AU says closely monitoring situation in Libya

The African Union says it is closely monitoring developments in Libya where dozens of people have been killed in fighting this week, according to the World Health Organization.

Rebel forces are trying to seize the capital, Tripoli, where the country’s internationally recognized government is based.

The AU Commission says the current insecurity in Libya is not what it expected after Chairperson Moussa Mahammat Faki visited the country at the start of April.

His spokesperson, Ebba Kalondo told the SABC, Faki met leaders of the main warring factions, General Khalifa Haftar and Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.

She says they both, at the time, embraced the AU’s call for dialogue.

“The African Union remains of the view that these development in Libya do not help the resolution for a crisis that is multidimensional and that has been the cause of great suffering to the Libyan people and the region that it resides and only negotiated inter Libyan political and inclusive dialogue of all the actors can come to a durable solution.”

The United Nations estimates around 3000 people have fled fighting around Tripoli.

Kalondo says the AU Commission is concerned about the many African migrants in Libya, thousands of who are held up in detention centres in the country.

“It is now more than ever important for all the sectors on the ground to assure the protection, the safety of all civilians especially those that already have so little protection to start with who are the migrants being helped in in these detention centres mostly women and children.”

Libya has had no stable government since 2011 when its leader Moammar Gadhafi was deposed and killed.

The AU maintains that it will still go ahead with its planned conference of reconciliation for Libya in July 2019.

Source Channel Africa

U.N. Assembly, in Blow to U.S., Elevates Status of Palestine

More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations, a triumph for Palestinian diplomacy and a sharp rebuke to the United States and Israel.

But the vote, at least for now, did little to bring either the Palestinians or the Israelis closer to the goal they claim to seek: two states living side by side, or increased Palestinian unity. Israel and the militant group Hamas both responded critically to the day’s events, though for different reasons.

The new status will give the Palestinians more tools to challenge Israel in international legal forums for its occupation activities in the West Bank, including settlement-building, and it helped bolster the Palestinian Authority, weakened after eight days of battle between its rival Hamas and Israel.

But even as a small but determined crowd of 2,000 celebrated in central Ramallah in the West Bank, waving flags and dancing, there was an underlying sense of concerned resignation.

“I hope this is good,” said Munir Shafie, 36, an electrical engineer who was there. “But how are we going to benefit?”

Still, the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and 41 abstaining — showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a difficult time. It was taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to divide the former British mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers the international seal of approval for its birth.

The past two years of Arab uprisings have marginalized the Palestinian cause to some extent as nations that focused their political aspirations on the Palestinian struggle have turned inward. The vote on Thursday, coming so soon after the Gaza fighting, put the Palestinians again — if briefly, perhaps — at the center of international discussion.

“The question is, where do we go from here and what does it mean?” Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, who was in New York for the vote, said in an interview. “The sooner the tough rhetoric of this can subside and the more this is viewed as a logical consequence of many years of failure to move the process forward, the better.” He said nothing would change without deep American involvement.

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, speaking to the assembly’s member nations, said, “The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine,” and he condemned what he called Israeli racism and colonialism. His remarks seemed aimed in part at Israel and in part at Hamas. But both quickly attacked him for the parts they found offensive.

“The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the Israel Defense Forces and the citizens of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded. “Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner.”

While Hamas had officially backed the United Nations bid of Mr. Abbas, it quickly criticized his speech because the group does not recognize Israel.

“There are controversial issues in the points that Abbas raised, and Hamas has the right to preserve its position over them,” said Salah al-Bardaweel, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, on Thursday.

“We do not recognize Israel, nor the partition of Palestine, and Israel has no right in Palestine,” he added. “Getting our membership in the U.N. bodies is our natural right, but without giving up any inch of Palestine’s soil.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, spoke after Mr. Abbas and said he was concerned that the Palestinian Authority failed to recognize Israel for what it is.

“Three months ago, Israel’s prime minister stood in this very hall and extended his hand in peace to President Abbas,” Mr. Prosor said. “He reiterated that his goal was to create a solution of two states for two peoples, where a demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“That’s right. Two states for two peoples. In fact, President Abbas, I did not hear you use the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ this afternoon. In fact, I have never heard you say the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ because the Palestinian leadership has never recognized that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.”

The Israelis also say that the fact that Mr. Abbas is not welcome in Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave run by Hamas, from which he was ejected five years ago, shows that there is no viable Palestinian leadership living up to its obligations now.

As expected, the vote won backing from a number of European countries, and was a rebuff to intense American and Israeli diplomacy. France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland all voted yes. Britain and Germany abstained. Apart from Canada, no major country joined the United States and Israel in voting no. The other opponents included Palau, Panama and Micronesia.

Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was dismissive of the entire exercise. “Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,” she said. “And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.”

A major concern for the Americans is that the Palestinians may use their new status to try to join the International Criminal Court. That prospect particularly worries the Israelis, who fear that the Palestinians may press for an investigation of their practices in the occupied territories widely viewed as violations of international law.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said that after the vote “life will not be the same” because “Palestine will become a country under occupation.”

“The terms of reference for any negotiations become withdrawal,” Mr. Erekat said.

Another worry is that the Palestinians may use the vote to seek membership in specialized agencies of the United Nations, a move that could have consequences for the financing of the international organizations as well as the Palestinian Authority itself. Congress cut off financing to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as Unesco, in 2011 after it accepted Palestine as a member. The United States is a major contributor to many of these agencies and is active on their governing boards.

In response to the Palestinian bid, a bipartisan group of senators said Thursday that they would introduce legislation that would cut off foreign aid to the authority if it tried to use the International Criminal Court against Israel, and close the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington if Palestinians refused to negotiate with Israel.

Calling the Palestinian bid “an unhealthy step that could undermine the peace process,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said that he and the other senators, including Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, would be closely monitoring the situation.

The vote came shortly after an eight-day Israeli military assault on Gaza that Israel described as a response to stepped-up rocket fire into Israel. The operation killed scores of Palestinians and was aimed at reducing the arsenal of Hamas in Gaza, part of the territory that the United Nations resolution expects to make up a future state of Palestine.

The Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, was politically weakened by the Gaza fighting, with its rivals in Hamas seen by many Palestinians as more willing to stand up to Israel and fight back. That shift in sentiment is one reason that some Western countries gave for backing the United Nations resolution, to strengthen Mr. Abbas and his more moderate colleagues in their contest with Hamas.

Source: New York Times

DR Congo: US Should Urge Rwanda to End M23 Support

The United States government should publicly support sanctions against Rwandan officials backing the armed group M23, which has been responsible for widespread war crimes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. M23 rebels, whose commanders have been implicated in serious abuses, captured the city of Goma on November 20, 2012.

“The US government’s silence on Rwandan military support to the M23 rebels can no longer be justified given the overwhelming evidence of Rwanda’s role and the imminent threat to civilians around Goma,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “The US government should support urgent sanctions against Rwandan officials who are backing M23 fighters responsible for serious abuses.”

Rwandan military support for the M23 rebels has been evident in their offensive that began on November 15, Human Rights Watch said. Several civilians living near the Rwandan border told Human Rights Watch that they saw hundreds of Rwandan army soldiers crossing the border from Rwanda into Congo at Njerima hill, Kasizi, and Kabuhanga in apparent support of M23 fighters. Human Rights Watch has also documented several incidents in which Rwandan and Congolese soldiers fired across the border from either side between November 16 and 20.

A draft of the final report of the United Nations Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo, soon to be published, alleges that the Rwandan government has provided “direct military support to M23 rebels” and that the “M23’s de facto chain of command includes General Bosco Ntaganda and culminates with the Rwandan Minister of Defense General James Kabarebe.” Ntaganda is on the UN sanctions list and is sought on arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Human Rights Watch has independently established that the Rwandan army has regularly provided significant military support to the M23, including overseeing operational planning, providing weapons and ammunition, recruiting at least 600 people in Rwanda to fight for the M23, training new recruits, and deploying Rwandan army troops to eastern Congo in direct support of M23 rebels.

Over the past seven months, Human Rights Watch has documented widespread war crimes by M23 rebels in eastern Congo, including summary executions, rapes, and forced recruitment, including of children. Rwandan officials may be complicit in war crimes through their military assistance to M23 forces throughout this period, Human Rights Watch said.

The draft UN Group of Experts’ report says that, “Rwandan officials coordinated the creation of the rebel movement as well as its major military operations” and “provided military support to M23 through permanent troop reinforcement and clandestine support by RDF [Rwandan Defence Forces] special units.” The Group of Experts found that “RDF commanders operated alongside M23 and provided logistical support during the July 2012 operations which enabled the capture of Bunagana, Rutshuru, Kiwanja and Rumangabo.” During these operations, “the rebels killed one [UN] peacekeeper at Bunagana and fired on the [UN peacekeeping] base at Kiwanja,” the report states.

The Group of Experts also documented support to the M23 by commanders of the Ugandan People’s Defence Force. While stating that “Rwandan officials exercise overall command and strategic planning for M23,” they note that “senior Government of Uganda officials have also provided support to M23 in the form of direct troop reinforcement in DRC territory, weapons deliveries, [and] technical assistance.”

“The fall of Goma to the M23 magnifies the security risks to civilians in eastern Congo,” Malinowski said. “As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the US should press for sanctions that target not only the M23 but the foreign officials backing their atrocities.”

The Group of Experts has recommended individual sanctions against several Rwandan and Ugandan officials named in its report.

The M23’s latest offensive began on November 15 with M23 rebels fighting UN peacekeepers and Congolese army forces as the rebels progressed toward Goma. By the early afternoon of November 20, after heavy fighting in and around Goma, the M23 had taken control of key areas of Goma. Congolese army soldiers had fled the town, while UN peacekeepers were still present.

Human Rights Watch has received reports of at least 11 civilians killed and dozens of others wounded during the fighting in and around Goma since November 15. An estimated 80,000 people are newly displaced in the area around Goma, including an estimated 60,000 who were in a displacement camp about 10 kilometers outside Goma, according to the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs.

“The US should endorse all measures that would enable UN sanctions against Rwandan officials who are assisting the M23,” Malinowski said. “All parties to the conflict should take urgent measures to protect civilians and stop abuses.”

