Syria Calls the Arab League’s Sanctions ‘Economic War’

[JStone]

Arabs behaving badly, again.

Syria Calls the Arab League’s Sanctions ‘Economic War’

DAMASCUS, Syria — The Arab League declared “economic war” on Syria when it leveled broad trade sanctions against it, Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said on Monday, warning that the country could use its strategic location to retaliate.

“Syria cannot be treated like this,” Mr. Moallem said at a news conference broadcast live around the region. He was by turns indignant and incredulous that the Arab League had turned the tool of sanctions, which it had long reviled, on one of its own.

“Sanctions can cut both ways,” he said. And while he contended that he did not want to threaten anyone, he said, “We should study well Syria’s geographic location as a transit point for commercial traffic.”

Continued: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/w...ue-sanctions-economic-war.html?pagewanted=all

 

[waltky]

AL gettin' serious `bout Syria...

Arab League sends 'serious political message' to Syria
29 November 2011 - The uprising in Syria has been going on for nine months

The secretary general of the Arab League has said its approval of unprecedented sanctions has sent a very serious political message to Syria. Nabil al-Arabi told the BBC that the Syrian government could not carry on as if it was business as usual. He said new sanctions recently agreed by Arab states would come into force on Saturday unless Syria kept its promises. Syria's foreign minister has described the sanctions as "economic war".

In a BBC interview at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Mr Arabi said the Arab League had agreed to sanctions "with a heavy heart". "We have sent a very serious political message" is how the Arab League secretary general described the sanctions. Mr Arabi said they were a message to Damascus: "You have to behave, you have to stop what is going on, it's not business as usual. Something has to happen."

'Heavy price'

The secretary general responded to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem's denunciation of the sanctions. "No one wants to hurt the Syrian people," he insisted. "No one wants to embarrass the Syrian government." The measures are meant to sever most trade, exchanges and investment between Syria and the Arab world. He said the Syrian people were paying "a very heavy price" during an uprising now entering its ninth month. The UN says violence has left more than 3,500 dead. The secretary general would not be drawn on whether "time was running out" for President Bashar al-Assad. But he spoke of efforts over the past five months to convince him to "stop fighting, release prisoners, reform". He said the Syrian government had a "different narrative" - that unrest was only taking place in border towns were there was foreign influence and that it was acting in self-defence.

Mr Arabi said sanctions would come into force on Saturday unless Damascus fulfilled a number of commitments, including permission for Arab League monitors to enter the country. He recognised that past experience of international sanctions against countries like Iraq and Libya had shown they were not foolproof. In Syria's case, neighbours like Lebanon and Iraq have abstained or dissociated themselves from the new resolutions. But he was adamant that the Arab League could not discuss military support for the Syrian opposition. And he said all its resolutions were an effort to ensure there would be no foreign intervention in Syria.

BBC News - Arab League sends 'serious political message' to Syria

 

[waltky]

Down with Assad...

UN Human Rights Council Condemns Syria
December 02, 2011 - The U.N. Human Rights Council has strongly condemned “the continued widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights” in Syria where the government is entering its ninth month of a bloody crackdown on dissenters.

During an emergency session convened Friday in Geneva, the U.N. rights body overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that will establish a special investigator to probe human rights abuses in Syria. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, told the Human Rights Council’s 47 member states that more than 4,000 people have been killed since the crackdown began in mid-March, including 307 children. She said tens of thousands of people have been arrested and some 14,000 remain in Syrian jails.

Earlier this week, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry delivered its initial report, which concluded that Syria's security and military forces have committed crimes against humanity. Pillay urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court at The Hague and said the international community needs to urgently act to protect the Syrian people. “The Syrian authorities’ continual ruthless repression, if not stopped now, can drive the country into a full-fledged civil war," said Pillay. "In light of the manifest failure of the Syrian authorities to protect their citizens, the international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people.”

