Ten Years On: Murder and Mayhem Prevail in Iraq

March 27, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

[Photo credit: bestgamewallpapers.com]

By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth News Analysis

iraq-market_smallWASHINGTON DC (IDN) – Anniversaries are usually treated as occasions for celebration. They are given special names as in “golden” for a fiftieth anniversary and “tin” for a tenth. Goodwill is in the air, food and drinks are brought out, and “don’t worry, be happy” is the overarching theme for all concerned. Not so in contemporary Iraq, where the tenth anniversary of the US invasion of that country fell on March 19, 2013. The event was not commemorated with joyous activity. Instead, murder and mayhem prevailed.

International news agencies reported that Baghdad was wracked by death and destruction on the tenth anniversary of the invasion. Over 50 people were reported dead in a wave of bombings that ripped through the capital and its environs.

Sporadic sectarian violence has continued throughout the post-Saddam period. So has corruption, as near-anarchy continues to dominate post-invasion Iraq. The Washington Post comments that “haunted by the ghosts of its brutal past, Iraq is teetering between progress and chaos, a country threatened by local and regional conflicts that could drag it back into the sustained bloodshed its citizens know so well.”

“Mission Accomplished,” President Bush?

Outcome of “Rash War”

In Iraq as elsewhere, recollections during the tenth anniversary of an invasion that was said to be characterized by “shock and awe” evoked sorrow over deaths and suffering, anger at the launching of a war on false grounds, and baffled introspection over how the US as a whole – the people, politicians, and the press – were bamboozled into supporting a “dumb war” and a “rash war” as then State Senator Barack Obama called it.

Looking back at the US invasion and its aftermath, perhaps the most cogent encapsulation has come from Hans Blix, the distinguished Swedish diplomat who was formerly his country’s foreign minister and who headed the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). In an Iraq retrospective published by CNN to mark the 10th anniversary of a deadly misadventure, Blix wrote:

“– The war aimed to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but there weren’t any.

– The war aimed to eliminate al Qaeda in Iraq, but the terrorist group didn’t exist in the country until after the invasion.

– The war aimed to make Iraq a model democracy based on law, but it replaced tyranny with anarchy and led America to practices that violated the laws of war.

– The war aimed to transform Iraq to a friendly base for U.S. troops capable to act, if needed, against Iran — but instead it gave Iran a new ally in Baghdad.”

Blix’s pithy summation provides a salutary warning to all those whose reaction to a conflict taking place beyond America’s shores is a yearning for direct intervention.

WMD were non-existent

Many influential supporters of the US invasion of Iraq remain hawkish, nevertheless. They have not shifted from their original positions and some of them are so committed to their own misadventure that they claim they would “do it all over again” if an opportunity arose.

Moreover, some remain faithful to the dubious proposition that the invasion was justified because at the time it was launched, intelligence agencies all over the world were convinced that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Some national intelligence agencies did, indeed, make this assumption from the safety of distance. UNMOVIC, which had deployed inspectors on the ground in Iraq, was not convinced.

As Blix told the UN Security Council and through it the world on Feb. 14, 2003, well ahead of the invasion:

“How much, if any, is left of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and related proscribed items and programs? So far, UNMOVIC has not found any such weapons, only a small number of empty chemical munitions, which should have been declared and destroyed.”

That was not just a “gut feeling,” or idle speculation. It was an assessment based on actual facts.

Evidence of Absence

Knowing that the Bush Administration was inexorably moving towards war although the justification it claimed did not exist, Blix, as well as others associated with UNMOVIC, sought to avert a disaster. They attempted to persuade Western leaders, among others, that potentially cataclysmic decisions were being approached on the basis of flawed assumptions.

Blix records, for instance, that “during a telephone chat with Tony Blair on February 20, I told the British prime minister that it would be paradoxical and absurd if a quarter of a million troops were to invade Iraq and find very little in the way of weapons. He (i.e. Blair) responded by telling me intelligence was clear that Saddam had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction program.” (Readers will recall that Blair was as gung ho as President George W. Bush about the invasion.)

Blix shared his misgivings with others in high positions who might have been able to halt or slow down the drift towards war. He writes: “…suspicions are one thing and reality is quite another. U.N. inspectors were asked to search for, report and destroy real weapons.

“As we found no weapons and no evidence supporting the suspicions, we reported this. But U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed our reports with one of his wittier retorts: ‘The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’” Verbal dexterity is a helpful trait in a politician but does not supplant the need for realism in the decision-making process. Policy decisions on war and peace require more than comedic talent.

In yet another intervention, Blix writes, “on February 11 — less than five weeks before the invasion — I told U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice I wasn’t terribly impressed by the intelligence we had received from the U.S., and that there had been no weapons of mass destruction at any of the sites we had been recommended (to inspect) by American forces. Her response was that it was Iraq, and not the intelligence, that was on trial.” Oh, wow.

Fake premise, Real problems

A war launched on a cooked-up premise is likely, at best, to have mixed results. On the plus side, Iraq has the benefit of Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical – in some situations, brutal – regime having ended. Few but his closest associates mourned his eviction from power. The end of his regime has not, however, been an unmixed blessing for the people of Iraq.

Over 130,000 Iraqis died as a result of the invasion and its consequences. Families were disrupted as they are in any war, and the hope of a “new tomorrow” remains distant for the nation. Stable, democratic governance is yet to be achieved. Corruption has been woven into the fabric of life.

On the US side, over 4,000 deaths have been reported, with so many more injured. Military personnel have lost their limbs and, thereby, their capacity for employment. They, and many others, have become victims of emotional trauma.

A report on the Costs of War compiled by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University calculates that US war expenditures at over $2 trillion – yes, with a “t.” This upsurge of unfunded expenditure aggravated the recession from which the US has not fully recovered.

The world’s policymakers would be well advised to think deeply on the effects of the Bush Administration’s intervention in Iraq as they consider their responses to other regional and global problems that cry out for resolution.