Background on the M23

The M23 is largely made up of soldiers who took part in a mutiny from the Congolese army between late March and May 2012. Many were previously members of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), a former Rwanda-backed rebel group that integrated into the Congolese army in January 2009. Bosco Ntaganda, who was then a general in the Congolese army, initially led the mutiny. In May, Col. Sultani Makenga, a former colleague of Ntaganda in the CNDP, announced he was beginning a separate mutiny. In the days that followed, Ntaganda and his forces joined Makenga. The new armed group called itself the M23. The M23 claimed the mutiny was to protest the Congolese government’s failure to fully implement the March 23, 2009 peace agreement (hence the name M23), which had integrated them into the Congolese army.

Some of the M23’s senior commanders have well-known histories of serious abuses, committed over the past decade in eastern Congo as they moved from one armed group to another. They have been responsible for ethnic massacres, recruitment of children, mass rape, killings, abductions, and torture. Before the mutinies, at least five of the M23 leaders were on a UN black list of people with whom the UN would not collaborate due to their human rights records.

Ntaganda has been wanted by the International Criminal Court since 2006 for recruiting and using child soldiers in Ituri district in northeastern Congo in 2002 and 2003. In July, the court issued a second warrant against him for war crimes and crimes against humanity, namely murder, persecution based on ethnic grounds, rape, sexual slavery, and pillaging, also in connection with his activities in Ituri.

Human Rights Watch has documented numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity by troops under Ntaganda’s command, as well as by other M23 commanders, including Col. Makenga, Col. Innocent Zimurinda, Col. Baudouin Ngaruye, and Col. Innocent Kayna.

On November 12, 2012, the UN Security Council added Makenga to its list of individuals under sanctions, including an asset freeze and a travel ban. On November 13, the US imposed sanctions on Makenga, which includes an asset freeze and forbids American citizens from undertaking any transactions with him.

Source: Human Rights Watch

SOUTH AFRICA TO RATIFY INTERNATIONAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS COVENANT

South African Human Rights Groups welcome Cabinet’s approval of South Africa’s ratification of the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)

Almost eighteen years after the South African government signed the ICESCR, Cabinet has approved that South Africa will ratify the ICESCR. This important decision to ratify, which means that the ICESCR will be legally binding, was included in a statement issued yesterday on Cabinet’s ordinary meeting held in Pretoria on 10 October 2012. The Cabinet statement describes how the ICESCR is a “key international treaty which seeks to encourage State Parties to address challenges of inequality, unemployment and poverty, which are critical to the strategic goals of governments.”

The ICESCR, together with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, constitutes the International Bill of Rights. The ICESCR has been ratifed by over 160 states since it was adopted in 1966, 48 of which are African states and 11 of which are member states of SADC. South Africa ratified the ICCPR in 1998, and its current ratification of the ICESCR will unambiguously signal its commitment to be legally bound by the full range of human rights recognised under international law. In its statement, Cabinet indicates that the recommendation to ratify the ICESCR will be tabled in Parliament for ratification in line with Section 231(2) of the South African Constitution.

Civil society organisations have been calling for many years for the South African government to ratify the ICESCR (and its Optional Protocol, which creates an individual complaints mechanism). The Community Law Centre (CLC), Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA (SERI), Black Sash, People’s Health Movement South Africa, National Welfare Forum, Global Call to Action against Poverty South Africa (GCAP-SA) and the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII) see this as a great opportunity to ensure that South Africa’s jurisprudence on socio-economic rights develops in harmony with the normative standards set by the leading international treaty on these rights.

According to Jackie Dugard, executive director at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA (SERI), “although this is a momentous and long-awaited decision, South Africa has for a while subscribed to the norms and standards contained in the ICESCR as it has ratified the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights of 1981, which echoes many of the socio-economic rights contained in the ICESCR. It has also included justiciable socio-economic rights in the Bill of Rights in the South African Constitution.

Prof Lilian Chenwi, associate professor at the Wits School of Law, states that “given the role played by the international community and international human rights law in the struggle against apartheid, ratification of the ICESCR will fulfil South Africa’s express desire ‘to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations’, which is recognised in the Preamble to its Constitution.”
Rajesh Latchman, of the National Welfare Forum, states: “This move to ratify the ICESCR is an important step towards creating a harmonious roadmap for the realisation of socio-economic rights for all in SA, and it is about time too.”

While ratification of the ICESCR is significant, the ICESCR Ratification Campaign Driver Group encourages South Africa to also ratify the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR (OP-CESCR).

The Optional Protocol is an extra treaty that promotes a culture of accountability around the ICESCR, empowering vulnerable and marginalised groups to lodge individual complaints at the international level regarding violations of their socio-economic rights. The Optional Protocol is yet to come into force, as it requires 10 states to ratify it and, at present, only 8 states have done so.

It is hoped that the South African government will table the recommendation to ratify the ICESCR before Parliament and submit its accession instrument the United Nations without any further delay, and also ratify the Optional Protocol to concretise South Africa’s commitment to human rights and to bring this important international human rights instrument to life.

Issued by the ICESCR Ratification Campaign Driver Group which comprises:

Black Sash
Community Law Centre (CLC), University of the Western Cape
Global Call to Action against Poverty South Africa (GCAP-SA)
National Welfare Forum
People’s Health Movement South Africa
Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA (SERI)
Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII)
For additional information, contact:

Lilian Chenwi, associate professor, Wits School of Law: 072 172 6346 / lilian.chenwi@wits.ac.za
Jackie Dugard, executive director of SERI: 084 240 6187 / jackie@seri-sa.org
Rajesh Latchman, coordinator of the National Welfare Forum: 083 443 0227 / rajesh@nwf.org.za

Strengthening women’s access to justice to take centre stage at upcoming Session of UN General Assembly

Press Release 220/2012
24 September 2012

The first high-level meeting of the General Assembly dedicated solely to the rule of law is taking place during the 67the UN General Assembly next Monday. World leaders will focus on strengthening the rule of law, underlining its role in securing international peace and security, furthering development and in the achievement of universal human rights. The meeting will bring together governments and civil society to review progress made and challenges that exist at the national and international level to strengthen the rule of law.

On 24th September, on the occasion of the High Level Meeting on the Rule of Law, the Governments of Finland and South Africa, along with UN Women, will host a high level event focusing on women’s access to justice. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, the President of Finland, Mr Sauli Niinistö and the President of South Africa, Mr Jacob Zuma, Executive Director of UN Women, Ms Michelle Bachelet and Nobel Laureate, Ms Shirin Ebadi are among speakers.

Today, the rule of law often rules women out. Obstacles persist which prevent women from accessing legal protection for their rights, resulting in discrimination and inequality that hamper women’s ability to live free of violence and to contribute as full and equal citizens. These obstacles can be overcome through dedicated action by all. Ahead of the meeting, Governments of Finland and South Africa and UN Women are calling on governments to show strong commitment, and accelerate actions and policies to increase women’s access to justice and foster a responsive justice system that advances women’s equal rights.

At the event, governments will be invited to make concrete commitments to policy actions and highlight initiatives to advance women’s access to justice.

The event will be webcasted live at http://webtv.un.org (on Monday 24 September, at 20.00-21.45 current local time in Finland)

For additional information please contact: Head of Unit Satu Suikkari-Kleven, satu.suikkari-kleven(a)formin.fi, tel. +358 40 760 3578, Counsellor Liisa Valjento, liisa.valjento(a)formin.fi, tel. +358 40 350 6148, Press Secretary Pirjo-Liisa Heikkilä, The Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN, pirjo-liisa.heikkila(a)formin.fi, tel. +1 917 294 3915

Source: Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

Iran confirms military stationed in Syria

Iran has confirmed for the first time that forces from its revolutionary guards corps are in Syria helping Assad's government crush the rebellion. It warned it would get involved militarily if its Arab ally came under attack.

In a clear public signal of Tehran's continuing support for President Bashar al-Assad, the commander of the Islamic republic's elite military formation said that "a number" of members of the IRGC's Qods force were in Syria, though General Mohammad Ali Jafari gave no further details and claimed this did not constitute "a military presence".

It was a surprisingly candid response to persistent claims by western countries, the Syrian opposition and Israel that Iran is actively helping the regime fight its enemies in the 18th month of a bloody war.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the veteran Algerian diplomat who replaced Kofi Annan as UN envoy to Syria earlier this month, met Assad in Damascus on Saturday but warned afterwards that any progress would be slow and halting given the yawning gap between government and opposition.

"The crisis is dangerous and getting worse and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world," said Brahimi.

Reports from Syria on Sunday described government forces fighting rebels amid shelling and sniper fire in Damascus and Aleppo, as well as in Homs and Deir ez-Zor. The Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, reported 103 dead.

Enmeshed in rivalries

Opposition activists reported 115 people killed on Saturday. According to the UN some 20 000 people have been killed. Opposition sources say the figure is closer to 30 000.

Jafari's admission underlines the way in which the Syrian uprising has become enmeshed in regional and international rivalries.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are arming Syrian rebel groups, while the US, Britain and France have called for Assad to go but are offering only limited and non-lethal backing to the armed opposition.

Russia and China have repeatedly blocked action against Syria at the UN.

The Qods force includes elements of special forces, intelligence-gathering and aid, and answers to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It has been accused of planning attacks inside Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Jafari said the IRGC was providing "intellectual and advisory help" to Syria.

British officials say the IRGC has provided riot control equipment and technical advice on how to crush dissent, for example on how to flood areas with security forces.

Intelligence-gathering

Iran is also providing support to improve the Syrian regime's intelligence-gathering capabilities and help to monitor protesters' use of the internet and mobile phone network, including text messaging.

Iran is said to have been dismayed at the heavy-handed way its long-standing Arab ally responded when the unrest began in March 2011, contrasting it with its relatively more sophisticated response to protests that followed its own disputed presidential election in 2009.

"If Syria came under military attack, Iran would also give military support but it ... totally depends on the circumstances," AFP reported Jafari as saying at rare press conference in Tehran.