In a vote of 37 in favor, four against and six abstentions, the Human Rights Council strongly condemned the violence and established a special rapporteur to investigate the situation of human rights in Syria. Russia, China, Ecuador and Cuba were the four members who voted against the measure, while all four of the Human Rights Council’s Arab members were among the states supporting the resolution. The resolution stops short of explicitly referring the commission’s report on Syria to the U.N. Security Council -- which could then refer the matter to the International Criminal Court -- but it does charge the U.N. Secretary-General with taking “appropriate action” and transmitting the report to “all U.N. relevant bodies” which could include the General Assembly or Security Council.

Speaking before the vote, Syria’s envoy in Geneva, Faysal Khabbaz Hamwi, dismissed the draft resolution as “one-sided” and “biased.” He urged members not to vote for it, saying it would not help the Syrian people. “In addition to the false message they are addressing to the situation in my country, we would have hoped to have a more balanced draft resolution that would call on ceasing all forms of armed violence in my country," said a translator on Hamwi's behalf. "We would have liked the draft resolution to call on all sections of the Syrian people to start an effective, real national dialogue to put an end to the crisis. Nevertheless, it did not refer to that whatsoever.” As the death toll continues to climb, international pressure on Syria has been intensifying, with the European Union, the United States and the Arab League all separately sanctioning the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Source

 

[waltky]

With Assad out of the way, the Syrians could go about with a lot more peaceful society...

Barak: Fall of Assad would be a 'blessing' for ME
12/11/2011 : Defense minister says Syrian regime could fall "within weeks," would be a "blow to the Iran-Hezbollah axis"; threatens that Gaza situation "can not continue"; calls for new international sanctions on Iranian regime.

The regime in Syria is doomed to fall “within weeks,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Sunday. Speaking at the World Policy Conference in Vienna, Barak added that Bashar Assad’s fall would be a “blessing for the Middle East” and a “blow to the Iran-Hezbollah axis.” “We are witnesses these days to battles between Assad-family loyalists and rebel forces. This is a continuation of the deterioration of the regime’s hold on power. Assad has already killed over 4,000 people in the streets of Syria, and his regime is heading towards its end,” the defense minister said. Barak reiterated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and declared his and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s willingness to immediately engage in direct negotiations, without conditions, with the Palestinian leadership. However, he questioned the Palestinian commitment to compromise, saying that “Netanyahu declared a moratorium on settlement building for 10 months, and Israel does not build new settlements...

Altogether settlements take up only 2 percent of the West Bank, and therefore I don’t accept the Palestinian claim that settlements are the obstacle to negotiations.” Barak also spoke about the recent surge in attacks from the Gaza Strip. “Since Friday, 36 rockets have been fired at Israeli towns. Israel will defend its citizens and will not allow the situation to continue,” he said. The defense minister added that even though Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip under prime minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan in 2005, “Hamas has fired over 10,000 rockets at Israel.” He said that extremist forces are actively working in Sinai, giving credence to a Jerusalem Post exclusive on Sunday that stated that Hamas has established forward bases and rocket production facilities in the peninsula, in an effort to protect them from Israeli air strikes. Expressing his concern about Iran, Barak said the Islamic Republic is “the entire world’s problem” and called for an international effort to impose sanctions on the regime. “An Iranian nuclear weapon would change the entire Middle East and would start a regional nuclear arms race,” he said.

Speaking about Israel- Turkey relations, Barak said he regretted the loss of life in the Mavi Marmara incident, but did not regret the siege of Gaza. According to Turkish media reports, President Abdullah Gul avoided entering the conference in Vienna at the same time as Barak. He also refused to attend a luncheon hosted by Austrian President Heinz Fisher, or take part in a group picture of leaders at the conference, because of Barak’s participation. Barak responded by leaving the conference hall after Fisher delivered the opening address to the group, and before Gul spoke. The incidents indicate that there is still a diplomatic crisis with Turkey.

