Syria & The UN: The Latest Embarrassment

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I’ve just read an article on BBC World News – “UN Syria text drops call for Assad power handover“. It has annoyed me pretty intensely and I’m moved to write this.

I think a direct quote from article 1 of the UN Charter is appropriate, if a bit wordy, to begin with. I’ll highlight the most relevent bits (although the whole section applies):

“The Purposes of the United Nations are: To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace…”

The UN does have other purposes. For instance, the rest of article 1 talks about building “friendly relations” between states, “achieving international co-operation” and respect for “fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion”. To my mind, the fact that the UN Charter was drawn up with these purposes at the top send a pretty clear message. These are fundamental to the whole organisation, and while the UN does exist to secure the rights of individual states, the preamble to the Declaration erases any doubt as the avowed purpose of the organisation:

  • to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
  • to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
  • to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
  • to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom

No mention of states. This is all about people. To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. The Assad government in Syria has been shown to be in the process of systematically murdering its own people. The machinery of the state is engaged in a war against the people of Syria by an elite class in control of the key organs of the country. The Un Security Council’s response? In its unending quest to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, it has decided to drop text stipulating that Bashar al-Assad – who has, since March 2011, presided over the murder of around 7,000 of his own citizens – should hand over power. Let’s be clear. The draft statement before its revision didn’t demand that Bashar al-Assad leave power and immediately transport himself to The Hague for his deserved trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Even the UN’s own News Service reported that Assad’s forces had committed such crimes. Naturally it stopped short of demanding that Assad himself be prosecuted. Heaven forbid that anyone offends the murderous dictator.

The obligations of UN Member states are pretty clear. They’re written all over the UN Charter, and the UN Convention on Genocide, and the UN Torture Convention. We can even dumb it down, on the off-chance that any of them are reading. You have a responsibility to ensure that people are not discriminated against, persecuted, abused, wrongfully imprisoned, tortured and murdered. You have a responsibility to do your utmost to stop any state, member or not, that commits these kinds of violations.

I’m not naive enough to think that the UK, the US and other Western states don’t commit human rights abuses. I think that on whole they are far better at upholding the abovementioned conventions than some, but there are clearly some awful violations carried out in the name of the War On Terror, among other things. But the situation in Syria today is a war by a corrupt elite on the civilian population that is nearly a year old. Legitimate, peaceful protests are being quashed by extreme force. People are being murdered every day. And the latest revised draft from the UN is a betrayal of the Syrian people who are dying for their right to protest, and of people all around the world who are denied their basic human rights. Any country, any diplomat demanding revised, softened language in a nod to ‘political realities’ needs to reassess their life, dig deep, find some moral backbone and push for Assad to be tried at The Hague. This shouldn’t be a political question. Surely at some point we must pull ourselves together and say that state sponsored murder is a fundamental wrong. There is no grey area here. This kind of craven politics illustrates why the UN has a global reputation as a talking shop and little else.

Rant over.

Libya, Syria

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“Rebels announce cash reward for capturing or killing Gaddafi…” It’s nice to see that the National Transitional Council (NTC) is setting such high standards so soon after the fall/liberation of Tripoli. Gaddafi may well have a history of repression and be known worldwide as a dictator, but why not set a standard and issue an order that he be captured alive in order to face trial? Whether it’s realistic or not is in many ways beside the point. If the NTC would demand that Gaddafi face trial for his actions, it would send a message that they mean to create a just legal system in a country that has been subject to personal rule for decades. Such a message would be well-received abroad, but more importantly it would show Libyans that the rule of law is important to their new government. Of course, rhetoric is cheap. Actually creating a respected justice system in a country that has been a dictatorship for over 40 years will take time and much effort. More difficult still will be the task of earning the trust of the Libyan people by ensuring that trials are fair and sentencing is just. Human Rights Watch (among others) are calling for specific commitments by the NTC to ensure that the rule of law is established as quickly as possible.

This same challenge is being faced in Egypt and, with any luck, will soon be fahttp://www.flickr.com/photos/syrian-freedom-captured/5736128537/ced by whatever national body emerges once the Ba’ath party and Bashar al-Assad are overthrown in Syria. Unfortunately for the people of Homs and many other Syrian towns and cities, this looks like a remote possibility – at least in the short-term. International help beyond strongly worded condemnations and economic sanctions will not arrive. The best chance for persuading Assad to stop the killings will come from the very countries that are currently opposed to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) investigation into his government’s crackdown. Despite 2,200 civilians killed in 5 months according to UN figures, Russia and China will not support an investigation. And why not? A Guardian article from May 2010 illustrates the point very nicely. Russia has serious economic ties with Syria through oil and the sale of military hardware, and with the Russian government desperate to improve its cash-flow situation, the repression of pro-democracy protesters doesn’t stand up against the prospect of billions of dollars flowing into Moscow through Syrian investment. The Chinese government’s official web portal sports a press release from late 2010 in which it praises “soaring bi-lateral trade” to the tune of $2.2 billion in 2009. Neither supremely pragmatic China nor ailing Russia will sacrifice such a plentiful source of income for the sake of Syrian civilians or an ideal that neither state subscribes to anyway. Unfortunately, it seems that the only way Assad will change course now is through an exertion of pressure by either China or Russia. Given their respective records in the area of human rights and their huge investment portfolios, I’m not holding my breath.

