Syrian Elector

Merkel urges Syria to play 'constructive role' in Lebanese vote

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Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Syria on Friday to play "a constructive role" in resolving the political impasse which has left Lebanon without a president for three months. "A swift election for a new president is needed," the chancellor said ahead of talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora in Berlin.

She said the election of a new president was a prerequisite for talks to begin on "the structures of a government based on democratic rules and principles."

Merkel called on Syria to play "a constructive role" in helping to resolve the crisis, "something which it has not done to a satisfactory extent so far."

U.S. imposes economics sanctions on prominent Syrian businessman

By The Associated Press

The United States on Thursday imposed economic sanctions against a prominent Syrian businessman as part of an effort to punish officials in Syria for alleged efforts to undermine the governments of Iraq and Lebanon. The Treasury Department said the sanctions would be imposed on Rami Makhluf, who was identified as a prominent Syrian businessman and close to the country's Baath regime.

President George W. Bush last week signed an executive order that expanded penalties against senior government officials in Syria and their associates who are judged to have benefited from public corruption.

The Treasury Department order freezes any assets that Makhluf holds in U.S. financial institutions and prohibits U.S. citizens and firms from engaging in any business contacts with him.

Makhluf is the first cousin of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and is considered one of the most powerful and influential businessmen in Syria. The 39-year-old controls the country's mobile phone network, SyriaTel, as well as other lucrative businesses.

U.S.: Syria part of N. Korea nuke deal

U.S. officials, citing concerns over alleged activity in Syria, rejected proposals from North Korean negotiators to compromise on a denuclearization agreement.

Officials expected to reach a deal in December regarding nuclear programs in North Korea in exchange for political and economic concessions.

Israel destroyed a suspected nuclear facility in Syria with a September airstrike. U.S. and Israeli officials allege the facility was built with help from North Korea.

Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator for North Korea, said Pyongyang needs to come clean on its past nuclear activity "including the Syrian matter," The Washington Times said Wednesday.

Hill said North Korea says it doesn't have a current nuclear program and won't have one in the future but U.S. officials say that "is not good enough."

Washington says Pyongyang needs to disclose activities in order to meet full disclosure requirements in the denuclearization deal.

"I don't think we can really go forward with some of our obligations until we have a complete picture," Hill said.

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United Press International.

Growing concern about 12 pro-democracy activists held in Damascus crackdown

Reporters Without Borders and the Damascus Committee in France gave a news conference at the press freedom organisation's headquarters in Paris today to voice their mounting concern about a crackdown that began in December in which 12 pro-democracy activists, three of them journalists, have been arrested.

Mohammed Abdallah, the son of imprisoned journalist Ali Abdallah, addressed the news conference by live video link from Beirut, describing the difficult time his family is experiencing. Syrian writer Farouk Mardam-Bey condemned the state of siege that has been in force in Syria since 1962.

"We are very worried about these journalists and human rights activists who are being held in very harsh condition and who, in some cases, need medical treatment," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said. "The press freedom situation in Syria is not improving despite the emergence of new media, and the regime still controls journalists with an iron grip."

Hezbollah Commander, Wanted by U.S., Killed in Syria

By Massoud A. Derhally

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Imad Mughniyeh, a commander of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia wanted by the U.S., was killed by a car bomb in Damascus, the Shiite Muslim group said.

``The martyr Mughniyeh was killed late yesterday evening'' in the Syrian capital, Ghalib Abu Zainab, a member of the Political Council of Hezbollah, said in a telephone interview from Beirut today.

Mughniyeh was indicted in the U.S. for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA Corp. airliner, during which an American Navy diver was killed. Israel has accused him of involvement in the 1990s bombings of the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish center in Argentina that killed more than 120 people.

The U.S. also wanted Mughniyeh for the April 18, 1983, bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut, al-Arabiya television said. Seventeen U.S. officials, including Robert Ames, the Central Intelligence Agency's top Middle East analyst, and other CIA staffers were among the 63 people who died in that attack.

In a statement, Hezbollah said Mughniyeh was killed ``by the Israeli Zionists.'' His funeral will be held tomorrow, it said.

``There are so many countries and intelligence organizations that had an account to settle with this guy that it could be a great many people,'' Yossi Alpher, a former official with Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and one-time adviser to former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, said in an interview. ``Anybody who has an interest in stopping global terrorism should be satisfied that he's removed from the scene.''

Silencing the Opposition

By David Schenker
Weekly Standard Online
February 13, 2008

Last month, Syria's leading dissident went to jail again. Riad Seif's arrest didn't come as much of a surprise; the former member of parliament and longtime human rights advocate had devoted much of the past two decades to criticizing the authoritarian Assad regime. He was released only two years ago after spending five years in prison for organizing meetings to promote democratic change. This time, Seif's transgression was attending a meeting of pro-democracy opposition groups.

Detentions of reformers and democracy and human rights advocates are not typically news in Syria. Neither are the allegations of physical abuse that several of Seif's incarcerated pro-democracy colleagues reported to Human Rights Watch. But Seif's most recent arrest is newsworthy because it essentially constitutes a death sentence for the 61 year old activist; not only does Seif suffer from diabetes and a heart condition, last year he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

At the risk of eulogizing Seif prematurely, his accomplishments in Syria -- and his perseverance -- have been nothing short of remarkable. A garment trader by profession, Seif's business acumen made him prosperous and would have assured him and his family a life of material comfort had he not entered politics.