The general also said the Strait of Hormuz, the channel at the mouth of the Gulf through which a third of the world's traded oil passes, would be a legitimate target for Iran should it be attacked.

"If war occurs in the region and the Islamic republic is involved, it is natural that the Strait of Hormuz as well as the energy [market] will face difficulties.

"The US has many vulnerabilities around Iran, and its bases are within the range of the guards' missiles. We have other capabilities as well, particularly when it comes to the support of Muslims for the Islamic republic," he said.

Tolerated

In Damascus, Brahimi also met Syrian opposition figures who are still tolerated by the regime.

"We told Mr Brahimi ... of our support for his efforts to resolve the crisis by ending the violence and killings, providing medical care and releasing political prisoners," said Hassan Abdel Azim, spokesperson for the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change.

But the head of the Free Syrian Army's military council in Aleppo, Colonel Abdel Jabar al-Oqaidi, predicted that the envoy's mission would fail, like Annan's, because he had nothing to offer people who were fighting for their freedom, al-Arabiya TV reported.

Syria's state news agency Sana quoted Assad as telling Brahimi that the success of his mission hinged on "pressuring countries which finance and train the terrorists, and which traffic weapons to Syria, to stop these actions".

In Istanbul, Tariq al-Hashimi, the fugitive Iraqi vice-president, said in interview that the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was failing to stop ammunitions and armaments reaching Syrian government forces.

"My country is unfortunately becoming an Iranian corridor to support the autocratic regime of Bashar al-Assad," he said. "There is no doubt about that."

Source: Mail & Guardian

Kenya: Set Independent Inquiry on Mombasa Killing

The Kenyan government should establish an independent inquiry into the killing of Aboud Rogo, a controversial cleric, on August 27, 2012, and subsequent riots in Mombasa.

Rogo, who was facing charges of illegal possession of weapons and recruiting for the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, was shot to death in his car while he was driving outside Mombasa. Following his burial later in the afternoon of August 27, riots erupted across the Mombasa town center and continued on August 28. Cars were set alight, several churches were vandalized, and at least two people were killed. One was a prison officer working with the police to contain the riots and the other a civilian killed by rioters. Police told reporters that they arrested 22 people in connection with the riots.

“The killing of Aboud Rogo is a serious crime that needs speedy independent and impartial investigation,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “In the meantime, police should continue to stick within the law in confronting the riots sparked by Rogo’s death.”

Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that an unmarked vehicle overtook the car Rogo was driving with six passengers, including his wife, on Malindi road on August 27 and that two gunmen opened fire at close range. Rogo was shot in the head and died at the scene. His wife was also shot and is in a hospital.

The riots were in the Majengo and Kisauni areas of Mombasa. At least 24 people were admitted to hospitals with injuries related to the unrest, with three people critically injured, media reported. Youths interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were protesting the suspected involvement of the Kenyan authorities in Rogo’s death.

Rogo’s killing follows the abductions and deaths earlier this year of several other people charged with recruitment and other offenses related to al-Shabaab.

In March, Samir Khan, who was also charged with possession of illegal firearms and recruiting for al-Shabaab, and his friend Mohammed Kassim were pulled from a public bus in Mombasa by men who stopped the bus and identified themselves as police officers, Khan’s lawyer, Mbugua Mureithi, told Human Rights Watch. Khan’s body was found, badly mutilated, a few days later in Tsavo national park. Kassim’s whereabouts remain unknown. Kassim had previously been abducted in Nairobi in February, under unclear circumstances, but was released after his captors interrogated him. Police briefed journalists at the time, saying he had been arrested by the Anti Terror Police Unit, but they later denied arresting him.

Rogo had complained of police threats before his death and requested protection. On July 24, Rogo had reported to the police, the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights, and the court in which he was being tried for recruiting for al-Shabaab, that unknown assailants had attempted to abduct him and his co-accused Abubakar Shari Ahmed when they arrived in Nairobi for the court hearing. He swore an affidavit that men in civilian clothes who claimed to be police officers tried to force the two men into an unmarked car. He said that he and Ahmed had challenged the men to produce identification and that passers-by helped the two men resist being forced into the car.

Mureithi, who is also Rogo’s lawyer, sought an assurance from the prosecution that the attempted abduction would be investigated and that Rogo’s security would be assured. The court ordered the Officer Commanding Station of Kamkunji police station to investigate. Mureithi told Human Rights Watch that Rogo frequently expressed concern about being followed by police and spoke of threats from known police agents who he said told him that, “The state will find a way of dealing with you.” Rogo had requested that the case be transferred to Mombasa where he felt safer and where he was also facing other charges for illegal possession of weapons and explosives.

Rogo was on United States and United Nations sanctions lists for alleged support of al-Shabaab. In 2005 he was acquitted on murder charges related to the 2002 attack on a hotel in Mombasa, which killed 12 people.

According to the Mombasa-based human rights group Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI) four people have disappeared after being arrested by the police during 2012. MUHURI and the Muslim Human Rights Forum (MHRF) have accounts from witnesses who said that the abductors identified themselves as police officers before taking away Ngoy Moise Kayembe and Shani Marove Lydia in February and Musa Osodo and Jacob Musyoka Matheka in Molo in May.

Osodo was facing charges in a Mombasa court for membership of al-Shabaab and was one of six suspects charged with killing a police officer. Two of his co-defendants, Steven Mwandi Osaka and Jeremiah Onyango Okumu, disappeared in June, also after being pulled from a public bus in Mombasa by men in civilian clothes. They have not been seen since.

Police claim to be investigating Khan’s murder and the disappearance of the others.

“The abductions, disappearances, and in some cases murder of people who are thought to be linked to al-Shabaab is incredibly disturbing,” Lefkow said. “The Kenya police are facing a crisis of confidence in Mombasa. The government needs to act swiftly to investigate and prosecute those responsible for these crimes.”

The killing and the disappearances highlight the need for urgent completion of police reforms, including the setting up of the National Police Service Commission that is responsible for investigating the police, and that was supposed to be operational earlier this year.

The riots that began on August 27 continued throughout August 28. Two churches were attacked. One was set on fire and one was looted of electrical equipment. Shops and two cars were set on fire and burning tires placed in the road in several areas of town. Police engaged in running battles with rioters, firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Prison officers were brought in as reinforcements. Twenty-four people were admitted to hospitals by the afternoon of August 28. The prison officer was killed and 12 others injured when youths threw a grenade at a patrol in the Kisauni area of Mombasa.

The deputy provincial police officer, second in command in Coast province, told Human Rights Watch that police were trying to contain the violence with “minimum force” but would not rule out the use of live ammunition. The UN standards on the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials state that, “In the dispersal of violent assemblies, law enforcement officials may use firearms only when less dangerous means are not practicable and only to the minimum extent necessary.”

“So far the police appear to have exercised admirable restraint in confronting the insecurity in Mombasa,” Lefkow said. “Now they need to use precision and intelligence to pursue the people who caused the violence, avoiding indiscriminate actions.”

Source: Human Rights Watch

Bradley Manning defense files motion to dismiss charges over pre-trial abuse

The defense attorney of accused Army whistleblower Bradley Manning filed a 110-page motion on July 27 requesting that all charges against the soldier be dismissed. The motion was made on the basis of Article 13 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which bans “punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against [a detainee].”

Manning’s lead attorney, David Coombs, wrote that “[t]he defense does not believe that there has ever been such an egregious case of unlawful pretrial punishment in Army history. This court needs to send a message that an unlawful order to keep a pretrial detainee in the equivalent of solitary confinement for almost nine months cannot—and will not—be tolerated."

Article 13 states that unnecessary pre-trial punishment is grounds for dismissal of charges.

Coombs also filed a motion of continuance based on the government’s withholding of 84 emails that reveal high-ranking Armed Forces complicity in ordering the mistreatment of Manning. The emails reveal that at least one three-star general specifically ordered Manning’s unbearable conditions, which some argue violate the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

As Coombs points out in his continuance filing, government officials withheld the emails until 9:15 p.m. on the night of July 26—less than three hours before the deadline to file an Article 13 motion—despite the court’s previously elaborated requirement that all documentation that is “obviously material to the preparation of the defense” be made available.

The military judge overseeing the hearings will almost certainly not dismiss the charges. Regardless of legal precedent, the Obama administration is determined to ruin Manning’s life for helping make public over 700,000 files that serve as evidence to the crimes of US imperialism.

The force with which the government is attacking Manning expresses its nervousness, as well as its resolve to prevent future leaks that may jeopardize attempts to maintain and expand its geo-political domination. Prosecutors are seemingly using any archaic, anti-democratic charge on the books in an attempt to destroy the young man.

The 34 counts being brought against Manning read as a laundry list of state despotism, from “treason”, “aiding the enemy” and “embezzlement and theft”, to “sedition”, and “espionage”. Government prosecutors are backing up these absurd claims with some of the most anti-democratic legal precedents of the past century, including the Espionage Act of 1917, the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the PATRIOT Act.

All the while, Manning remains in military custody. Though it has been over two years since he was arrested in May, 2010, the court has denied previous motions filed by the defense claiming that Manning’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial has been violated.

The Article 13 motion filed in July highlights the terrible conditions Manning has faced while in military custody.

The motion quotes UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez, who strongly criticized the US government’s treatment of Manning in an interview with the Guardian in March. “I conclude that the 11 months under conditions of solitary confinement,” Mendez said, “…constitutes at minimum cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in violation of Article 16 of the [UN] Convention Against Torture.”

Mendez was referring to the nearly one year that Manning spent in Quantico, Virginia, from July 2010 to April 2011. During this period, Manning was kept in a six- by eight-foot cell for 23 to 24 hours a day.

Forced by guards to stay awake between 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. each day, Manning was also denied the right to exercise in his cell, use the cell walls as a backrest, or lie down at any point during the daytime.

For six months, Manning was given only 20 minutes of “sunshine call” per day, during which time he was told to walk in lace-less shoes, with shackles on his ankles and wrists and a guard’s hand on his back.

Manning was also forced to sleep naked and to stand naked in front of multiple guards at parade rest position. Guards sometimes took away Manning’s glasses and forced him to reply in the affirmative when they “checked on him” at five-minute intervals.