*** Addition – 25/08/11

Having read an article tonight by Islam Qasem on OpenDemocracy – “Are Western Sanctions Against Syria An Option”, I’ve realised that I missed India’s energy interest out of the above. I’ve also underestimated the amount of oil exported to Europe – “155,000 bbl/day out of total production of 400,400 bbl/day, is currently exported to the west, mainly to France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. Western oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, the UK’s Gulfsands Petroleum, and France’s Total own large stakes in Syria’s energy sector.”

I stand by the central premise though. Demand for oil and export markets in countries like China, Russia and India coupled with a less than inspiring collection of human rights records will prop the Assad regime up for longer than would otherwise be possible.

Fukushima & Ratko Mladic

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It has already been nearly 11 weeks since the tsunami in Japan caused such devastation, including the massive damage to the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. The local effects of the damage to the reactors will likely be felt for decades to come, and the global effects of the crisis have been striking. Germany has now pledged to shut down all of its already unpopular nuclear industry by 2022, there has been increased debate on the nuclear issue in the UK (although the Coalition Government will most likely press on with plans to increase reliance on nuclear power), and Switzerland has also taken the decision not to renew any of its existing nuclear power plants, leading to a total shut-down within 20 years. The German and Swiss pledges are “soft”, in that there is no legislation behind them and a future government in either country could reverse the decision in future, but they are encouraging nonetheless.

Perhaps the most tragic and touching story to emerge from the Japanese disaster is one that prompted me to write this blog tonight – what the BBC crassly dubbed the ‘Kamikaze Pensioners’. This is a group of over 200 volunteers, all aged 60 or over, led by a 72-year-old retired engineer named Yasutera Yamada. These elderly Japanese are offering to take over the incredibly dangerous job of making the reactors at Fukushima safe, replacing the younger workers who are currently being exposed to massive levels of radiation. These workers are certain to suffer health problems and potentially death as a result of their exposure. While this is clearly a courageous gesture it is deeply troubling. The idea that the world is so committed to nuclear energy that we should rely on the elderly citizens (or indeed any citizens) of a crisis-hit country to sacrifice their lives in its defence is deeply disturbing. David Cameron was quoted soon after the Fukushima disaster coining the old British cliché that ‘lessons should be learned’, while insisting that nuclear power still had a future in the UK. Since then a quote from the PM on the nuclear issue has been hard to come by. I can only hope that the unfolding mess in Japan and the minor European trend for de-nuclearisation (at least rhetorically) proves enough of a bandwagon for him to hop on.

Also in the news recently has been the arrest and deportation to The Hague of General Ratko Mladic. This is the military leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnian Civil War, who oversaw the worst crimes against humanity in Europe since the Holocaust. These include the systematic slaughter of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, the indiscriminate murder of civilians during the siege of Sarajevo, and the establishment of concentration camps. As is the fashion amongst captured war criminals his health is apparently fading fast, which is inevitably used as a pretext to dodge a trial. Having arrested and deported both Slobodan Milosevic (former President of Serbia) and Radovan Karadzic (former President of the Serb Republic within Bosnia), the Serbian government was never likely to be swayed to leniency by Mladic’s health problems. Their future prosperity and potential membership of the European Union depends on that.

Mladic’s appeal against the 15 charges levelled against him, amongst which are Genocide, Persecution, Extermination and Murder, is set to include a denial that the events in Srebrenica took place at all. Like most war criminals he appears to remain convinced of his own righteousness and innocence. If he follows the standard form, the most horrific crimes against humanity will be characterised as acts of war and downplayed during the course of the trial. He and Karadzic, who is currently being tried in the same court, will likely face hefty jail terms. Do not be surprised if their health suddenly deteriorates during the trial or after the judgement.

The indictment against Ratko Mladic by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

A Busy Few Days

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I was planning on writing mostly about a ‘Nick Clegg Meets’ event in Bradford that I was at this Monday 2nd May, but it was pretty stale. To give Clegg his due, he was more convincing in person than on TV. He’s clearly knowledgable, as you’d expect from a party leader and Deputy PM, but what was most impressive was that he had some steel about him. That said, I won’t be voting for the Lib Dems again while he’s in charge.

