial Defense Review, naval advocates would like to regain at least some of the budget momentum they lost when Mitt Romney–a strong naval advocate–was defeated for the presidency.
But that doesn’t mean the needs are not real. America’s ships are vulnerable, even to Iranian never mind Chinese cruise and other missiles. Washington has a lot of obligations in Asia: to Japan, to Taiwan, the Philippines, to South Korea. It also has some relatively new friends to oblige: Vietnam and Burma in particular. It is not going to be easy to meet all the needs in a severely constrained budget environment.
Those who complain about US inattention to Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and even the Balkans need to remember how many other commitments need to be fulfilled. Asia represents an important slice of the future of world economic growth. It also represents a serious risk of armed conflict on a scale that would have global consequences. We may not all be able to pivot to Asia, but we should keep an eye on it.
And I just realized: I am in Asia today, in Antalya, Turkey. Maybe that’s why my eyes have turned east, though the East I am writing about here lies thousands of miles away. Here’s the scenery from my hotel room:
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Finitiatives
Ammar Abulhamid writes:
Not too long ago, Assad issued a “Finitiative,” that is, an initiative to end all initiatives, calling, allegedly, for dialogue with the opposition. Now, opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib has repaid Assad in kind by issuing his own “Finitiative” calling, purportedly, for dialogue with the regime. Both finitiatives were clearly designed for purposes other than those declared and were meant primarily as acts of continued defiance, even if some failed to detect the defiance involved in Alkhatib’s finitiative
….Assad’s finitiative was meant to rally troops and consolidate support and control rather than enter into any real dialogue with the opposition, Alkhatib’s came as a revolutionary act meant to break a political stalemate in the ranks of the international community and to push for a real policy to help resolve the situation in Syria in a way commensurate with the expectation of the majority of average Syrians from all communal and political backgrounds. Assad’s finitiative was, then, a defensive act, a last stand of sorts. But Alkhatib’s finitiative marked the opposition’s first real offensive on the political front.
This makes a lot of good sense to me as an interpretation of what is happening, but Khatib’s challenge is greater than Asad’s: to hold the opposition together as he undertakes his “finitiative.” The regime, so far at least, has had relatively little difficulty maintaining cohesion, at least at its core. The cracks are many. But I’ve seen some ancient vases with a lot of cracks and no real breaks.
The opposition seems less intact, because it never was united. Khatib’s initiative took at least some people by surprise, which is not a good way of maintaining support from people who might already be less inclined than desirable to follow your lead. It is still not clear whether Khatib’s move will weaken or strengthen his position, but the uncertainty is itself debilitating.
As for the international community, it still looks unlikely that a breakthrough is imminent. Despite much chest beating, Washington seems as committed as ever to not taking military action. The Russians and Iranians seem wedded to Bashar, even if they claim it isn’t true. Brahimi is active, but so far to no good effect.
The war drags on, with something like 200 civilians killed each day. Atrocities are documented but not prevented. The regime is still able to use its air force to disrupt areas outside its control. The revolutionaries are likewise able to strike in Damascus and other areas of regime dominance. Fatigue–absolutely vital to the “mutually hurting stalemate” that opens up the possibility of successful negotiation–is setting in for many. But neither the regime nor the most avid of the revolutionaries appears to have concluded that they can gain more by talking than by fighting.
A lot of people in the middle concluded that long ago. The Khatib and Asad initiatives are designed to appeal to them. But it is the guys with guns who get to determine what happens. They still seem content to battle on.
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