*The writer has served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and the USA. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Select Committee on the media and development, Editor of the Ceylon ‘Daily News’ and the Ceylon ‘Observer’, and was for a time Features Editor and Foreign Affairs columnist of the Singapore ‘Straits Times’. He is Global Editor of and Editorial Adviser to IDN-InDepthNews as well as President of the Media Task Force of Global Cooperation Council. [IDN-InDepthNews – March 21, 2013]

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Copyright © 2013 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Commentary, Conflict, Human Rights, Middle East, Security Tagged With: ,

Political Violence Grips Egypt From All Sides

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Since the two-year anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, Egypt has seen numerous clashes between anti-government demonstrators and security forces.Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

Adam Morrow, Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Feb 17 (IPS) – Since the second anniversary of the uprising that ended the Mubarak regime, Egypt has witnessed a spate of political violence. Egypt’s opposition led by the high-profile National Salvation Front (NSF) blames President Mohamed Morsi for the bloodshed, but many blame the NSF and its leaders."The NSF’s slowness in condemning recent violence has made it appear to the public as if it were condoning – even inciting – acts of violence and sabotage," Amr Hashim Rabie, senior analyst at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS.

Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition, he added, "may pay the price for this perception in upcoming parliamentary elections."

The second anniversary of Egypt’s Jan. 25 Revolution and its aftermath have been accompanied by outbreaks of violence across the country. NSF-led rallies and marches have led to numerous clashes between anti-government protesters and police that have so far left more than 50 dead, including security personnel.

Monday Feb. 11, the second anniversary of Mubarak’s ouster, saw renewed skirmishes between aggressive protesters and police outside the presidential palace in Cairo. In what has become a new means of expressing political dissent, anti-government protesters also cut Cairo’s metro line and blocked the capital’s busy 6 October Bridge.

In recent months, the NSF – a loose coalition of opposition parties and groups headed by Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabbahi (both of whom lost to Morsi in presidential polls last summer) and Mohamed ElBaradei – has taken the lead in articulating the demands of Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition. These demands include amendment of Egypt’s new constitution, the appointment of a new government, and the dismissal of a Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general.

Opposition spokesmen have been quick to blame President Morsi for the recent bloodshed, along with the Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails. But according to Rabie, most of the public – weary after months of political turmoil – holds the NSF-led opposition directly responsible for much of the ongoing violence and mayhem.

"Recent opinion polls show that most Egyptians blame the NSF for sowing chaos and inciting bloodshed, damaging property both public and private, and hurting the economy by damaging Egypt’s already-reeling tourism industry," he said.

Rabie attributed this perception to failures by the NSF to speedily condemn recent acts of violence and sabotage. "The NSF has been woefully slow in distancing itself from violent acts because it hasn’t wanted to alienate the non-peaceful activists who answered its calls for anti-government rallies."

Conversations with several average Egyptians appeared to support Rabie’s assertions.

"I had been planning to vote against the Brotherhood in upcoming parliamentary polls, but given the opposition’s recent aggressive behaviour, I’m going to give my vote to the Brotherhood candidate," said Karim, a 39-year-old Cairo physician who preferred not to give his last name.

Ahmed Kamel, spokesman for Amr Moussa (head of the liberal Conference Party and leading NSF member), rejected the notion that the public blamed the NSF for bloodshed.

Describing recent opinion polls to this effect as "unscientific," Kamel told IPS: "The NSF did not call for or incite any of the recent violence, at the presidential palace or elsewhere. The NSF simply voices the people’s demands."

But if the NSF wants to speak for people, "it should focus on electoral campaigning with a view to winning a majority in parliament," said Azab Mustafa, prominent member of both the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). "Until then, it can’t claim to speak on behalf of ‘the people’."

Mustafa added: "The NSF should be trying to win over voters instead of calling for endless, potentially-violent demonstrations, which only serve to hurt the economy and give western critics a chance to say Egypt ‘isn’t ready for democracy’."

Kamel, for his part, responded by saying that the NSF was "more than ready" to contest elections as long as the polling was subject to "complete judicial and international oversight" and the Brotherhood "reveals all the sources of its campaign funding."

Recent political violence has also featured attacks on Brotherhood/FJP offices and on those of Brotherhood-affiliated government officials, garnering for the group and its party a measure of public sympathy. NSF-led rallies and marches, meanwhile, have frequently targeted the presidential palace, which during one recent demonstration was struck with a petrol bomb.

"Protesters have the right to demonstrate peacefully in public areas," said the Brotherhood’s Mustafa. "But most of the recent NSF-led marches in Cairo have specifically targeted the presidential palace, which Egyptian security forces are duty-bound to protect, and all these have inevitably ended in violence."

According to Rabie, the months-long conflict between the NSF-led opposition and the presidency has seen three major battles for public opinion.

The first over Morsi’s controversial November decree overriding the judiciary, and the second over December’s contentious constitutional referendu. These were, said Rabie, "both won by the opposition, with which much of the public sympathised."

But, he added, the presidency and the Brotherhood appear to have won the third round. "The NSF has succeeded in mobilising mass anti-Morsi rallies and marches, but the Brotherhood has won in terms of broad public sympathy, which could translate into electoral gains."

According to official statements, parliamentary elections are likely to be held in April or May.

Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls in late 2011 were swept by Islamist parties, chief among them the Brotherhood. The assembly was dissolved last summer on orders of the ruling military then, after Egypt’s High Constitutional Court ruled it illegitimate on a technicality.

This time around, Rabie expects Islamist parties to capture a smaller share than they did in 2011, when together they won almost three-quarters of parliament’s lower house. "But due to its superior organisation and electoral experience, especially in the case of the Brotherhood, the Islamist camp will likely maintain a parliamentary majority," he said.