Manning’s overseers justified this cruel treatment as necessary to prevent Manning from inflicting harm upon himself or others. This argument carries no weight, as several military psychologists and hundreds of law professors have explained.

The Article 13 motion highlights the baseless nature of this claim by quoting interactions between psychiatrists and military officials.

When military psychiatrists recommended better treatment for Manning, an official reportedly replied, “We’ll do whatever we want to do. You [the psychiatrists] make your recommendation and I have to make a decision based on everything else.”

The psychiatrist responded, “Then don’t say it’s based on mental health. You can say it’s MAX [maximum] custody, but just don’t say that we’re somehow involved in this,” to which the senior officer said, “That’s what we’re going to do.”

Multiple military psychiatrists had been recommending that Manning be downgraded from POI [prevention of injury] status for months, according to the motion. Psychiatrists tried to explain to overseers that “[Manning] did not present a risk to himself and that the POI status was actually causing PFC Manning psychological harm.”

Furthermore, there is little legal framework to support Manning’s POI status, according to a letter written by 300 law professors in 2011.

“The administration has provided no evidence that Manning’s treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates,” the letter states. “Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both.”

The trial has been wrought with possible grounds for dismissal of charges. In April of 2011, president Obama made comments that provided grounds for dismissal based on Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which protects against Unlawful Command Influence.

The president, revealing his disdain for the legal process, explained to a crowd that he did not need to wait for the verdict to pronounce guilt: “We’re a nation of laws,” the president said. “We don’t individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate… [Manning] broke the law.”

The comments are not only hypocritical coming from a president that has established his “right” to indefinitely detain and assassinate anyone, including American citizens, without a warrant. They may also serve as a basis for an argument for dismissal of charges against Manning.

According to Article 37 of UCMJ, “Unlawful Command Influence occurs when senior personnel, wittingly or unwittingly, have acted to influence court members, witnesses, or others participating in military justice cases. Such unlawful influence not only jeopardizes the validity of the judicial process, it undermines the morale of military members, their respect for the chain of command, and public confidence in the military.”

The court, however, has failed to dismiss charges based on Unlawful Command Influence.

Manning’s prosecution is being carried out in flagrant violation of basic constitutional rights and to legal precedent that does not serve the Obama administration. The information revealed in the Article 13 and continuance motions of July 26 serve as further proof that the minds of the decision makers have already been made up and that the trial is little more than an anti-democratic witch-hunt.

Source: World Socialist Web Site

Economic impact of corruption

Corrupt activity hinders development, contributes to the depletion of the public purse and distorts markets, furthering hindering local and foreign direct investment.

Public money is for government services and projects. Taxes collected, bonds issued, income from government investments and other means of financing government expenditure are meant for social grants, education, hospitals, roads, the supply of power and water and to ensure the personal security of our citizens.

Corruption and bad management practices eat into the nation’s wealth, channelling money away from such projects and the very people most dependent on government for support.

Countless studies around the world show how corruption can interrupt investment, restrict trade, reduce economic growth and distort the facts and figures associated with government expenditure. But the most alarming studies are the ones directly linking corruption in certain countries to increasing levels of poverty and income inequality.

Corruption can also harm the chances of success for small and micro-enterprises. It’s been demonstrated around the world – particularly in developing economies – that small businesses pay more than twice as much of their earnings as larger companies, limiting their ability to grow and become job creating.

Because corruption creates fiscal distortions and redirects money allocated to income grants, eligibility for housing or pensions and weakens service delivery, it is usually the poor who suffer most. Income inequality has increased in most countries experiencing high levels of corruption.

In October 2011 Willie Hofmeyr, then head of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) told South Africa’s Parliament that between R25-billion and R30-billion of government’s annual procurement budget alone was lost to corruption, incompetence and negligence. Corruption in procurement leads not only to waste of public money and resources, but inferior quality of products and services, and can deter more qualified suppliers from doing business with the state.

Underscoring other global researchers, the African Union, UN and Transparency International agree that corrupt activity hinders development, contributes to the depletion of the public purse and distorts markets - further hindering local and foreign direct investment.

In broad terms Transparency International calculates that investing in a “relatively corrupt” country compared to an “uncorrupted” one is some 20% more costly. The direct economic impact is obvious: investment critical to job creation and poverty alleviation goes elsewhere. That cost is “hidden” and defies calculation.

Another cost to an economy affected by corrupt activities include capital flight, which means that funds required to acquire assets abroad shrinks a country’s savings pool that could otherwise have been invested in the local economy.

Other more general consequences that are difficult to quantify include higher costs and declining quality of public sector infrastructure projects; the slide of the economy towards an “underground sector”; diminishing economic efficiency and macroeconomic instability and an increased tendency to be negatively affected by global economic crises.

The Washington research group, Global Financial Integrity said in a report that South Africa had suffered an illegal outflow of R185-billion due to corruption in both the public and private sectors between 1994 and 2008.

Since credible political leadership is undermined by corruption, it is essential that government be seen to take corruption seriously to enhance its image at home and abroad. In doing so, we can remain competitive in the race for foreign capital, successfully target and spend the Treasury’s money and fulfil our mandate of a better life for all.

Source: Corruption Watch

US threatens Rwandan President Kagame over support for Congolese rebels

Last week the US Office of Global Justice warned the administration of Rwandan President Paul Kagame that it could face prosecution on war crimes charges if it continues to support M23, a rebel militia operating near Goma in Eastern Congo’s Kivu province.

Stephen Rapp, the chief of the US Office of Global Justice, the entity responsible for the prosecution of war crimes, told the Guardian last week that “the Rwandan leadership may be subjected to charges of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity” for arming the M23 militia.

Following Rapp's statements, the Obama administration declared that it would end part of its military aid program to Rwanda, after a UN report was published outlining Rwanda's current leadership's active involvement in supporting the M23 rebels. The Obama administration had been accused of refusing to release the report to conceal Rwanda's involvement. The report has been leaked to the media, however.

In an emailed statement, US State Department spokeswoman Helen Fuller Renner said: “The United States government is deeply concerned about the evidence that Rwanda is implicated in the provision of support to Congolese rebel groups, including M23. We will not obligate $200,000 in Fiscal Year 2012 Foreign Military Financing funds that were intended to support a Rwandan academy for non-commissioned officers. These funds will be reallocated for programming in another country.”

The M23 force is led by Rwandan-born General Bosco Ntaganda, a former member of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA)—the military arm of Kagame’s movement, which took power during the 1994 civil war and genocide in Rwanda. He then allegedly joined the military wing of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), a Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed militia active during the Congo wars of the early 2000s.

Nicknamed the “Terminator”, Ntaganda has been sought by the International Criminal Court since 2006 for crimes against humanity, including the procurement of child soldiers.

In April, Ntaganda led soldiers in a “mutiny” against US-backed forces in the Congolese army. Made up of a former rebel militia in the Congo, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), the rebels now call themselves M23, or March 23 Movement, taken after their March 23, 2009 peace agreement with the Congolese government. The mutiny reportedly occurred due to dissatisfaction among the troops with the Congolese army and with low pay.

The rebels have conquered several towns in Eastern Congo near the Ugandan border. It is expected that the militia will take the provincial capital of Goma.

Washington’s hypocrisy is on full display, given that the US has supported the Kagame regime for nearly two decades since it came to power—despite widely publicized allegations that it committed war crimes during its invasion of Rwanda in 1994 and incursions into the Congo. The sudden claim of US outrage at Rwanda's support for rebels accused of committing atrocities in Southern Congo is entirely cynical.

Rwanda has a history of carrying out Washington's bidding in the region, including by deploying its military forces in Darfur, Sudan, supposedly to support US “peacekeeping” efforts. Rwanda has received explicit US support and praise under several US presidents, including Obama. The US has extensively funded its Rwandan proxy, including providing military aid for armaments and training.

The sudden about-face of the US stance towards its Rwandan proxy must be viewed in the context of the broader intervention by Washington and its allies in Africa—including the ouster last year of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and particularly the NATO war in Libya.

Rwanda's support of Ntaganda and M23 has become no longer “convenient” for Washington. What this development shows is how quickly the US can turn on a former ally. As with the US-backed military aggression which resulted in aggression against Libya and the murder of Gaddafi, Kagame faces the threat of regime change.

Washington’s criticisms of Kagame come amid an escalating assertion of US imperialist interests in Central Africa. As the World Socialist Web Site reported last October, Washington deployed “special operations” troops to the region, under the false pretext of “neutralizing Joseph Kony” the leader of the Ugandan rebel group Lord's Resistance Army, a militia accused of war crimes.

A major goal of US operations in Africa is to block the spreading influence of China, which has made significant economic inroads on the continent. Washington’s criticisms of Rwanda have come amid escalating concerns over Rwandan economic ties with China. (See: “Tensions emerge between Rwanda and Western backers”)

US State Department cables released by Wikileaks show that Washington has been keeping a close watch on Rwanda-China economic ties.

Referring to meetings by Rwandan officials with a Chinese delegation, the cables took note of Rwanda's economic agreements with China and loans from Beijing for the construction of buildings to house the Office of Foreign Affairs and to finance a railway project. China also agreed to consider funding the construction of a new stadium, a women's center, and a Confucius Institute. Rwanda requested the delegation for duty-free access to Chinese markets, and Rwandan rice cultivation and road projects were discussed.

As Rwanda is a transportation gateway for the Congo’s vast resources to the global market, it goes without saying that China's “control by investment” of a railway project traversing Rwanda through to a port in on the East coast of Tanzania would raise concerns in Washington.

Source: World Socialist Web

Spiking grain prices raise specter of global food crisis

Global food prices rose 6.2 percent in July, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization reported Thursday. The FAO said it released its Food Price Index ahead of its regular publication schedule as a warning against the impact of such price rises.

The index, which calculates the cost of a basket of food commodities, overall averaged 213 points in July, up 12 points from June. In February 2011, the height of the Arab Spring, the overall index peaked at 238. The index has remained above the average 2008 level for more than a year and is now trending toward an all-time high.