Seif's problems started in 1994 when he was elected to a four-year term in parliament. His business-oriented election campaign platform was innocuous and of little apparent concern to the regime. Once in parliament, however, Seif agitated for economic and fiscal reform and launched a campaign against corruption, which he termed "the source of all the evils . . . afflicting the Syrian people." Things went south from there.

Once-Socialist Damascus Displays New Wealth, Glitz

by Deborah Amos

All Things Considered, February 5, 2008 · Syria's ancient capital, Damascus, is booming. Economic reforms, high oil prices, investments from the oil-rich Gulf and Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon have all contributed to the renaissance.

Syria was forced out of Lebanon three years ago, following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Lebanon's capital, Beirut, was once a shopping haven for Syrian consumers. Now, Syria's government is encouraging Syrians to shop and play at home.

'Beirutization' of Damascus

Almost every week, another brand-name coffee shop opens in Damascus. New hotels are going up. Syrians can now put their money in private banks, and Western goods flood into the capital. Once a strict socialist economy, Syria is changing fast.

"A few years ago, nobody would have imagined Syria to be like this," says journalist Ibrahim Hamidi.

After the withdrawal from Lebanon, the government accelerated economic reforms, Hamidi says. Everything Syrians used to go to Lebanon to buy is now available at home.

Syria: The Opposition and its Troubled Relationship with Washington

Joe Macaron

The January 28 detention of Riad Seif is the latest development in a campaign of arrests against members of the National Council of the Damascus Declaration launched by Syrian authorities only a week after U.S. President George Bush met with Ma'moun al-Hamsi, Jenkiskhan Hasou, and Ammar Abdul Hamid at the White House in December 2007. The White House has condemned the arrests, but so far the U.S. Chargé d'Affairs in Syria reportedly has not broached the topic with the sole Syrian official with whom he meets, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Faisal al-Mikdad. Although Washington at one point wished for a united Syrian opposition, it has decided to treat the opposition more as a human rights concern than a potential force for political change. Washington's meetings with representatives of the National Salvation Front, the Syrian National Council, Kurdish parties, and the Reform Party, have been confined to general discussions regarding the State Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative and the $5 million allocated to Syria.

Sources within the U.S. administration admit that Washington's ability to influence events in Syria is limited due to the lack of strong economic ties. In addition, U.S. officials have misgivings about engaging with some parts of the opposition, for example former Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, given his history in power. The White House has not yet authorized meetings with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, in order to avoid lending legitimacy to the organization's alternative project. For its part, the Brotherhood does not seem ready for such a dialogue, at least publicly.

Human rights in Syria

How is it to live paralysed by fear?
by Nicolien den Boer*

Being afraid for your own safety is one thing, worrying about the safety of your family can paralyse you with fear. This is why some human rights activists in Syria decide to throw in the towel. However, most activists continue to fight for what they believe even if both they and their families face threats, imprisonment and torture.

One evening Husam left a Damascus bar after having had one too many drinks. He took a taxi home and started to chat with the driver, who began criticising Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Husam enthusiastically joined the driver in criticising the president. It was a lot of fun to secretly poke fun at the regime in the taxi, with the windows closed.

Suddenly the taxi took a wrong turn. Husam was taken to a police station, arrested and sentenced to several months in prison for insulting the president.

Human rights lawyer and activist Razan Zeitouneh tells the story in her Damascus home. Many Syrian human rights activists can tell similar anecdotes. Taxi drivers have a reputation for working for the Mukhabarat (the secret police), but your neighbour or fellow student can also turn out to be a secret agent. It is not easy to recognise them, which is why there is so much paranoia in Syria.

Like mushrooms

Syrian human rights activists are used to living in fear. During the regime of former president and dictator Hafez al-Assad many human rights activists were jailed for decades and often tortured. It seemed that things would change when his son Bashir succeeded him in 2000.

A Strike in the Dark

What did Israel bomb in Syria?
by Seymour M. Hersh

Sometime after midnight on September 6, 2007, at least four low-flying Israeli Air Force fighters crossed into Syrian airspace and carried out a secret bombing mission on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ninety miles north of the Iraq border. The seemingly unprovoked bombing, which came after months of heightened tension between Israel and Syria over military exercises and troop buildups by both sides along the Golan Heights, was, by almost any definition, an act of war. But in the immediate aftermath nothing was heard from the government of Israel. In contrast, in 1981, when the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, near Baghdad, the Israeli government was triumphant, releasing reconnaissance photographs of the strike and permitting the pilots to be widely interviewed.

Within hours of the attack, Syria denounced Israel for invading its airspace, but its public statements were incomplete and contradictory—thus adding to the mystery. A Syrian military spokesman said only that Israeli planes had dropped some munitions in an unpopulated area after being challenged by Syrian air defenses, "which forced them to flee." Four days later, Walid Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, said during a state visit to Turkey that the Israeli aircraft had used live ammunition in the attack, but insisted that there were no casualties or property damage. It was not until October 1st that Syrian President Bashar Assad, in an interview with the BBC, acknowledged that the Israeli warplanes had hit their target, which he described as an "unused military building." Assad added that Syria reserved the right to retaliate, but his comments were muted.

Despite official silence in Tel Aviv (and in Washington), in the days after the bombing the American and European media were flooded with reports, primarily based on information from anonymous government sources, claiming that Israel had destroyed a nascent nuclear reactor that was secretly being assembled in Syria, with the help of North Korea. Beginning construction of a nuclear reactor in secret would be a violation of Syria's obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and could potentially yield material for a nuclear weapon.