Barak: Fall of Assad would be a '... JPost - Diplomacy & Politics

See also:

'18 killed' in fresh Syria clashes, say opposition
11 December 2011 - The uprising against Syria's regime shows no sign of abating

At least 18 people are reported to have died in clashes in Syria as opposition activists called a general strike. 11 of the deaths were in the cities of Homs and Hama, the opposition Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) said. Two people also died in clashes between troops and deserters in the northern Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Authorities in Idlib confronted members of "an armed terrorist group", said Syrian state news agency SANA. The UN estimates more than 4,000 people have died in the nine-month uprising, including 307 children.

Syria severely restricts access to foreign media so reports of unrest cannot be verified. The LCC said the casualties it had recorded on Sunday included two children. There were also reports of clashes between defectors and troops in the south, near the border with Jordan. In Jordan itself, protests at the Syrian embassy in the capital Amman turned violent for the first time. The embassy said protesters stormed the building and attacked staff, but the brother of one of the protesters told the BBC that they were assaulted when they went into the embassy wearing opposition flags.

'Burned shops'

Heavy machine-gun fire was heard and two armoured carriers were burned in pre-dawn clashes in Kfar Takharim town in Idlib province, the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said. Reuters news agency quoted residents and activists as saying army defectors had also clashed with loyalist forces backed by tanks in the town of Busra al-Harir, not far from the border with Jordan. The Observatory said that a general strike called by opposition activists was being "very widely observed" in southern Syria's Daraa province on Sunday, the start of the working week. And schoolchildren and civil servants stayed at home in some parts of Damascus, although central districts opened as normal, the activist group said. Fear of pro-government militias prevented some shopkeepers from joining the strike, one Damascus resident told the BBC.

Shopkeepers who kept the shutters down in Idlib province had their property burned by troops who issued a warning via loudspeakers from a nearby mosque, the LCC said. The LCC also said the strike was being well observed by students at Aleppo University and by residents of the town of Douma near Damascus, where it said casualties had been reported. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is under international pressure to end the continuing crackdown on anti-government protesters. The Arab League is reported to be holding two emergency meetings in the coming days, to discuss Damascus's response to the League's plan to send in monitors. Last month the League suspended Syria's membership in protest at the continuing crackdown and also imposed economic sanctions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16130920

 

[waltky]

Playin' into Assad's hand...

Arab body calls for pullout of monitors in Syria
Sunday 1st January, 2012 – A pan-Arab body called Sunday for the immediate withdrawal of the Arab League monitors in Syria because President Bashar Assad's regime has kept up killings of government opponents even in the presence of the observers.

The 88-member Arab Parliament said that Arabs are angered by the Syrian regime's ongoing killings while the nearly 100 monitors are in the country. The monitors are supposed to be ensuring Syria complies with terms of the League's plan to end the 9-month-old crackdown on dissent — a plan Syria agreed to on Dec. 19. However, the Kuwaiti head of the Arab Parliament, Ali Salem al-Deqbasi, said the presence of the monitors is distracting from the "flagrant violations" committed by Assad's regime. "The killing of children and the violation of human rights law is happening in the presence of Arab League monitors, raising the fury of Arab people," he said. "The mission of the Arab League team has missed its aim of stopping the killing of children and ensuring the withdrawal of troops from the Syrian streets, giving the Syrian regime a cover to commit inhumane acts under the noses of the Arab League observers," al-Deqbasi said in a statement.

The Arab League created the Arab Parliament, which is made up of lawmakers and advisers from states around the Middle East. Its recommendations are nonbinding and it operates separately from the Arab League. While the Arab Parliament has little sway on Damascus or the Arab League, al-Deqbasi's remarks about the observer mission represents growing concern about the monitors' ability to deter Assad's regime from killing protesters. According to activists, more than 150 people have been killed across the country since the observers began their one-month mission on Tuesday. The U.N. says more than 5,000 people have died as the government has sought to crush the revolt.