Grain prices have driven the overall rise. The US corn crop is in a state of disaster, with more than half of all US acreage listed in poor or very poor condition due to a record-breaking drought. Under a parallel drought, Russia downgraded its wheat crop by several million tons on Wednesday.

The FAO cereal index averaged 260 points in July, up 17 percent over the month. Most of the increase is attributable to a 23 percent rise in corn prices over the month and a similar, 19 percent surge in wheat prices. The cereal index is only 14 points below the all-time high of 274 points in April 2008.

The FAO registered a 12 percent rise in sugar prices in July, triggered by unseasonably wet weather in Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of cane sugar. Oils rose 2 percent, primarily on tighter supply outlooks and record prices for soybeans.

Price indexes for meats and dairy remained relatively unchanged for the month, although the protracted drought in the US rangeland has distressed many ranchers, who will be compelled to liquidate their herds. The US Department of Agriculture projects US consumer price inflation for meat, poultry, and dairy in the next few months as a result. Internationally, the higher cost of animal feed will ripple through livestock producers. This process may sharply affect Asia, where demand for meat is growing, but nations have smaller domestic stockpiles.

International food organization Oxfam warned in response to the FAO report that “millions of the world’s poorest will face devastation” from the increases. “This is not some gentle monthly wake-up call—it’s the same global alarm that’s been screaming at us since 2008,” Oxfam spokesman Colin Roche stated. “These figures prove that the world’s food system cannot cope on crumbling foundations. The combination of rising prices and expected low reserves means the world is facing a double danger.”

One billion people suffer from hunger worldwide. Hundreds of millions more who live in poverty are vulnerable to food inflation because they spend half or more of their incomes on staple goods. Food price shocks in 2008—driven by a confluence of weather disasters, protectionist measures, and speculators jumping ship from the financial market into commodities—produced food protests across more than 30 countries.

“There is a potential for a situation to develop like we had back in 2007-08,” FAO economist and grain analyst Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters Thursday. “There is an expectation that this time around we will not pursue bad policies and intervene in the market by restrictions, and if that doesn’t happen we will not see such a serious situation as 2007/08. But if those policies get repeated, anything is possible.”

While economists and aid organizations have issued progressively dire warnings over the consequences of another food crisis, the underlying factors—extreme weather, a disjointed food distribution system, the possibility of export bans, and above all, rampant speculation—are more exacerbated than ever.

Indeed, commodities investors have rallied on the raft of bad news, making price shocks inevitable. Traders on the Chicago Board of Trade, banking on the USDA to issue a dire outlook on Friday, sent corn prices soaring Thursday morning to $8.265 per bushel, two cents below the all-time record set in July.

Major banks and hedge funds in particular have played a role in the rally. As Bloomberg News noted, “crops are the best-performing commodities this year, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Macquarie Group Ltd. and Credit Suisse Group AG say the trend will continue.”

One Chicago trader commented to Reuters that Goldman Sachs was leading the betting on a USDA corn yield downgrade and predicting $9 corn and $20 soybeans by November. “The Goldman roll started Tuesday, you have that going on and the report is tomorrow. Everyone is expecting the corn number to be pretty friendly.”

Jaime Miralles of investment firm Intl FC Stone Europe said that “a firm $9 corn sentiment remains as rationing is and will be required.” Other speculators anticipate $10 per bushel corn prices in the coming months.

“I think general price firmness is being seen in ahead of the USDA report because the market is increasingly realising how horrible conditions are for U.S. corn,” Rabobank analyst Erin FitzPatrick commented. “There is pre-positioning ahead of the report as people are expecting more cuts in US harvest forecasts. Despite recent rain in the US, a lot of the damage has already been done to corn.”

Farmers and agricultural economists estimate that corn yield in much of the Corn Belt will be far lower than the USDA’s already downgraded estimate of 146 bushels per acre. Some areas may yield 100 bushels per acre or less, knocking the national corn crop back to levels not seen in decades.

The US Drought Monitor reported that for the week ending August 7, fully 80 percent of the contiguous US is experiencing drought. “Every day we go without significant rain is tightening the noose,” said meteorologist Mark Svoboda, who authored the latest Monitor report. In Iowa, the largest corn producing state, the area suffering from extreme drought more than doubled in size. As of August 7, nearly 70 percent of the state was under the most severe category of drought. Over 81 percent of Illinois and fully 94 percent of Missouri is in “at least extreme drought.”

The USDA estimates that inventories of corn, wheat, soybeans, and rice will be reduced to 2008 levels next year. Wheat inventories are projected to contract 7.5 percent.

Wheat production in Russia, the fourth largest exporter, is set to fall by 20 percent this year. The Australian wheat crop, stunted by repeated frosts and poor weather, may yield 40 percent less than initial projections. India’s agricultural region suffered a monsoon season providing 22 percent less rainfall than average, resulting in a 7.8 million ton loss in the global rice crop. The FAO also reduced rice production forecasts for Cambodia, Taiwan, North and South Korea, and Nepal.

Source: World Socialist Web Site

SADC concerned by Jean Ping's statement

Statement by the Honourable Phandu TC Skelemani, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Botswana, on Dr Jean Ping's response to an article in The Sunday Times, delivered on behalf of Southern African Development Community (SADC)

12 Jul 2012

1. Thank you, Mr President, for giving me this opportunity.

2. I would like to raise a matter of grave concern to my delegation and the Southern Africa region. We were alarmed to note that on Tuesday 10 July this week, a press statement was issued by Dr. Jean Ping, in his capacity as the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, in response to an article published in The Sunday Times of South Africa, on 8 July 2012 titled: "At Last, SA may get its woman into AU post,"

3. Our main concern, Chairperson, is that in responding to a media article of a personal nature, the AU Chairperson chose to use the AU resources as clearly indicated by the use of the official letterhead and the official website to distribute his statement to media houses. By so doing, this makes his response an official statement of the African Union. Is this part of his mandate as the Chairperson of our organisation? Certainly not.

4. In our view, the nature of this issue is about a campaign for the post of AU Chairperson, which is a personal matter, and so should have been addressed using personal resources as is normal practice. We are therefore, shocked and appalled by the blatant abuse of his office and resources of the AU Commission.

5. Furthermore, Dr. Ping's response when carefully studied is merely a campaign statement, and I wish to quote some of his expressions to demonstrate this point. He says: "May I seize this opportunity to reiterate categorically and unequivocally that I am running for re-election as chairperson of the African Union Commission. I am in the race... and would appreciate the opportunity to finish the work we have been doing in the last four years. I am still in this race and gratefully look forward to the wholesome support of the majority of the leaders of the AU Member States." Close quote.

6. We are also seriously concerned that the content and tone of Dr. Ping's statement amounts to a direct attack on a Member State of the African Union by the Chairperson of this esteemed organisation.

7. Even more disturbing, is when a Member State is quoted on the position undertaken when collective decisions were made at the AU or the United Nations (UN). By divulging such information, this has a potential of sowing seeds of animosity and division among AU Member States.

8. It is our considered view, Chairperson, that this conduct is in violation of the provisions and spirit of the Statutes of the AU Commission, in particular:

a. Article 4(1) under Obligations in the Statutes of the Commission, which stipulate that Members of the Commission "shall refrain from any action which may reflect adversely on their position as international officials responsible only to the Union."

b. Similarly, the same Statutes stipulate, under the Functions, that the Commission shall: "represent the Union and defend its interests under the guidance of and as mandated by the Assembly and the Executive Council - Article 2(a); and "coordinate and monitor the implementation of the decisions of the other organs of the Union in close collaboration with the PRC and report regularly to the Executive Council" - Article 2(g).

9. In this regard, the conduct by the Chairperson of the AU, namely abuse of AU resources, attack on and divulging information of a Member State is unprecedented, and can bring disrepute to the integrity of the African Union. This therefore calls for an apology on his part, and retraction of the statement through the same medium used.

Statement issued by Department of International Relations and Cooperation, July 12 2012

Exodus 1947

After World War II, a group of private American citizens banded together in a clandestine effort to transport Holocaust survivors to Palestine.

On July 11, 1947, in the port of Sête, France, 4,500 Jewish refugees were crammed into the hull of a decrepit steamship, later named Exodus 1947.

A British blockade intercepted Exodus 1947 in international waters off the coast of Palestine. The tense standoff culminated in a direct attack by military personnel against the unarmed civilians on the Exodus 1947. This highly publicized international incident heavily influenced the United Nations resolution authorizing the partitioning of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. Thus, the Exodus 1947 voyage acted as a catalyst in forming a new nation.

Source: Exodus 1947

Russia: Protecting expats and more in Syria

Russia is preparing to send two warships plus marines to Syria, as the civil war in that country shows no sign of letting up. Russia has for months supported the government of Bashar al-Assad at the UN Security Council, blocking resolutions authored by Western and Arab League states to sanction Damascus and pressure Assad to step down.

Most of Russia’s motivations for doing so are well known. Firstly, it is determined to ensure there is no Security Council cover for any external effort to topple a sovereign government, whether by military or other means. The principle of non-intervention is one that Moscow is desperate to defend. Secondly, the government of Vladimir Putin has no wish to see another president – in the Middle East or the former Soviet Union – ousted by the mob, for fear the virus could spread further. Thirdly, it fears the regional destabilisation that could accompany Assad’s downfall. And fourthly, Russia has commercial, diplomatic and military ties with the Assad government that would be in jeopardy if the opposition came to power. These interests include arms sales, use of the Tartous naval base, energy-sector investment opportunities and a close diplomatic alignment with Damascus.

The latest dispatch of naval vessels to Syria is on one level a further statement of support for the Assad government and the interests that Russia wishes to defend. So too is the delivery of reconditioned military helicopters to Syria. Yet sending ships and marines to the coast of Syria also points to an interest that sets Russia aside from all other permanent members of the UN Security Council – it has people on the ground. Rather a lot of people, in fact.

In the first instance, these are the Russian armed services personnel working in Tartous and supporting the use of Russian military equipment by the Syrian armed forces.