"And if the NSF-led opposition maintains its current strategy of staging rallies that lead to clashes with police and impeding public transportation," Rabie added, "it will pay a heavy price at the ballot box."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Human Rights, Lead, Middle East, Unrest Tagged With: , , ,

Yemen’s Youth Denied the Revolutionary Change

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Some protesters still remain hopeful on the anniversary of the revolution in Yemen. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS.

Rebecca Murray

SANA’A, Feb 16 (IPS) – This week in Sana’a thousands of Yemenis – mostly youth – crowded the highway near the landmark ‘Change Square’ to celebrate the second anniversary of the revolution. Adjacent to the university, this was the site of a tented encampment that drew tens of thousands of demonstrators throughout 2011.But in contrast to the violence between Islamists and southern separatists that marred a similar gathering in Yemen’s port city of Aden, the capital’s parade was subdued and brief.

“The revolution is only half done,” sighed Ziad, a Sana’a university student as he headed home after the parade. “The most important thing we are calling for is justice.”

Inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian protests, Yemen’s youth were at the forefront of the 2011 uprising. They were united by a common cause to end former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year dictatorial rule.

“In the revolution’s first few months youth felt they had the power, that they were shaping the situation, and that their voices were the most important – without the need to go to the political parties,” says youth activist Bara’a Shaiban.

But two years later, many of those youth are disillusioned.

“Sometimes I regret we had the revolution – like we fooled ourselves,” says Shatha Al-Harazi, a 27-year old journalist. “But at least he is out and we are forced into a new era. If it were not for us we would be voting (Saleh’s son) Ahmed Ali into office. But if we are realistic we know he still has power…”

Many believe their revolution was hijacked when longtime government allies, like former General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar of the powerful First Armoured Division swapped sides in what was deemed a cynical move for self-preservation, after the definitive Juma’at al-Karama (Friday of Dignity) massacre on Mar. 18, 2011.

That day an estimated 52 peaceful protestors were killed and hundreds injured at Change Square by thugs while the robust Central Security Forces, led by Saleh’s nephew, Yahya Saleh, stood idly by.

Although Saleh was forced to step down in November 2011, he still resides in the heart of Sana’a, protected by an immunity deal hammered out by the U.S. and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

Amnesty International described the deal as “a smack in the face for justice,” and angry protestors took to the streets during the brief United Nations Security Council visit last month, demanding a trial for Saleh.

President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, ushered in through a one-candidate presidential election last February, now faces the formidable challenge of rooting out the elite old guard entrenched in the government and military.

Yemen’s problems are many. The security and economic outlook has deteriorated and the youth face bleak education and employment prospects, as the country remains shackled to a corrupt system based on tribal networks and nepotism.

The troubled National Dialogue process has been pushed back to Mar. 18. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) brokered it in an attempt to unify disparate interests – including civil rights issues, transitional justice, and the demands of northern Houthi and southerners calling for federalism or a separate state.

“The problem with delays is that it pulls people further apart and we lose momentum,” says Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Sakkaf, member of the National Dialogue Preparatory Committee.

“Saleh has gradually become stronger and I think he feels he is coming back. He is gaining strength, and his strength is relative to the National Dialogue’s weakness. I don’t see his immunity revoked, there is pressure for him to leave politics… In Yemen we do things that save face, and we don’t want to create enemies.”

Yemen’s venerable political parties dominate the National Dialogue’s 565 seats, with only 40 seats allocated to ‘independent’ youth and a 20 percent youth quota across party lines. Independent women and civil society claim another 40 seats each.

Outraged by this marginalisation, Nobel Peace Prize winner and revolutionary youth leader Tawakkol Karman says she will boycott the six-month National Dialogue, and will instead work outside the conference to bring change.

‘Youth’ is defined by the National Dialogue as those between 18 to 40 years old, and make up the majority of Yemen’s mostly rural population of 24 million. But those in rural areas – with scant access to electricity, Internet and social media – have largely been left out of the process.

“When the GCC agreement was signed in November, there was huge resistance to it,” says Bara’a Shaiban. “We should have then realised that a political process would start, and we should start reacting to it.”

Shaiban believes they need to nurture new advocacy methods to combat challenges in the National Dialogue. Powerful political parties and endemic corruption threaten to drown out the voices of the less experienced, and more divided, youth delegation.

Illustrative of the country’s predicament are the findings of the Human Rights Watch investigation into the stalled trial process around the Juma’at al-Karama killings. More than half of 78 men indicted for the crime remain at large, and only eight are in jail.

“Our research found the prosecutor’s investigations were deeply flawed and marred by political meddling,” Human Rights Watch researcher Letta Taylor tells IPS.

“Nearly two years later justice is still nowhere in sight for this crime,” she says. “If the government can’t properly prosecute this emblematic attack, it doesn’t bode well, and raises serious questions about its ability to bring the significant change that protestors sought, and in some cases died for.”

Shatha Al-Harazi now holds television debates with youth activists nationwide to raise awareness about the National Dialogue. What she discovered was that very few activists themselves understand the process.

“There is a very big gap between urban and rural areas,” Al-Harazi says. “The National Dialogue means a lot to the political elites. But it doesn’t mean much to the larger crowd because they don’t know much about it.

“When I saw the list of the National Conference names I was depressed. They were those who were against youth and killed youth. And the leaders of parties didn’t give the chance for youth to lead. But the youth have the power and will continue to fight.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Featured, Middle East, Unrest Tagged With: , , ,

Syrian Civil War Grounded To A Stalemate

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

FSA_Fighter

[An FSA fighter in engaged in a firefight in Aleppo | Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

 

By Zachary Fillingham* | Geopoliticalmonitor.com

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TORONTO (IDN) – Opposition troops in Syria have largely come to be referred to as the Free Syria Army (FSA), but this title belies the fact that the anti-Assad side of the civil war equation is composed of several disparate groups, all with conflicting visions for a post-Assad Syria. In reality, the FSA was born out of a group of largely Sunni Syrian Army deserters led by Riyad al-Assad, and that is likely more or less the composition that remains to this day.