He spent most of the meeting trotting out the same line he’s been using since the Lib Dems entered into coalition with the Conservatives – ‘We lost the election. We came third, and that means that we can’t do everything we wanted to do.’ That seems to make sense, but there are massive cuts being made in some places and not in others. It’s the accepted wisdom that some cuts are inevitable, but it has become clear that the cuts being made are politically targeted as was feared when the Tories took office. For example, libraries are being gutted, but cost of the aircraft carriers that we couldn’t possibly cancel will explode from £3.9 billion to at least £7 billion – an obscene amount of money for 2 bits of military hardware that the UK does not need. I’m not sure how much money the government would need to keep every public library in the country open, but I’m comfortable saying that it’s a lot less than that.

But next comes the referendum tomorrow. I’d like to get my prediction in early – the No vote will win, probably quite convincingly, despite my voting Yes. The Yes campaign has been incredibly naive in taking any number of punches from Cameron and the rest without a proper response. Ed Milliband has slunk away quietly and allowed Nick Clegg to take all the body blows that will probably cripple him and his party for a long time, unless they manage some unlikely council gains.

And then there’s the US operation to ‘capture or kill’ Osama bin Laden. I don’t think there was ever really an intention to capture him. If the reason for the swift burial at sea was to avoid potential problems around his funeral or grave turning into a shrine or a focal point for Islamist radicalism, imagine the effect of a trial. The circus that would have ensued would have poisoned politics in the US and the world at large. There was no ideal outcome from this operation. Ideally, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the CIA’s training and funding of bin Laden, 9/11 and the war on terror would never have happened, and Osama bin Laden would be an unknown member of the extended bin Laden family. If only.

Realistically, the US had to pursue bin Laden until they cornered him. From then they had a range of options, both public and private, ranging from secret execution to public trial via secret rendition and imprisonment. It may not be liberal or PC to say so, but bin Laden’s death was probably the best outcome for the US and the world. Once bin Laden took responsibility for the attack on New York in 2001, his number was up – it was only a matter of time.

What about Bahrain?

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The series of protest movements in North Africa and the Middle East have been in the news for a few months now. It all began in Tunisia back in December. We had 24 hour coverage of the protests in Egypt, we’ve now got the same for what has become a civil war in Libya. It’s a lot more difficult for the press to cover what’s happening in Syria given the ban on foreign journalists and the difficulty in verifying stories being generated from inside the country. Various countries in the region have also seen differing levels of protest.

One country that has seen large protests and a brutal government crackdown is Bahrain. If, like me until recently, you only know vaguely where Bahrain is, here’s a map. It’s the tiny star off the east coast of Saudi Arabia…

Although Bahrain could be described as a relatively liberal country for the region (women are able to vote, for example) the state’s response to pro-reform protests has been violent. The Foreign Office is advising against all but essential travel to the country, and recommends that British citizens ‘avoid large crowds and demonstrations.’ There has been some coverage of the protest, but international reaction has been muted.

It seems to me that there is a pretty simple explanation for this. The US and other Western states had been looking for an excuse to get rid of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya for years. Similarly they have always been at odds with President Assad in Syria. It’s easy for them to criticise their enemies, particularly when the world can see them repressing their own citizens. It’s not so easy for Western governments to criticise their friends. I don’t think it’s cynical to say that if the US Fifth Fleet wasn’t based in Bahrain, President Obama might have something more forceful to say about the murder of protestors and the arrest without charge of over 500 people in the last month. Most of those people are still missing and their families are being refused any information on their condition or whereabouts. This link is for an Amnesty International Report on the subject – http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE11/019/2011/en

It feels like the BBC is exercising some self-censorship over this issue. That’s not to say that there aren’t some articles on the news website about the violence in Bahrain. What is conspicuously lacking are any pieces highlighting the hypocrisy of both the US and UK governments over their reactions to the Bahraini crackdown. It is unrealistic for me to expect that these governments should condemn Bahrain as enthusiastically as they condemn Syria and Libya. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to say that people writing about these protests should demand a higher standard from the politicians whose responsibility it is to deal with offending governments. In the end there are some terrible abuses being committed right now by governments that the US and UK are allied to, and it’s our responsibility to hold them accountable.

The above map is by ‘Image Editor’ on Flickr creative commons

I’ve also got a link here to a very good article from Al Jazeera English on this

Hi…

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My name is Richard Jordan, and I’ve been encouraged to write this blog by a friend of mine who, like most of my friends, is pretty sick of hearing me rant about whichever news story sticks with me on a particular day. I thought it was a good idea, even though I’ve never written anything like this before, but when I came to it I found it quite difficult to narrow down what I actually wanted to write about.

In the end I’ve decided to write about whatever grabs me on a given day. If there’s something I think is important I’ll stick it up here and try to explain why it’s gotten under my skin. For me, politics is about whatever you’re passionate about, because everything is political.

The green ‘News’ header is by jessamyn and is taken from Flickr Creative Commons – http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamthebestartist/45477289/