Secondly, there are perhaps 30,000 Russians who are married to Syrian citizens and are resident in the country. This is a consequence of decades of close relations between Soviet Russia and Syria under the current president’s father. In Moscow’s calculation, their best chance for a peaceful existence is for Assad to secure a victory over his opponents as quickly as possible. If the opposition were to win power, the nationals of a country which had backed Assad to the hilt, over many years, would face an uncertain future.

Thirdly, Syria is home to between 50,000 and 100,000 Circassians who originally hail from Russian lands around the Black Sea and the Caucasus. The Syrian Circassians were relocated to modern-day Syria in the second half of the nineteenth century, as tsarist Russia expanded. They are one of a number of Syrian minorities who support the Assad government, and most reside in and around Homs, Damascus and Aleppo. Most of those in Homs and the villages surrounding it are now refugees. As members of a community regarded as pro-Assad, they fear the Sunni opposition; yet because they are not part of Assad’s Alawite core, some parts of the Syrian security services also regard them with suspicion.

A few hundred Syrian Circassians have already emigrated to Russia but this trickle could become a stream if violence persists in Syria. Plenty of Circassians already live in Russia’s North Caucasus, in the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkessia and Adygea, and these are the most likely destination for the Syrian Circassians. Popular sympathy for their plight in those republics runs high, and this is not something that the federal government in Moscow can afford to ignore.

Yet if Russia threw open the door to the Syrian Circassians it would risk exacerbating instability in Kabardino-Balkaria and the other republics. Alongside that regional security problem, there would be a national political one. Putin would have to increase funding to the republics affected – but that would only exacerbate the ill feeling in the rest of Russia about the billions of dollars spent on Chechnya and its neighbours. ‘Stop feeding the Caucasus’ has been a rallying cry for nationalist opposition to Putin, and a rare issue on which the president is on the wrong side of working-class opinion.

The Circassian issue is also sensitive for Putin because it touches on one of his personal projects – the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The games will take place on land that was originally populated by Circassians, and diaspora groups – with the encouragement of the Georgian government – are hoping to use the Winter Olympics to draw attention towards the so-called ‘Circassian Genocide’. Helping the Syrian Circassians might win Moscow some points with the diaspora, but engagement would be risky too.

In light of all this, it is little wonder that Russia would prefer to see the Syrian opposition crushed and Assad continue to rule for many years to come. It has far more at stake than arms sales, a naval base and a desire to thumb its nose at the US.

Source: IISS

Congo war crimes suspects named

The U.N.'s top human rights official on Tuesday named five Congo rebel leaders who she says may be responsible for war crimes, a rare step prompted by concerns that their group - known as M23 - could continue to rape and kill civilians in the east of the country.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, frequently speaks out about serious abuses being committed around the world, but it is unusual for her to single out individuals unless they are suspected of being responsible for large-scale atrocities.

“The leaders of the M23 figure among the worst perpetrators of human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or in the world for that matter,” Pillay said in a statement issued by her Geneva-based office.

The newly formed group is composed of former rebel fighters who were integrated into the army after a 2009 peace deal but have since deserted again.

Pillay named the group's leaders as Col. Sultani Makenga; Col. Baudouin Ngaruye, Col. Innocent Zimurinda; Col. Innocent Kaina; and Gen. Bosco Ntaganda.

“Many of them may have been responsible for war crimes,” she said, noting their “appalling track records including allegations of involvement in mass rape, and of responsibility for massacres and for the recruitment and use of children.”

Ntaganda is already wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges for recruiting and using child soldiers between 2002 and 2003.

Makenga, too, recruited child soldiers and is suspected of involvement in a 2008 massacre in which his then group, the CNDP, executed at least 67 civilians in Kiwandja in Congo's North Kivu region. The U.N. also linked him to the 2007 killing by another rebel group, the FARDC, of 14 civilians in Buramba, North Kivu.

Fighting between rebels and the army has flared up again in North Kivu since April, causing more than 200,000 people to flee their homes.

Abuses attributed to Ngaruye include recruitment of child soldiers and involvement in the killing of up to 139 people in Shalio, North Kivu, in April 2009. The FARDC troops believed responsible also abducted about 40 women, some of whom were gang-raped and mutilated, the U.N. said.

Zimurinda is also alleged to have had command responsibility for the Kiwandja and Shalio massacres. The U.N. Security Council placed him on a sanctions and travel ban list in Dec. 2010.

Pillay said Kaina “is alleged to have been involved in a range of human rights abuses including crimes committed in Ituri, Orientale province, in 2004.” He was arrested by Congolese authorities in June 2006, but released without trial less than three years later.

“Every effort must be made to hold these men, and the soldiers under their command, accountable for human rights violations committed against civilians, both for crimes committed within the context of the current mutiny, and also for offences committed previously,” Pillay said.

“I fear the very real possibility that they will inflict additional horrors on the civilian population as they attack villages in eastern DRC,” she added.

Source: IoL

Russia Seeks to Exert More Influence Over Syria Conflict

Russia, the most powerful supporter of Syria’s embattled government, took new steps on Wednesday to exert its diplomatic influence over the violent conflict there, inviting both the Syrian foreign minister and representatives of the opposition to Moscow for talks this month and warning foreign sympathizers of armed rebels not to supply them with more weapons.

The Russian steps came as Syria’s state-run media asserted that the government had begun to comply with the terms of a cease-fire plan brokered by Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the United Nations and Arab League. It requires Syrian forces to pull back from major population centers by Tuesday. 

Activist Web sites reported the opposite picture, saying the Syrian military shelled and shot at targets mostly in and around the cities of Idlib, Homs and Dara’a, the chronic trouble areas in President Bashar al-Assad’s 13-month-old effort to crush the uprising against him. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based exile group with contacts in Syria, said at least 18 people were killed.

The United States, which has led the Western pressure on Mr. Assad to step down and has agreed to provide nonlethal equipment to the anti-Assad resistance, said it had seen no evidence that the Syrian government had begun to comply with the cease-fire plan. “What we’ve seen, frankly, is an intensification of artillery bombardments in major population centers like Homs and Idlib,” a State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters in Washington.

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced on its Twitter account that the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, would hold talks in Moscow with his counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Tuesday — the deadline for compliance with the initial phase of Mr. Annan’s cease-fire plan — and that representatives of the National Coordination Committee, an opposition group inside Syria, would visit the Kremlin for talks April 17-18.

Mr. Lavrov, who has strongly defended Russia’s support for Syria’s government but has been increasingly critical of Mr. Assad’s behavior, said during a visit to Azerbaijan on Wednesday that he must comply with the cease-fire plan. But he also admonished the so-called “Friends of Syria” group of anti-Assad countries, which met in Turkey with exile Syrian opposition groups this past weekend, not to provide weapons to rebel combatants, as some of those countries have suggested.

“Even if the Syrian opposition were armed to the teeth, it would not be able to beat the government’s forces,” Mr. Lavrov said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.

There was anecdotal evidence on Tuesday that Syrian security forces had reduced their presence in some hotspots in the suburbs of Damascus. In Saqba, a district 15 minutes east of the Syrian capital where frequent clashes and protests have taken place, a reporter did not see any tanks or armored vehicles. But military checkpoints dotted the approach to the district center and security officers checked all cars and demanded identification of all young men. Cinderblock shelters and tents had been erected for the soldiers, suggesting the government foresaw an indefinite crisis. Most shops were open, and people were cleaning and fixing them up. Shopkeepers said they had kept them closed ever since in a general strike after a government crackdown two months ago, but were now reopening as part of a coordinated decision by local protest leaders. People spoke openly against the government in the shops and streets, despite the heavy security presence. Abu Fahad, 30, a protest organizer who declined to give his full name for safety reasons, said in his upscale furniture store in Saqba that protesters would keep demonstrating until 2014, the end of Mr. Assad’s term, if necessary.

“Every Friday Prayer means a demonstration for us in Saqba,” he said. “The regime tries to close all mosques and prevent prayers on Fridays, but they cannot.”

He said it was the government that was frightened, not the protesters. “On every corner and street there is a security checkpoint,” he said. “Not to frighten us, but because the regime is afraid.” 

Source: New York Times

Syria

The wave of Arab unrest that began with the Tunisian revolution reached Syria on March 15, 2011, when residents of a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti. The government responded with heavy-handed force, and demonstrations quickly spread across much of the country.

President Bashar al-Assad, a British-trained doctor who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad, at first wavered between force and hints of reform. But in April 2011, just days after lifting the country’s decades-old state of emergency, he set off the first of what became a series of withering crackdowns, sending tanks into restive cities as security forces opened fire on demonstrators.

Neither the violence nor Mr. Assad’s offers of political reform — rejected as shams by protest leaders — brought an end to the unrest. Similarly, the protesters have not been able to withstand direct assault by the military’s armed forces.

As the crackdown dragged on, thousands of soldiers defected and began launching attacks against the government, bringing the country to what the United Nations in December called the verge of civil war.  An opposition government in exile was formed, the Syrian National Council, but the council’s internal divisions have kept Western and Arab governments from recognizing it as such. The opposition remains a fractious collection of political groups, longtime exiles, grass-roots organizers and armed militants, divided along ideological, ethnic or sectarian lines.

The conflict is complicated by Syria’s ethnic divisions. The Assads and much of the nation’s elite, especially the military, belong to the Alawite sect, a minority in a mostly Sunni country. While the Assad government has the advantage of crushing firepower and units of loyal, elite troops, the insurgents should not be underestimated. They are highly motivated and, over time, demographics should tip in their favor. Alawites constitute about 12 percent of the 23 million Syrians. Sunni Muslims, the opposition’s backbone, make up about 75 percent of the population.

Diplomacy Falters, Sectarian Civil War Looms

The United States and countries around the world have condemned President Assad, who many had hoped would soften his father’s iron-handed regime. Criticism has come from unlikely quarters, like Syria’s neighbors, Jordan and Turkey, and the Arab League. Syria was expelled from the Arab League after it agreed to a peace plan only to step up attacks on protesters. In late 2011 and early 2012, Syria agreed to allow league observers into the country. But their presence did nothing to slow the violence.

In February, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution condemning President Assad’s unbridled crackdown on the uprising, but China and Russia, Syria’s traditional patron, have blocked all efforts for strong Security Council action.