The FSA claims to have now assembled a force of 40,000 men, but analysts have pegged the number at closer to 10,000. The more generous estimate that the FSA touts might include Islamist foreign fighters that are active in the Syrian theatre, a group that shares the FSA’s short-term goals without falling under its immediate command structures. This disconcerting mix of ‘wholesome’ army deserters and ‘unwholesome’ Islamists has kept Western aid taps firmly shut so far.

The West’s apparent unease over supplying the FSA does not mean that weapon shipments are not flooding into Syria. Quite the contrary, the rebels are said to receive ‘daily’ shipments via Lebanon and Turkey, which are likely financed and organized by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The FSA has carved out a territorial stronghold for itself in the north of Syria in the area adjacent to the Turkish border, primarily in the regions surrounding Idlib and to the north of Aleppo. There are other large pockets of FSA resistance to the north and south of Homs. However, given the guerrilla tactics being favoured by the FSA, the map is in a constant state of flux. The FSA is at a material disadvantage against government forces, so FSA commanders will often choose to melt into the countryside rather than stand and fight.

In the past, the FSA has had success encircling large government deployments in Idlib and Aleppo, and although reports from the north are as unreliable as they are sparse, the FSA is said to be fielding increasingly sophisticated weaponry in the past six months.

Damascus has also reported heavy fighting recently, and some sources have attributed it to a rebel push out of strongholds in Ghouta, a region to the east of the capital. Although it’s possible that the FSA has expanded its operational capacity from its base in the north, the more likely explanation is that these attacks, some of which have included suicide bombings, are actually the work of the ‘unwholesome’ branch of the Syrian insurgency.

Poised to push rebel forces out

On the other side of the military equation, the Syrian Army shows no signs of being beaten into submission. Quite the contrary, if anything it seems poised to push rebel forces out of a few strategic cities. While real news is sparse and government information must be taken with a grain of salt, several facts can still be gleaned in regards to the Syrian Army.

First off, the wave of desertions that originally swelled the ranks of the FSA seems to have receded, and the troops that remain are likely committed to seeing the conflict through to the end. Second, the Syrian Army has the manpower and material means to hold on to the major cities in Syria. Currently, there is no major urban center that has totally fallen to rebel forces ala Benghazi during the Libyan conflict. And finally, the Syrian Army will maintain its lifeline of foreign assistance, at least in some form, via arms shipments from Russia, a government that claims to have taken no sides in the conflict while simultaneously filling out ‘previously agreed-upon’ arms contracts for the Assad regime.

The sum of these parts is a civil war with a government side that is committed, well-supplied, and convinced all the way down to the individual foot soldier that its very existence is at stake. On the other side, there is a guerilla force that is decentralized, multifaceted, trans-border, and increasingly materially and logistically competent. Both sides enjoy a long bench of foreign backers ready to fight for their cause.

This all points to the indisputable fact that the Syrian civil war has ground to a stalemate and there is no end in sight.

There are a few scenarios that can arise moving forward, the first of which being a military stalemate much like the one we are currently witnessing. The Syrian Army will continue to hold on to cities, maintaining a firm grip on Damascus and a more tenuous one on the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib, and the FSA will continue to recruit, resupply, and regroup in the countryside. Civilian casualties will continue to mount and refugee camps will grow in the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and the north of Iraq. As more and more time passes, a de facto territorial division may begin to appear in Syria. Under this scenario, the war’s victor will be determined by attrition and exhaustion.

Barriers to a negotiated solution

The second possibility is a compromise, which would be ideal in terms of mitigating the loss of life. However, several barriers to a negotiated solution currently exist, the biggest of which being that both sides still believe they can win. Fruitful negotiations are also frustrated by the fact that the Syrian opposition doesn’t speak with one voice, which is forgivable on the battlefield because everyone knows who the enemy is.

The same can’t be said for politics: The National Coalition for Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the Syrian National Council, the National Co-ordination Committee, seculars and Islamists, locals and the diaspora – all of these actors give rise to a cacophony of disparate interests that defy direct talks. For proof, one needs look no further than Moaz al-Khatib’s call for government negotiations on Februray 6.

Al-Khatib, the leader of the National Coalition, called for the talks in light of the worsening humanitarian situation across the country. His comments drew immediate criticism from the Syrian National Council, who accused him of betraying the cause of Assad’s removal. And this is merely scraping the surface of the byzantine web of Syrian opposition groups.

The third scenario is a game-changing foreign intervention. This is the hardest to predict because of the huge number of variables involved. It is also potentially the most dangerous. Much has been written about the possibility of the Syrian civil war spilling its borders and triggering a regional sectarian conflict, and that it has yet to do so is a testament to the restraint of foreign backers on both sides. But this won’t necessarily be the case for the entire duration of the conflict.

Israel’s recent airstrike on Syria is a good example of a potential catalyst. Should the Assad government want to start beating the war drum against Tel Aviv, Iran could get involved and the result would be a regional war. Similarly, Iran may choose to vent its recent economic frustrations by increasing its involvement in the Syrian conflict, which could draw Western countries into the conflict, and once more, the result is a regional war.

In addition to these state-initiated political scenarios, there is also the sectarian element to be considered. Syria is surrounded by Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish populations that could conceivably be drawn into the conflict under certain macro circumstances.

Only time will tell how the civil war is resolved; likely a whole lot of it.

*Zachary Fillingham holds a BA in International Relations from York University in Toronto, Canada and an MA in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England. This article is being re-published by arrangement with Geopoliticalmonitor.com which carried it on February 11, 2013.

Original: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/syrian-civil-war-the-view-from-the-ground-4780/

2013 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.

