Category Archives: Arab Spring

Gadhafi insider defects

The Associated Press reports:

Another member of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s regime has defected and fled the country, two Libyan analysts in London said Monday, as fighting continued between government troops and rebel forces.

Sassi Garada, one of the first men to join Gadhafi when he took power more than 40 years ago, left Libya through Tunisia, according to Noman Benotman, a Libyan analyst in London who was in contact with his friends and family. Guma el-Gamaty, U.K. organizer for Libya’s interim council, also confirmed the defection.

There were initial reports that Garada fled to Britain, where he has several family members, but Benotman said Garada was in Switzerland.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports:

Germany, which declined to participate in the NATO air campaign against Libya, on Monday recognized the opposition National Transitional Council as the legitimate representative of Libya, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said during a visit to the rebel capital of Benghazi.

The announcement by Mr. Westerwelle comes after weeks of hesitation by Germany over which rebel leaders or movements, if any, it would recognize as an alternative to the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

“The Transitional Council is the legitimate representation of the Libyan people,” Mr. Westerwelle said after arriving in Benghazi. “With this council, we want to support the building of a democratic and law-abiding Libya.”

Germany will open a small mission in Benghazi, joining the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, Britain, France, Spain, Malta and Qatar, which have established a presence there in the past several weeks. Washington, however, has not extended diplomatic recognition to the council.

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The fall of the house of Assad

Robin Yassin-Kassab writes:

“Selmiyyeh, selmiyyeh” — “peaceful, peaceful” — was one of the Tunisian revolution’s most contagious slogans. It was chanted in Egypt, where in some remarkable cases protesters defused state violence simply by telling policemen to calm down and not be scared. In both countries, largely nonviolent demonstrations and strikes succeeded in splitting the military high command from the ruling family and its cronies, and civil war was avoided. In both countries, state institutions proved themselves stronger than the regimes that had hijacked them. Although protesters unashamedly fought back (with rocks, not guns) when attacked, the success of their largely peaceful mass movements seemed an Arab vindication of Gandhian nonviolent resistance strategies. But then came the much more difficult uprisings in Bahrain, Libya, and Syria.

Even after at least 1,300 deaths and more than 10,000 detentions, according to human rights groups, “selmiyyeh” still resounds on Syrian streets. It’s obvious why protest organizers want to keep it that way. Controlling the big guns and fielding the best-trained fighters, the regime would emerge victorious from any pitched battle. Oppositional violence, moreover, would alienate those constituencies the uprising is working so hard to win over: the upper-middle class, religious minorities, the stability-firsters. It would push the uprising off the moral high ground and thereby relieve international pressure against the regime. It would also serve regime propaganda, which against all evidence portrays the unarmed protesters as highly organized groups of armed infiltrators and Salafi terrorists.

The regime is exaggerating the numbers, but soldiers are undoubtedly being killed. Firm evidence is lost in the fog, but there are reliable and consistent reports, backed by YouTube videos, of mutinous soldiers being shot by security forces. Defecting soldiers have reported mukhabarat lined up behind them as they fire on civilians, watching for any soldier’s disobedience. A tank battle and aerial bombardment were reported after a small-scale mutiny in the Homs region. Tensions within the military are expanding.

And a small minority of protesters does now seem to be taking up arms. Syrians — regime supporters and the apolitical as much as anyone else — have been furiously buying smuggled weapons since the crisis began. Last week for the first time, anti-regime activists reported that people in Rastan and Talbiseh were meeting tanks with rocket-propelled grenades. Some of the conflicting reports from Jisr al-Shaghour, the besieged town near the northwestern border with Turkey, describe a gun battle between townsmen and the army. And a mukhabarat man was lynched by a grieving crowd in Hama.

The turn toward violence is inadvisable but perhaps inevitable. When residential areas are subjected to military attack, when children are tortured to death, when young men are randomly rounded up and beaten, electrocuted, and humiliated, some Syrians will seek to defend themselves. Violence has its own momentum, and Syria appears to be slipping toward war.

Meanwhile, CBS News reports:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Sunday called for increased U.S. action in Syria, and said “now is the time to let [Syrian president Bashar] Assad know that all options are the table” – including the possible use of military force.

Graham, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” decried what he described as the Assad regime’s “wholesale slaughter” against the Syrian people, and urged the U.S. to take a similar approach in that nation as it has in Libya in seeking the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi.

It’s time, Graham contended, to “get the regional partners to tell the Assad he has to go. And put everything on the table – including military force.”

“If we don’t turn this dynamic around, the Red Cross can’t go into Syria,” he continued. “It’s wholesale slaughter. We’re about to get Qaddafi going. We need to turn our attention strongly to Syria with the regional cooperation like we have in Libya.”