Emboldened by faltering diplomacy and Russia’s pledge to keep supplying weapons, the Assad government seemed to be gaining more confidence. In March, Syria’s armed forces launched bloody assaults on insurgent strongholds, driving rebels from the cities of Homs and Idlib, and sweeping through the southern city of Dara’a — where the uprising started. According to estimates from the United Nations, the conflict has left more than 9,000 dead and thousands more displaced.

Now, a year after the uprising began, the country appears to be unraveling in what looks like a sectarian civil war. Sunni Muslims who have fled the country described a government crackdown that is more pervasive and more sectarian than previously understood, with civilians affiliated with Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect shooting at their onetime neighbors as the military presses what many Sunnis see as a campaign to force them to flee their homes and villages. The refugees’ firsthand accounts painted a picture of a section of western Syria that is more thoroughly under siege — and perhaps more widely in revolt — than has previously been depicted.


At the same time, Kofi Annan, the United Nations special envoy, reported that the Assad government had agreed to a six-point peace plan, which lays out a framework for a cease-fire that does not involve the president leaving power.

Locked in an Ominous Stalemate

With overwhelming firepower and a willingness to kill, President Assad could hold on to power for months or even years, keeping the opposition from controlling any territory and denying it breathing space to develop a coherent, effective leadership, according to analysts, diplomats and Syrians involved in the uprising. Insulated from all but his inner circle, Mr. Assad appears to believe that his strategy is succeeding.

But analysts say sheer force alone is unlikely to eradicate what has become a diffuse and unpredictable insurgency, one able to strike out even after the government has used crushing force against centers of resistance like Homs, Idlib and Dara’a. Broad areas of the country are hostile territory for government troops, and attackers have managed to hit centers of power, even in the capital, Damascus.

The conflict has become a war of attrition that grows more dangerous as it goes along. Tensions have spilled over borders into Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan and raised fears that radical Islamic militants will find a new cause for recruitment.

Protest Timeline

April 2 Syria’s government promised that its armed forces would withdraw from population centers by April 10 and stop shooting within 48 hours after that date if rebels also stop, Kofi Annan, the special emissary, told the United Nations Security Council. Mr. Annan also told the Security Council that his team had held constructive talks with anti-government forces. While the latest diplomatic scrambling provided a specific date for when the violence could abate, it was unclear whether that represented a meaningful breakthrough to halt the conflict.

April 1 The United States and dozens of other countries moved closer to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria’s military, according to participants at a “Friends of Syria” conference in Istanbul. There remains no agreement on arming the rebels, as countries like Saudi Arabia and some members of the United States Congress have called for, largely because of the uncertainty regarding who exactly would receive the arms.

March 31 Syrian forces will not pull out of towns and cities that have been centers of the uprising until “normal life” resumes there, a Syrian government spokesman told state news media. As Syria’s government crackdown continued unabated, the comments prompted signs of frustration from the United States and the six Arab countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, who were meeting in Saudi Arabia. The seven countries — the United States, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — urged Kofi Annan, the joint envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League, “to determine a timeline for next steps if the killing continues.”

Also, a citizen journalist in Syria who has been instrumental in assisting those covering the conflict in Homs, Ali Mahmoud Othman, has been  seized and perhaps tortured by the Syrian government, an activist told CNN. Mr. Othman was thought to be at a secure military unit in Aleppo, added the activist, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

March 29 The Syrian government and opposition groups said that at least two senior military officers had been assassinated in two cities during the previous several days. The killings seemed to dim even the glimmer of hope that the government might reconcile with the opposition. Instead, they validated the claims of activists and fighters who have said in interviews that rebel fighters were increasingly embracing insurgency tactics, including plans to assassinate government and security officials.

March 28 The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, “strongly” urged President Assad to immediately put into effect a six-point peace plan he is said to have accepted that would rein in security forces in advance of negotiations to end a year of bloody revolt, but activist groups reported more assaults throughout the country.

March 27 Kofi Annan, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, reported that President Assad’s government had agreed to a six-point peace plan, even as heavy fighting broke out in this border region between Syrian government troops and rebels who have taken refuge in the area. Mr. Annan’s The announcement was greeted with some skepticism since Mr. Assad assented to various reforms and peace plans, notably a “road map” negotiated with the Arab League in November, but failed to implement them.

March 23 The European Union expanded sanctions on Syria and placed a travel ban on President Assad’s family, including his wife, as the United Nations envoy Kofi Annan headed to Moscow and Beijing to press proposals for an immediate halt to the violent conflict. The ban is aimed at tightening the economic squeeze on the government and forcing an end to its brutal crackdown.

March 21 Overcoming months of bitter division, the United Nations Security Council delivered a diplomatic setback to President Assad, unanimously embracing efforts by Kofi Annan, the former secretary general, to negotiate a cease-fire, funnel aid to victims and begin a political transition. The Security Council endorsed a plan that Mr. Annan presented to Mr. Assad as the special representative of both the United Nations and the Arab League. Russia and China agreed to the statement. The Syrian military’s struggle against insurgents erupted in violence as forces carried out a daylong bombardment in the city of Homs, where more than two-dozen people were killed, according to activists.

March 20 In an open letter to the Free Syrian Army, the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch accused opposition forces of abuse, including kidnapping, detention and torture. The group says that some armed attacks by insurgents were motivated by religious and sectarian sentiments arising from the association of some communities with government policies.

March 19 Armed Syrian defectors took their uprising into the heart of a wealthy district of Damascus, clashing with security forces in what activists and residents called the most intense fighting in such a strategic area since the protests began. An opposition group based in London said at least 18 members of the security forces were killed, but the official SANA news agency put the toll much lower. The clashes coincided with the arrival of a monitoring team sent by Kofi Annan, the special representative on Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League.

March 18 More than 150 protesters in Damascus took part in a peace march shouting “God, Syria and freedom only.” But when some started to chant “The people want the fall of the regime” — a slogan echoed in the Arab revolts — authorities beat them with sticks and began making arrests. On the same day, a car bomb exploded in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, fueling fears that the conflict was becoming increasingly violent, with attacks on relatively quiet cities.

March 17 Two large explosions, believed to be car bombs, struck Damascus, hitting intelligence and security buildings in busy sections of the city, killing at least 27 people and wounding at least 97, according to Syrian news media. The back-to-back bombings in President Assad’s seat of power shocked residents here who have enjoyed relative calm during the yearlong uprising.

March 15 On the first anniversary of the conflict, thousands of Syrians gathered in Damascus, waving Syrian flags and pictures of President Assad in what the government billed as a “Global March for Syria” and against the uprising that it portrays as led by terrorists and foreigners. The state had ordered people to show up for work on a national holiday, threatening punishments for truants in what anti-Assad activists called a move to make it easier to bus in state employees and students to attend the rally.

March 14 The Syrian government launched its biggest raid in months on the southern city of Dara’a, opposition activists said. Dara’a is where the uprising against President Assad began a year ago. Activists said the Syrian army’s tanks and artillery units also shelled some areas in and around the cities of Idlib and Homs. The latest military moves came as Amnesty International claimed in a new report that Syrians detained in the crackdown had been “thrust into a nightmarish world of systemic torture,” the scale of which had not been witnessed for decades.


March 13 Bolstered by faltering diplomacy and a Russian pledge to keep supplying weapons, Syria’s armed forces assaulted insurgent enclaves in the north, invading the city of Idlib, a center of anti-Assad resistance and haven for the Free Syrian Army. Opposition activists reported heavy shelling by army tanks and artillery both in areas around Idlib and Homs.

Background to Protests

The country’s last serious stirrings of public discontent had come in 1982, when increasingly violent skirmishes with the Muslim Brotherhood prompted Hafez al-Assad to move against them, sending troops to kill at least 10,000 people and smashing the old city of Hama. Hundreds of fundamentalist leaders were jailed, many never seen alive again.

Syria has a liability not found in the successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt — it is a majority Sunni nation that is ruled by a religious minority, the Alawite sect of Shiite Islam. Hafez Assad forged his power base through fear, cooption and sect loyalty. He built an alliance with an elite Sunni business community, and created multiple security services staffed primarily by Alawites. Those security forces have a great deal to lose if the government falls, experts said, because they are part of a widely despised minority, and so have the incentive of self-preservation.

In July, the Obama administration, in a shift that was weeks in the making, turned against Mr. Assad but stopped short of demanding that he step down. By early August, the American ambassador was talking of a “post-Assad” Syria.

In October, Syrian dissidents formally established the Syrian National Council in what seemed to be the most serious attempt to bring together a fragmented opposition. The group’s stated goal was to overthrow President Assad’s government. Members said the council included representatives from the Damascus Declaration group, a pro-democracy network; the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamic political party; various Kurdish factions; the Local Coordination Committees, a group that helps organize and document protests; and other independent and tribal figures.

In the U.S.: Different Views on Intervention

The Obama administration has made a point of working through the Arab League and the United Nations rather than giving the appearance that the United States is trying to intervene in Syria. This is partly to avoid giving Iran any excuse to get involved on behalf of its regional ally, analysts say.
However, some politicians favor more direct intervention. On Feb. 19, two senior American senators spoke out strongly in favor of arming the Syrian opposition forces.

The senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans, laid out a series of diplomatic, humanitarian and military aid proposals that would put the United States squarely behind the effort to topple President Assad. Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham, both of whom are on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that rebel fighters deserved to be armed and that helping them take on the Syrian government would aid Washington’s effort to weaken Iran.
The next day, two Iranian warships docked in the Syrian port of Tartous as a senior Iranian lawmaker denounced the possibility that the Americans might arm the Syrian opposition. Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency called the ships “a serious warning” to the United States.

“The presence of Iran and Russia’s flotillas along the Syrian coast has a clear message against the United States’ possible adventurism,” said Hossein Ebrahimi, a vice chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, Fars reported.

Syria relies on Iran for financial and military support, and the governments in Damascus and Tehran have sectarian ties as well: Iran has strongly backed the Syrian Shiite minority and the offshoot Alawite sect that makes up Syria’s ruling class.