Photo: An FSA fighter in engaged in a firefight in Aleppo | Credit: Wikimedia Commons


Filed Under: Conflict, Featured, Insurgency, Middle East Tagged With: , ,

Israel Goods Boycott Movement Rises

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Um Abed plants an olive tree in support of Palestinian farmers. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett

ZEITOUN, Gaza, Feb 10 (IPS) – Tawfiq Mandil, 45, stands amongst hundreds of Palestinian farmers, activists, and international supporters in the Gaza Strip’s eastern Zeitoun district, about half a kilometre from the border with Israel. They are renewing a call for the boycott of Israeli goods.“The Israeli army destroyed my house and my five dunums of land (a dunum is 1,000 square metres) on the last day of the attacks in 2009, as well as 20 other homes,” he says.

With signs reading ‘Boycott Israeli Agricultural Products’ and ‘Support Palestinian Farmers’, Mandil and others protesting Israeli oppression of Palestinian farmers joined together Saturday to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce.

Mandil believes that the boycott is his only hope for justice for Palestinian farmers being targeted by the Israeli army and oppressed by Israel. “We hope that it will put pressure on Israel to stop targeting us and allow us to farm our land as we used to.”

With an Israeli surveillance blimp hovering above and a nearby remotely-controlled machine gun tower open and ready to fire, the significance of the rally’s location near the ‘buffer zone’ was not lost. Israeli authorities prohibit Palestinians from accessing the 300 metres flanking the Gaza-Israel border. In reality, the Israeli army regularly attacks Palestinians up to two kilometres from the border in some areas, rendering more than 35 percent of Gaza’s farmland off-limits.

“By engaging in the trade of settlement produce, states are failing to comply with their obligation to actively cooperate in order to put the Israeli settlement enterprise to an end. Therefore, a ban on settlement produce must be considered amongst those actions that Third Party States should undertake in order to comply with their international law obligations.”

The Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq released a position paper last month condemning the Israeli settlement produce trade. The paper, ‘Feasting on the Occupation: Illegality of Settlement Produce and the Responsibility of EU Member States Under International Law’ highlights the means by which Israeli settlements benefit from the oppression of Palestinian farmers.

“While the EU has been quite outspoken in condemning settlements and their expansion, they continue to import produce from these same settlements and in doing so, help to sustain their very existence,” Al-Haq director general Shawan Jabarin notes in the Al-Haq press release.

“More than 80 Palestinians have been injured and at least four Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in the border regions since the November 2012 ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian resistance,” says Adie Mormech, 35, a British activist living in Gaza. This is in addition to the many Palestinians killed and hundreds injured in previous years of Israeli army attacks on the border regions.

“There is simultaneous action happening in the occupied West Bank,” says Mormech. “They’re planting near Yitzhar colony, which is notorious for its violence against Palestinians. Around the world, an estimated 30 countries are holding actions in solidarity with Palestinian farmers and fishers.”

Um Abed, 65, from Zeitoun is defiant. “Today we’re planting olive trees. God willing next year we’ll plant lemon, date and palm trees. We grow, they bulldoze, we re-plant.”

The boycott action follows a growing number of initiatives emerging in recent years from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian students in Gazan universities stepped up the Boycott call in 2012, releasing Youtube videos calling for political action, not aid, from international supporters.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has attracted international support, including the backing of numerous UK and North American universities and scholars.

Increasing numbers of cultural and religious associations, such as the Quakers’ Friends Fiduciary Corporation, are divesting from corporations that profit from or support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. The United Church of Canada endorsed the boycott of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in August 2012.

Dr Haidar Eid, professor at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University and PACBI member, outlines what BDS entails.

“We are calling for implementation of UN Security Council resolution 242, which calls for withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem. The second demand is the implementation of the United Nations resolution 194, the return of all Palestinian refugees to the towns and villages from which they were ethnically cleansed in 1948. The third demand is the end to Israel’s apartheid policies in Palestine 1948. We want equality.”

While civil society and students have been in the forefront of BDS actions in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas government has also taken steps calling for boycott. Joe Catron, an American activist based in the Gaza Strip, explains one recent government-led campaign.

“The Adidas campaign began in March 2012, when Adidas was sponsoring a marathon through parts of Jerusalem, including parts that are internationally recognised as occupied. The Ministry of Youth and Sports here called upon the Arab League to boycott Adidas in response to this, which a number of countries did.”

In September 2012, Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture decided to ban most Israeli fruits entering Gaza.

“Palestinian farmers can grow the fruits we consume,” said marketing director in the ministry Tahsen Al-Saqa. “We need to support and protect our own farmers. They’ve been economically devastated by the Israeli ban on exporting since 2006.”

“Boycott is the key, and it is growing,” says Adie Mormech. “The momentum is so much now that it is not going to stop. It’s going to be like South Africa.”

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Human Rights, Middle East, Politics, Report, Security Tagged With: , ,

Deadly Car Blast Hits Turkey’s Syria Border

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

AJ Correspondents

DOHA, Qatar, Feb 11 (Al Jazeera) – At least 10 people have been killed and 30 others wounded following a car-bomb explosion near the border between Turkey and Syria, Turkish television reported.A Syrian-registered car is believed to have been at the centre of Monday’s blast on Turkish soil, Huseyin Sanverdi told the NTV news channel.

Dozens of ambulances were dispatched to the scene at the Cilvegozu border crossing in the southern Turkish province of Hatay.

Four Turkish nationals were among the dead.

An official from Turkish foreign ministry confirmed the explosion, adding that the blast triggered a fire that damaged around 15 cars.

"We don’t know whether this was a suicide bomb or whether a car that was smuggling petrol across the border blew up," one Turkish official told Reuters news agency.

Television footage and photographs showed severe damage to a series of cars at the border, where a gate was blown open and part of the roof collapsed.

"There was an explosion in the no-man’s zone. It was not a mortar attack. It was very strong," a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The Cilvegozu border gate, several miles outside the town of Reyhanli, sits opposite the Syrian gate of Bab al-Hawa, which the rebels captured last July.