Regional cooperation for a US intervention in Syria? He must be joking! There would be opposition from Turkey, Iraq, Iran and even Israel. Maybe Graham thinks his proposal would get Kurdish support.

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Syrian lesbian blogger is revealed to be an American married man

The Guardian reports:

The mysterious identity of a young Arab lesbian blogger who was apparently kidnapped last week in Syria has been revealed conclusively to be a hoax. The blogs were written by not by a gay girl in Damascus, but a middle-aged American man based in Scotland.

Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old Middle East activist studying for a masters at Edinburgh University, posted an update declaring that, rather than a 35-year-old feminist and lesbian called Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, he was “the sole author of all posts on this blog”.

“I never expected this level of attention,” he wrote in a posting allegedly emanating from “Istanbul, Turkey”.

“The events [in the Middle East] are being shaped by the people living them on a daily basis. I have only tried to illuminate them for a western audience.”

The admission – confirmed in an email to the Guardian from MacMaster’s wife – apparently ends a mystery that has convulsed parts of the internet for almost a week. But it provoked a furious response from those who had supported the blogger’s campaign, with some in the Syrian gay community saying he had risked their safety and seriously harmed their cause.

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Bahrain doctors go on trial, alleging torture to extract confessions

CNN reports:

Dozens of doctors and nurses went on trial Monday in Bahrain, accused of taking control of a hospital during anti-government protests, storing weapons and keeping people prisoner.

The doctors, their lawyers and international human rights activists say the defendants were tortured to extract confessions against a background of demonstrations in the kingdom.

Eleven male doctors appeared in court Monday, their heads shaven, alongside at least five female doctors. They appeared stressed and anxious.

One of the doctors tried to tell the judge that his confession had been extracted under torture, but the judge told him to stop and that he would be able to give evidence later in the trial.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports:

A 20-year-old woman who recited poems critical of Bahrain’s rulers — and later claimed she was beaten in jail — was sentenced Sunday to a year in prison as part of the kingdom’s crackdown on Shiite protesters calling for greater rights.

The ruling by a special security tribunal sent a strong message that Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy is not easing off on punishments linked to the unrest despite appeals for talks with Shiite groups in the strategic Gulf island nation, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Ayat al-Qurmezi became a minor celebrity among protesters after reciting poems critical of Bahrain’s king and prime minister during gatherings in the capital’s Pearl Square, which was the hub for Shiite-led demonstrations that broke out in February after drawing inspiration from the Arab uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

One verse, addressed to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, included the lines: “We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery. Don’t you hear their cries? Don’t you hear their screams?”

She was convicted of anti-state charges, including inciting hatred, said the official Bahrain News Agency. Her mother, Sada al-Qurmezi, said an appeal is planned.

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Jordanians ‘welcome’ King Abdullah by pelting his car with rocks and bottles

BBC News reports:

A group of young men in the Jordanian city of Tafileh have pelted the motorcade of King Abdullah II with stones and bottles, officials say.

The king is unharmed, they add.

The attack comes a day after King Abdullah announced major reforms, promising to relinquish his right to appoint prime ministers and cabinets.

The Jordanian government spokesman later denied that such an attack had taken place.

“The motorcade of his majesty the king was not attacked,” Taher Adwan told Agence France Presse.

A Royal Palace official who accompanied the king said that he had been enthusiastically greeted, not attacked.

“It was a gesture of welcome, not an attack,” he said, according to AP.

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How new is Egypt’s ‘new’ foreign policy?

Barak Barfi writes:

In the months since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, his successors have signaled a shift in foreign policy by reaching out to former adversaries. Egypt’s government has welcomed Iranian diplomats and embraced the Palestinian group Hamas. Many interpret such moves as clear evidence of Egypt’s desire for a diplomacy that is not subordinate to American interests.

But Mubarak never entirely fit his detractors’ portrayal of him as an American lackey. In fact, Mubarak’s need to please his Saudi Arabian benefactors, not the United States, was paramount in his thinking. Although he sometimes supported American policies, Mubarak frequently rebuffed the US when its positions did not align with his own.

Since the end of the October 1973 war, Arab-Israeli peace has been a cornerstone of America’s Middle East agenda. The US often looked to Egypt, the most important and influential Arab country, to play a leading role in promoting this goal. And, when it suited him, Mubarak played his part. When the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat humiliated Mubarak before the US secretary of state and the international media by refusing to sign an annex to an Israeli-Palestinian accord brokered in Cairo, Mubarak told him, “Sign it, you son of a dog!”

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All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace — Part One

Adam Curtis‘ latest documentary, “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” is well worth watching — all three hours — even if by its conclusion he has not neatly tied together all its disparate threads and even if his style of production has a frenetic choppiness — “I kept thinking the dog was sitting on the remote,” a reviewer joked about one of his previous pieces.