Arms Anchor the Relationship With Russia

As the violence has worsened throughout Syria, amateur video has shown government troops rolling through the besieged city of Homs in vintage Soviet battle tanks. Seemingly undeterred by an international outcry, Moscow has worked frantically to preserve its relationship with the increasingly isolated government of Mr. Assad, even as the Syrian leader turns his guns on his own citizens, and the death toll mounts.

Russia has praised Mr. Assad’s call for a constitutional referendum, a step that the United States and other governments have dismissed as meaningless. On Feb. 16, Russia was one of just a dozen countries, among them China, Iran and North Korea, to vote against a General Assembly resolution urging Mr. Assad to step down. And many analysts say that without Russia’s backing, including a steady supply of weapons, food, medical supplies and other aid, the Assad government will crumble within a matter of months if not sooner.

While Moscow has a number of reasons to guard its relations with Damascus, the most concrete, many analysts say, is the longstanding arms sales to Syria. Arms exports have long anchored the relationship between Moscow and Damascus, including sales over the years of MIG fighter jets, attack helicopters and high-tech air defense systems.

While the ouster and death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya and the imposition of sanctions on Iran have sharply curtailed other formerly lucrative arms markets for Russia, Syria has increased its weapons purchases.

Regional political events have also played a part. The Arab Spring and the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dissipated Russia’s once-powerful influence in the region, transforming the relationship into one of critical importance to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who is running for president and wants to expand Russia’s role as a global powerbroker.

Conflict in Syria Poses Risk of a Wider Strife

For decades, Syria was the linchpin of the old security order in the Middle East. It allowed the Russians and Iranians to extend their influence even as successive Assad governments provided predictability for Washington and a stable border for Israel, despite support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

But the burgeoning civil war in Syria has upset that paradigm, placing the Russians and Americans and their respective allies on opposite sides. It is a conflict that has sharply escalated sectarian tensions between Shiites and Sunnis and between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf nations. And it has left Israel hopeful that an enemy will fall, but deeply concerned about who might take control of his arsenal.

Washington is keenly aware of the larger forces at play and of the dangers of another military intervention in an Arab country. For Russia, the fall of Mr. Assad, an ally and arms customer, would further diminish its influence in the region. If Mr. Assad goes, any new government will note Russia’s support for him, including a steady supply of weapons. Arabs across the region, who are demanding their rights and freedoms, may resent it, too. For the United States, the conflict is a bundle of risks and contradictions that has made Washington’s stance — frustrating those who favor a more robust intervention — far more cautious than it was in Libya.

For Washington, Europe and the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and the gulf, the impact on Iran is as important as the fate of Mr. Assad. Syria is one of Iran’s closest allies. It was nearly alone in supporting Iran, not Iraq, in their war in the 1980s. Syria has been Iran’s main conduit to supply aid and weapons to Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The United States and Europe — with tenuous Russian and Chinese support — have isolated Iran economically and diplomatically to try to forestall Tehran from being able to build a nuclear weapon. The conflict in Syria complicates that delicate diplomacy, but a new Syrian government could be a greater blow to Iranian influence than any sanction the West has mustered so far. It could also revive democratic protests in Iran.

But the administration is ruling out direct military intervention in this conflict. After a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a limited intervention in Libya that was harshly criticized by Republicans, President Obama wants no new military adventure in an election year. Nor does the Pentagon, especially given Syria’s integrated air defense system, supplied by Russia.

Not least, American officials point out the murky nature and incoherence of the armed opposition to Mr. Assad and note that the Free Syrian Army, formed by exiled Syrian Army officers, defectors and militias, does not control significant territory in Syria where arms could be supplied.

Aggravating Regional Sectarian Tensions

The insurrection in Syria, led by the country’s Sunni majority in opposition to a government dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiism, is increasingly unpredictable and dangerous because it is aggravating sectarian tensions beyond its borders in a region already shaken by religious and ethnic divisions.

For many in the region, the fight in Syria is less about liberating a people under dictatorship than it is about power and self-interest. Syria is drawing in sectarian forces from its neighbors, and threatening to spill its conflict into a wider conflagration. There have already been sparks in neighboring Lebanon, where Sunnis and Alawites have skirmished.

And in Iraq, where Shiites are a majority, the events across the border have put the nation on edge while hardening a sectarian schism. Iraq’s Shiites are now lined up on the side of a Baathist dictatorship in Syria, less than a decade after the American invasion of Iraq toppled the rule of Saddam Hussein and his own Baath Party, which for decades had repressed and brutalized the Shiites.
The paradox, of Shiites supporting a Baathist dictator next door, has laid bare a tenet of the old power structure that for so long helped preserve the Middle East’s strongmen. Minorities often remained loyal and pliant and in exchange were given room to carve out communities, even if they were more broadly discriminated against.

As dictators have fallen in neighboring countries, religious and ethnic identities and alliances have only hardened, while notions of citizenship remain slow to take hold. Syria’s minorities have the example of Iraq in considering their own future, should the Assad government fall: Assyrian Christians, Yazidis and others were brutally persecuted by insurgents. In Egypt, where a similar paradigm was toppled with the long-serving dictator Hosni Mubarak, Christians have experienced more sectarian violence, increasing political marginalization and a growing link between Islamic identity and citizenship.

New Constitution Approved As Troops Pursue Rebels

On Feb. 27, the Syrian government announced that nearly 90 percent of voters in a referendum had approved a new Constitution. But Western leaders labeled the referendum a farce. In a bulletin across the bottom of the screen on state television, the ministry said 89 percent of the voters, or nearly 7.5 million of the 8.4 million people who cast ballots, had voted in favor of the Constitution — an offer of reform that critics dismissed as too little, too late.

The new Constitution’s most important changes include ending the political monopoly of the Baath Party and introducing presidential term limits. Those changes come with enormous caveats, however. The president would be limited to two terms of seven years each, but the clock would start only when Mr. Assad’s current term expires in 2014. That would allow him to serve two more terms and potentially to remain in office until he is 62, a total of 28 years. His father, Hafez al-Assad, ruled for 30 years until his death in 2000 at age 69.

The document also includes provisions that appear to be intended to prevent the political opposition from entering politics or winning the presidency. It requires candidates to have lived in Syria for 10 successive years and to have a Syrian-born wife, and it prohibits parties that are based on religion or ethnicity, which would bar groups like the Muslim Brotherhood or representatives of the Kurdish minority from participating.

Before the Revolt: Syria’s Foreign Policy

Under the administration of President George W. Bush, Syria was once again vilified as a dangerous pariah. It was linked to the  2005 killing of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. In 2007, Israeli jets destroyed buildings in Syria that intelligence officials said might have been the first stage in a nuclear weapons program. And the United States and its Arab allies mounted a vigorous campaign to isolate Damascus, which they accused of sowing chaos and violence throughout the middle east through its support for militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

President Obama came into office pledging to engage with Syria, arguing that the Bush administration’s efforts to isolate Syria had done nothing to wean it from Iran or encourage Middle East peace efforts. So far, however, the engagement has been limited. American diplomats have visited Damascus, but have reiterated the same priorities as the Bush administration: protesting Syria’s military support to Hezbollah and Hamas, and its strong ties with Iran.

Secret State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to several news organizations show that arms transactions involving Syria and Hezbollah continue to greatly concern the Obama administration. Hezbollah’s arsenal now includes up to 50,000 rockets and missiles, including some 40 to 50 Fateh-110 missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv and most of Israel, and 10 Scud-D missiles.

“Syria’s determined support of Hizballah’s military build-up, particularly the steady supply of longer-range rockets and the introduction of guided missiles could change the military balance and produce a scenario significantly more destructive than the July-August 2006 war,” said a November 2009 cable from the American chargé d’affaires in Damascus.

According to cables, Syrian leaders appeared to believe that the weapons shipments increased their political leverage with the Israelis. But they made Lebanon even more of a tinderbox and increased the prospect that a future conflict might include Syria.

The Hariri Case

Also looming is potential new trouble in Lebanon, where a United Nations-backed international tribunal is expected to indict members of Hezbollah in the death of Mr. Hariri. Hezbollah and its allies — including high-ranking Syrian officials — have warned that an indictment could set off civil conflict.

The United States withdrew its ambassador in 2005 after Mr. Hariri was killed in a car bombing in Beirut along with 22 others. Syria was widely accused of having orchestrated the killing, though it has vehemently denied involvement. The Bush administration imposed economic sanctions on Syria, as part of a broader effort to isolate the government of Mr. Assad.

The current chill is a significant change from the situation a few years ago, when Mr. Assad showed signs of wanting warmer relations with the West than his father, Hafez al-Assad, had ever pursued. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France led the way with a visit in September 2008. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who was said to be furious at Mr. Assad, welcomed him warmly in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in March 2009. And Prime Minster Ehud Olmert of Israel hinted at a revival of talks on the Golan Heights — a prospect that faded when Mr. Olmert was succeeded by the more conservative Benjamin Netanyahu.

Turkish Opposition to Assad

Once one of Syria’s closest allies, Turkey is hosting an armed opposition group waging an insurgency against the government of President Assad, providing shelter to the commander and dozens of members of the group, the Free Syrian Army, and allowing them to orchestrate attacks across the border from inside a camp guarded by the Turkish military.

Turkish support for the insurgents comes amid a broader campaign to undermine Mr. Assad’s government. Turkey is expected to impose sanctions on Syria, and it has deepened its support for the Syrian National Council. But its harboring of leaders in the Free Syrian Army, a militia composed of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, may be its most striking challenge so far to Damascus.
On Oct. 26, 2011, the Free Syrian Army, living in a heavily guarded refugee camp in Turkey, claimed responsibility for killing nine Syrian soldiers, including one uniformed officer, in an attack in restive central Syria.

The group is too small to pose any real challenge to Mr. Assad’s government but support from Turkey underlines how combustible, and resilient, Syria’s uprising has proven. The country sits at the intersection of influences in the region — with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel — and Turkey’s involvement will be closely watched by Syria’s friends and foes.

Turkish officials say that their government has not provided weapons or military support to the insurgent group, nor has the group directly requested such assistance.

Source: New York Times