Refugees cross back and forth and Turkish lorries also deliver goods into no-man’s land between the two gates, where they are picked up by Syrians.

In October, five Turkish civilians were killed when a mortar shell hit a house in the Turkish border town of Akcakale.

Turkey has always responded to cross-border gunfire and mortar rounds, and is currently hosting NATO Patriot missile batteries to defend against attacks from Syria.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Middle East, Report, Security, Terrorism Tagged With: ,

Few Hopes for Iran Breakthrough

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Feb 08 (IPS) – Despite an agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) to resume long-delayed talks about Tehran’s nuclear programme in Kazakhstan at the end of this month, few observers here believe that any breakthrough is in the offing.That belief was reinforced Thursday when Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared to reject a U.S. proposal, most recently put forward by Vice President Joseph Biden at a major security conference in Munich last week, to hold direct bilateral talks.

While Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akhbar Salehi, initially welcomed the offer, provided Washington desisted from its “threatening rhetoric that (all options are) on the table,” Khamenei said in a speech to air force officers Thursday that such talks “would solve nothing".

“You are pointing a gun at Iran saying you want to talk,” he said. “The Iranian nation will not be frightened by the threats.”

His rebuff confirmed to some observers here that serious negotiations – whether between Iran and the P5 (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China) plus German or in bilateral talks between Tehran and Washington – are unlikely to take place before Iran’s presidential election in June.

“(I)t simply doesn’t lie in (Khamenei’s) nature to agree to talks from a position of weakness – and certainly not without the protection of having the talks be conducted by an Iranian President who he can …blame for any potential failure in the talks,” wrote Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), on the ‘Daily Beast’ website Thursday.

“Khamenei would rather wait till after the Iranian elections, it seems, in order to both find ways to shift the momentum back to Iran’s side and to hide behind Iran’s new President in the talks,” according to Parsi, author of two award-winning books on U.S.-Iranian relations.

He was referring to the widespread notion here that the cumulative impact of U.S.-led international economic sanctions against Iran, as well as the raging civil war in Syria, Iran’s closest regional ally, has seriously weakened Tehran and “forced” it back to the table, if not quite yet to make the concessions long demanded by the administration of President Barack Obama and its allies.

Those include ending Tehran’s enrichment of uranium to 20 percent; shipping its existing 20-percent enriched stockpile out of the country; closure of its underground Fordow enrichment facility; acceptance of a highly intrusive inspections regime by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); and the clearing up of all outstanding IAEA questions related to possible past military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme.

In exchange for those steps, according to U.S. officials, Washington – and presumably the other P5+1 members — would be prepared to forgo further UN. sanctions against Iran; assure the supply of nuclear fuel for Tehran’s Research Reactor (TRR), which produces medical isotopes; facilitate services to Iran’s aging civilian aircraft fleet; and provide other “targeted sanctions relief” that, however, would not include oil- and banking-related sanctions that have been particularly damaging to Iran’s economy over the past two years.

Gradual relief from those more-important sanctions would follow only after full and verifiable implementation of Iran’s side of the bargain.

Until such a deal is struck, however, Washington is committed to increasing the pressure, according to U.S. officials who say the administration remains committed to a strategy of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon by military means, if necessary.

Indeed, in what one official described as “a significant turning of the screw”, the administration announced Wednesday that it had begun implementing new Congressionally mandated sanctions that would effectively force Iran’s foreign oil purchasers into barter arrangements. To avoid sanctions, buyers would have to pay into local accounts from which Iran could then buy locally made goods.

It’s generally accepted that such so-called “crippling sanctions” are responsible, at least in substantial part, for the 50-percent decline in the value of the riyal, galloping inflation, and a major increase in unemployment in recent months.

At the same time, however, there is growing doubt here that the sanctions are achieving their purpose – forcing Iran to accept the stringent curbs on its nuclear programme demanded by the U.S. – or that they are likely to achieve that purpose within the next 18-24 months.

That is the time frame in which most experts believe Tehran could achieve “breakout capacity” – the ability to be able to build a nuclear bomb very quickly – if it decided to do so.

Indeed, in recent weeks, Iran began installing advanced centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility that, if fully activated, could significantly accelerate the rate of enrichment. The move was seen as an effort by Tehran to strengthen its position before the P5+1 meeting in Almaty Feb. 26.

Moreover, the assumption that the economic woes imposed by the sanctions would drive such a deep wedge between Tehran’s leadership and the population that the regime risked collapse is also increasingly in question.

While a majority (56 percent) of respondents said in December that sanctions have hurt Iranians’ livelihoods “a great deal", according to a poll of Iranian opinion released by the Gallup organisation here Thursday, 63 percent said they believed Iran should continue developing its nuclear programme. Only 17 percent disagreed.

When asked who should be blamed for the sanctions, only 10 percent of respondents cited Iran itself; 70 percent named either the U.S. (47 percent), Israel (nine percent); Western European countries (seven percent); or the U.N. (seven percent).

“This may indicate that sanctions alone are not having the intended effect of persuading Iranian residents and country leaders to change their stance on the level of international oversight of their nuclear program,” noted a Gallup analysis of the results.

Its credibility, however, was questioned by some Iran experts who noted that increased security measures taken by the regime may affect the willingness of respondents to speak frankly to pollsters.

In light of the most recent developments, including Khamenei’s rejection of Biden’s offer and the installation of the new centrifuges at Natanz, Iran hawks here are urging yet tougher sanctions and moves to make the eventual use of force more credible – appeals that are certain to be greatly amplified next month when the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) holds its annual convention here

At the same time, however, there appears to be a growing conviction within the foreign-policy elite that ever-increasing sanctions and threatening military action are unlikely to work, and that Washington should offer be more forthcoming about sanctions relief to get a deal.