The Arab League plan demands that the government remove its security forces and heavy weapons from cities, start talks with the opposition and allow human rights workers and journalists into the country. It also calls for the release of all political prisoners. The ongoing violence in Syria, and questions about the human rights record of the head of the Arab League monitors, Sudanese Lt. Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, are reinforcing the opposition's view that Syria's limited cooperation with the observers is merely a ploy by Assad to buy time and forestall more international condemnation and sanctions. The Syrian opposition has called for the removal of al-Dabi, a longtime loyalist of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted on an international arrest warrant on charges of genocide in the Darfur region.

Source

 

[waltky]

Iran, Syria Surrounded...

Russian, French warships off Syria, Iran, US drones over Iranian coast
January 9, 2012, US, Russian French and British air and naval forces streamed to the Syrian and Iranian coasts over the weekend on guard for fresh developments at the two Middle East flashpoints.

The Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov anchored earlier than planned at Syria's Tartus port on the Mediterranean Sunday, Jan. 8, arriving together with the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and frigate Yaroslav Mudry. To counter this movement, France consigned an air defense destroyer Forbin to the waters off Tartus. debkafile's military sources report a buildup in the last 48 hours of western naval forces opposite Iran in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea in readiness for Tehran to carry out its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz. Britain has dispatched the HMS Daring, a Type 45 destroyer armed with new technology for shooting down missiles, to the Sea of Oman, due to arrive at the same time as the French Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier.

Our sources report too that Saturday, the giant RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV, took off from the USS Stenning aircraft carrier for surveillance over the coasts of Iran. The Stennis and its strike group are cruising in the Sea of Oman at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran announced it would not be allowed to cross through. This was the first time the US has deployed unmanned aerial vehicles over Iran since its RQ-170 stealth drone was shot down by Iran on Dec. 4. It was also the first time the huge drone was ordered to take off from an aircraft carrier for a Broad Aerial Maritime Surveillance Mission (BAMS).

US military sources reported Monday, Jan. 9 that the Global Hawk's mission is "to monitor sea traffic off the Iranian coast and the Straits of Hormuz." The US Navy was ordered to maintain a watch on this traffic, another first, after Iranian Navy chief Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said in a televised broadcast Sunday night that the Strait of Hormuz was under full Iranian control and had been for years. Also Sunday, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff, warned in no uncertain terms that Iran has the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz “for a period of time.” He added in a CBS interview: “We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that if that happens, we can defeat that.” Gen. Dempsey went on to emphasize: "Yes, they can block it. We've described that as an intolerable act and it's not just intolerable for us, it's intolerable to the world. But we would take action and reopen the straits."

Appearing on the same program, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned of a quick, decisive and very tough American response to any Iranian attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz. They both spoke a few hours after a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards said the supreme Iranian leadership had ruled the Strait must be closed in the event of an oil embargo imposed on Iran by the European Union.

More DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security

 

[JStone]

An economic war among primitive camel herders.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4Vp642ERhM&feature=related]Sound-Effects - Crowd Laughing - YouTube[/ame]

 

[waltky]

Russia helpin' Assad with arms...

Why Russia is willing to sell arms to Syria
January 19, 2012 - Russia, which has weapons contracts with Syria worth $5 billion, is increasingly resisting international pressure to punish its ally. Yesterday it did not deny a report of a recent arms shipment.

Russia is digging in its heels against international action that would punish Syria's regime for its brutal crackdown on a popular uprising that has moved into its 11th month. Not only will Russia veto any sanctions put before the United Nations Security Council, where it is one of five veto-wielding members, it also looks set to continue supplying billions of dollars worth of Russian arms that Syria has contracted to buy. And it will not halt friendly Russian gestures toward the regime of Bashar al-Assad, such as this month's visit of Russia's only operational aircraft carrier to the Syrian port of Tartous.

As the death toll for Syria's popular uprising has risen to more than 5,000 in recent months, international leaders have called for more punitive sanctions against the Assad regime. But Russia's opposition to such measures has toughened in part due to increasing suspicions of Western intentions, and in part due to growing fears that Russia could lose its oldest and most important Middle Eastern ally through Western-sponsored regime change in Syria. Some analysts add that Russia's own bubbling political instability has sharpened the Kremlin's traditional resistance to any precedents that seem to mandate outside interference in a sovereign country's internal affairs.

"Russian leaders view Syria as our major ally in the Middle East, with whom we have good political, military, and economic ties," says Alexander Golts, a military expert with the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal. Mr. Golts suggests that with Vladimir Putin almost certain to return as president in March, foreign policy experiments involving greater cooperation with the West that occurred under President Dmitry Medvedev are probably a thing of the past. "Putin has a real paranoia about colored revolutions. He reads such [pro-democracy rebellions] as a result of Western conspiracies," he says. "The attitude is, we're not going to be fooled any more." In his annual press conference Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rebuffed concerns about a reported delivery of Russian ammunition for Syria's armed forces this month by saying: "We don't consider it necessary to explain or justify ourselves, as we are not violating any international agreements or any [UN] Security Council resolutions."

UN sanctions would cost Russia $5 billion in arms sales

Russia's official arms export corporation, Rosoboronexport, declined to detail the extent of weapons contracts with Syria today. Its press secretary, Vyacheslav Davidenko, merely echoed Mr. Lavrov by insisting that "Russia will do nothing in violation of UN sanctions. If there aren't any, then we are free to supply any goods or services," to Syria, he says. But according to the independent Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade (CAWAT) in Moscow, Syria is Russia's seventh-largest customer in a global market that yielded almost $8 billion for Rosoboronexport in 2009. Sales to Syria over the past decade have amounted to about 10 percent of Russia's total weapons exports.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Assad gonna go the way of Kaddafi...

Syria turns down Arab League plan for Assad to step down
Monday 23rd January, 2012 - Syria Monday rejected a new Arab League peace proposal that calls for embattled President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power to his deputy and set up a new unity government, terming it a blatant infringement of the country's sovereignty and evidence of a "conspiratorial scheme."

"Syria rejects the decisions of the Arab League ministerial council ... and considers them a violation of its national sovereignty and a flagrant interference in its internal affairs," state news agency SANA quoted an official source as saying. "Syria condemns this decision, which came in the framework of the conspiratorial scheme hatched against Syria which have been exposed to our people and the Arab Homeland," the statement added. The rejection came less than 24 hours after the Arab League meeting in Cairo floated the proposal, under which President Assad would relinquish power to a deputy and start negotiations with opponents within two weeks.

The plan also calls for the formation of a new government within two months, a new constitutional council to be set up as well as a plan for parliamentary and presidential elections. The Arab League said it plans to take the idea to the United Nations in a bid to build international support. Meanwhile, the head of Arab League observers in Syria rejected criticism that his team had failed to stop killings in the country. Speaking in Cairo on Monday, Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi said that the mission was designed not to bring an immediate end to violence but to investigate and observe the situation.

The European Commission too widened sanctions against Syrian officials and organizations amid rising concerns about the government's violent crackdown on anti-regime protesters. The EU imposed asset freezes and travel bans to 22 more Syrian officials who, it said were responsible for human rights violations and eight entities that give financial support to Assad's regime.

Existing EU sanctions include an arms embargo, a ban on the import of Syrian crude oil and a ban on new investment in the Syrian petroleum sector. The UN says more than 5,000 people have died as a result of the crackdown on protests since they began in March last year. Saudi Arabia, one of the key funders of the league's projects, said it was pulling out of the league's 165-strong monitoring mission in Syria because Damascus had broken promises on peace initiatives. The Arab League ministers said Sunday they were extending the mission for another month.

Syria turns down Arab League plan for Assad to step down