Indeed, the administration’s commitment to resorting to military action, if necessary, to prevent Iran from obtaining a weapon is also increasingly being questioned, as a growing number of foreign-policy “greybeards” are calling for a strategy of “deterrence” if and when Iran reaches breakout capacity.

“In the end, war is too costly, unpredictable and dangerous to be a practical option,” noted Bruce Riedel, a former top CIA Middle East and South Asia analyst who was in charge of preparing Afghanistan policy on Obama’s transition team in 2009 and remains close to the White House from his perch at the Brookings Institution.

The “stark choice” between a diplomatic solution and war that Obama’s commitment to prevention has created, he wrote to the “Iran Primer” this week, “is a mistake".

“But there is a good chance that (Secretary of State John) Kerry and Obama will bail themselves out of this trap by re-opening the door to containment, although they would probably call it something else.”

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Diplomacy, Featured, Middle East, Nuclear Weapons, Politics Tagged With: ,

Golan Heights Braces for More Fighting

February 7, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

DSC_0583-629x418

The fence and army road separates Majdal Shams from ‘Syria proper’. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

Jillian Kestler-DAmours

MAJDAL SHAMS, Occupied Golan Heights, Feb 07 (IPS) – After Israeli war planes reportedly bombed targets in Syrian territory last week, individuals and groups in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights are quietly preparing for the possibility of escalating violence between Syria and Israel.“We can feel that the presence of the Israeli army in the Golan has been increasing in the last week. People started to prepare for a war situation,” said Dr. Taiseer Maray, director general of the local group Golan for the Development of the Arab Villages.

Israeli security sources reported this week that an Iron Dome missile defence system had been placed on Israel’s northern border with Syria and Lebanon. The move came less than a week after Israeli jets were suspected to have bombed a weapons convoy inside Syria, near the Lebanese border.

Media reports speculated that the weapons were destined for Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, which fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006. The Syrian government, however, said a scientific research centre on the outskirts of Damascus was the target of the Israeli raid.

Syrian officials accused Israel of trying to “destabilise” Syria. They also used the Israeli attack to discredit the opposition movement in Syria, arguing it proved that external forces are responsible for the ongoing uprising against President Bashar Assad.

While Israel hasn’t formally taken responsibility for the bombing, defence minister Ehud Barak said the strike was “proof that when we say something we mean it. We don’t think (Syria) should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.”

Fighting between the Syrian army and Syrian resistance groups aiming to oust President Assad has left over 60,000 Syrians dead and forced up to one million people to flee as refugees to neighbouring countries, the United Nations estimates.

According to Maray, as Israel increasingly threatens to become involved militarily in the conflict, preparations for emergency field clinics in the Golan Heights, and across the Israel-Syria ceasefire line are now being planned, should Israel occupy more Syrian land.

“Any kind of fighting, or any movement of (the Israeli) army, will be via the Golan Heights. This makes the Golan a really sensitive area. We try to prepare the shelters. We try to keep more food in our houses, just to be ready for such a possibility,” Maray told IPS from his office in Majdal Shams, the largest Syrian-Arab village in the area.

In 1967, Israel occupied the Golan Heights, a mountainous region and fertile plateau bordered by Lebanon, Jordan and northern Israel. Israel annexed the Golan in 1981 and extended its laws to the territory in a move that is considered illegal by the international community.

About 20,000 Syrian Arabs live in a handful of communities in the Golan Heights, including the largest and northernmost village, Majdal Shams, which lies only 60 kilometres from Damascus.

Most Syrian-Arab residents of the Golan are members of the Druze religious minority. Today, community members hold Israeli ID cards and are considered permanent residents of Israel.

Since the Syrian uprising began, Golan residents have been divided between supporting the Assad government and supporting the opposition movement. In Majdal Shams, physical violence has erupted between the two sides.

“I think every day Assad is losing popularity. It’s not politics. What’s taking place in Syria became a very basic humanitarian thing: people have the right to life,” said Salman Falkredeen, an activist at Al-Marsad, a human rights centre in Majdal Shams.

Speaking from the Al-Marsad office, as the sound of bombs went off in the distance just over the hills of southwestern Syria, Falkredeen said the Syrian uprising has amplified local demands for the end of the ongoing Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights.

“It sharpened the conflict (with Israel) more and more. People began discussing or raising the issue of freedom,” Falkredeen told IPS. “The demand of democracy, the awareness of human rights values, these are new questions that people are asking all the time. People are changing their ideas and their behaviour.”

He added that while the Syrian revolution has had minor, direct impact on the lives of the people in the Golan Heights – young people were barred from studying in Syria, and farmers were unable to market their apples in Damascus, for example – it will have a lasting effect on political consciousness.

“All Syrians will have political experience through the revolution because before that, there was no opportunity for Syrians to develop politics. Under the Assads, Bashar and his father (Hafez), there was no politics. We had a political desert in Syria, but in the last two years, it was a huge school of politics. We are learning in the most painful and hard way.”

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Conflict, Featured, Middle East Tagged With: ,

New Regime, Same Police Brutality

February 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Police-brutality-grafitti-IPS-573x472

Grafitti in Cairo showing police brutality. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

Cam McGrath

CAIRO, Feb 06 (IPS) – Graphic video footage of an Egyptian man being dragged naked across a street and beaten by riot police during a protest in Cairo has sparked outrage in Egypt and heightened calls for police reform, a key demand of the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak.The video shows Hamada Saber, a 48-year-old painter, lying on the ground with his trousers around his ankles as police in riot gear strike him with batons and punch him in the face. After he stops moving, police officers drag him face down across the asphalt and attempt to bundle him into an armoured vehicle.

The incident has angered opposition and rights groups, which accuse President Mohamed Morsi of relying on the same brutal tactics as his predecessors to crush dissent.

“It’s shocking footage, but not surprising,” says activist Mohamed Fathy. “We have the same police force now as we did under Mubarak. There has been no serious effort to reform it.”

Saber was assaulted on Feb. 1 after clashes between police and anti-Morsi demonstrators near the presidential palace spilled over into the streets where he was shopping with his family. The violence followed a week of civil unrest across Egypt that left nearly 60 people dead and hundreds injured.

Many Egyptians accused the interior ministry of coercing Saber after he insisted in a televised interview from his bed in a police hospital that security forces had rescued him from protesters who had stripped and beaten him. His account contradicted the video evidence, as well as statements by eyewitnesses including members of his own family.

“That a citizen be dragged in a public space is a crime against humanity. That he be forced to amend his testimony before the Public Prosecution is tyranny,” rights lawyer Nasser Amin wrote on his Twitter account.

Saber later recanted his testimony, indicating that it was indeed the police who beat him. His son Ahmed told independent newspaper Al Shorouk that his father phoned him in tears and told him the police had “terrorised him” into giving a false account.

The public outcry over Saber’s ordeal was further heightened by news of the death of a 28-year old activist arrested by police on Jan. 27 during a protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Mohamed El-Guindy’s body showed marks of electrical shocks, strangulation, three broken ribs, a cracked skull and brain haemorrhage, according to a medical report.

Morsi’s government has promised to investigate reports of police torture and abuse. The president announced in a Facebook message that there will be “no return to rights abuses of citizens and their freedoms” of the Mubarak era.

But images of El-Guindy’s battered face and the video footage of police beating Saber have raised doubts, say rights groups.

“The Egyptian police continue to systematically deploy violence and torture, and at times even kill,” the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said in a report published on the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Mubarak.

“There has been no thorough change, or even cosmetic improvement, in the police apparatus, whether related to its administrative structure, decision-making, oversight of police work or the reform and removal of leaders and personnel responsible for torture and killing,” the report said.

EIPR has documented at least a dozen people killed by police and 11 tortured inside police stations in the seven months since Morsi assumed presidency. Security forces are rarely held accountable, the report said.

Only two police officers have been jailed for the deaths of more than 800 protesters killed during the 2011 revolution. Over a hundred officers have been acquitted.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Morsi hails, has tried to distance the president from recent incidents of police abuse and torture. A group spokesman argued this week that Morsi needed more time to purge the police force of a culture that condoned the torture and humiliation of detainees, excessive use of force, and routine bribe-taking.

Yasser Hamza, a member of the Brotherhood’s legal committee, pointed the finger squarely at the interior minister. He said Egypt’s new constitution, hastily cobbled together and passed in a controversial referendum in December, absolves the president of accountability in cases of police abuse.

“Morsi bears no responsibility in cases of torture and killing of demonstrators according to the new constitution,” independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm quoted Hamza as saying.

He elaborated that the constitution stipulates that the cabinet is responsible for domestic matters, while the president only bears responsibility for foreign affairs.

Activists are not buying it. Some have accused Morsi of abandoning plans to reform the police because he needs a blunt instrument to secure his tenuous grip on power.

“The police are only good at one thing, beating and humiliating Egyptians,” says Mohamed Fathy, a member of the April 6 youth movement.

In a televised address last week, Morsi praised security forces for their crackdown on protests in the Suez Canal region that left dozens dead, including bystanders allegedly killed by police snipers. He described the protesters as thugs and Mubarak loyalists intent on toppling his democratically elected government.

He also announced a 30-day state of emergency in the Canal cities, granting security forces there arbitrary powers to detain or arrest civilians, in effect restoring the sweeping powers police enjoyed under Mubarak’s 29-year rule.

“Morsi gave the police a licence to use indiscriminate force against protesters,” says Fathy. “He shouldn’t be surprised that they did.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Human Rights, Lead, Middle East Tagged With: , , ,

Corruption Case Raises Iran Domestic Tensions

February 4, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

AJ Correspondents

DOHA, Qatar, Feb 04 (Al Jazeera) – Iran’s president has accused the brother of the speaker of parliament of corruption, increasing tensions between two of the country’s most powerful political figures in the run-up to presidential elections in the country.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cabinet were in parliament on Sunday for the impeachment hearing of Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, the labour minister, when he levelled the accusations against Fazel Larijani, the speaker’s brother.

He played an inaudible audio recording in which Fazel allegedly says he used his family’s status for economic gains, but both brothers dismissed the allegations made by Ahmadinejad.

“Our problem is that our president does not observe the basics of proper behaviour,” Ali Larjani, the speaker, said, retorting to the president’s comments, adding that it had nothing to do with Sheikholeslami’s impeachment process.

“Actually it’s a good thing that you played this tape today, so that the people better understand your character.”

Al Jazeera’s Soraya Lennie, reporting from Tehran, said: “Most of (the reactions) have been quite negative and critical of the president . One parliamentarian said ‘the president is not acting in the manner befitting his post’.”

Request denied

During Sunday’s impeachment hearing, Ali Larijani told Ahmadinejad that parliament was not the proper place for the corruption discussion and that he should take it any accusation to the relevant authorities.

He also denied a request by Ahmadinejad to speak again.

Ahmadinejad claims that the audio recording of a conversation between Saeed Mortazavi, an associate of Ahmadinejad, and Fazel Larijani was proof of Fazel implying that he could use his brothers’ influence to remove obstacles in return for involvement in business endeavours.

The Larijani family is one of the country’s most influential poltical families. Sadeq Larjani, Iran’s judiciary chief, is a brother of Fazel and Ali.

Fazel told Iran’s Fars news agency that he would file a legal complaint against Ahmadinejad and Mortazavi for “spreading lies and disturbing public opinion”.

“This was a conspiratorial step and hypocritical action taken so that Mortazavi could use it as leverage,” he said. “I’m not the first person to be attacked by these Mafia-like individuals.”

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Middle East, Politics, Report, Transparency Tagged With: ,
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