Curtis is perhaps best known as the creator of the BBC documentary series, “The Power of Nightmares,” which examined the politics of fear post-9/11.

His new documentary, just aired in the UK but presumably close to completion before the Arab uprisings began, nevertheless has relevance for every revolution across the region. The prospect of the end of dictatorial rule easily eclipses concern about what might follow — events of the present evoke a sense that the future can take care of itself. The leaderless movements currently reshaping the Arab world have organic features that sometimes seem to imply that social justice might just be a natural fruit.

But the history of self-organizing networks — a topic at the core of Curtis’ film — is that the egalitarian hopes these would-be post-political systems embody rest on an illusory foundation.

This is the story of how our modern scientific idea of nature, the self-regulating ecosystem, is actually a machine fantasy. It has little to do with the real complexity of nature. It is based on cybernetic ideas that were projected on to nature in the 1950s by ambitious scientists. A static machine theory of order that sees humans, and everything else on the planet, as components – cogs – in a system.

But in an age disillusioned with politics, the self-regulating ecosystem has become the model for utopian ideas of human ‘self-organizing networks’ – dreams of new ways of organising societies without leaders, as in the Facebook and Twitter revolutions, and in global visions of connectivity like the Gaia theory.

This powerful idea emerged out of the hippie communes in America in the 1960s, and from counterculture computer scientists who believed that global webs of computers could liberate the world.

But, at the very moment this was happening, the science of ecology discovered that the theory of the self-regulating ecosystem wasn’t true. Instead they found that nature was really dynamic and constantly changing in unpredictable ways. But the dream of the self-organizing network had by now captured our imaginations – because it offered an alternative to the dangerous and discredited ideas of politics. [Source: BBC]

Part One: Love and Power

(Watch Part Two here and Part Three here.)

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Liberation technology or full-spectrum dominance?

To hear it from the New York Times (and Hillary Clinton), the US government’s latest efforts to support overseas dissidents are nothing more nor less than the noble expression of the American love of freedom. Perhaps that’s why this article makes no reference to Wikileaks (or Haystack) but does in part rely on information derived from classified diplomatic cables “obtained” by the paper. That presumably means classified information revealed by the administration to journalists who can be relied on to incorporate such information into a government-approved narrative.

The new initiatives have found a champion in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose department is spearheading the American effort. “We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations,” Mrs. Clinton said in an e-mail response to a query on the topic. “There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America supports,” she said. “So we’re focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world.”

This freedom-narrative gets a bit farcical, however, when we are told that an “independent” cellphone network is being constructed in Afghanistan using towers built inside US military bases. It’s only by paragraph 37 that we are reminded, “The United States is widely understood to use cellphone networks in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries for intelligence gathering.” Indeed.

Which begs a question — a question that the New York Times reporters do not venture to ask: Do the administration’s efforts to provide global revolutionaries with better tools have more to do with enhancing the US government’s ability to monitor these rapidly evolving networks, than with advancing democracy?

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”

Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.

The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.

Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe.

The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.

In one of the most ambitious efforts, United States officials say, the State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on protected military bases inside the country. It is intended to offset the Taliban’s ability to shut down the official Afghan services, seemingly at will.

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‘Many killed’ amid fresh Syria protests

Al Jazeera reports:

At least 23 people have been killed by security forces in Syria, many of them when the army attacked a northernwestern town, activists say.

A Syrian opposition figure told the AP news agency by telephone that tanks shelled had Maarat al-Numan on Friday, after thousands of protesters overwhelmed security officers and torched the courthouse and police station.

Syria’s state-run television appeared to confirm at least part of the report, saying gunmen had opened fire on security headquarters in the town, in Idlib province, causing casualties among security officials.

Al Jazeera also reports:

Thousands of Syrians have fled to Turkey to escape violence and more are sheltering near the border, officials say.

A senior Turkish diplomat said 4,300 Syrians had crossed the border as of Saturday morning and that Turkey was prepared for a further influx.

“Turkey welcomed a great many number of guests in the past in their times of most dire need. We can do that again,” Foreign Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Halit Cevik was quoted as saying by state-run Anatolian news agency.

Most of those fleeing come from the town of Jisr al-Shughur and nearby villages, where Syrian troops backed by tanks, helicopters and heavy armour have been operating for several days, trying to crush a nearly three-month anti-government uprising.

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Police brutality haunts post-revolt Egypt, says rights group

Al-Masry Al-Youm reports:

A rights organization said on Saturdaythat police brutality is marring Egypt’s transition to democracy. The statement comes after four people allegedly died at the hands of the police in less than three weeks.

Human rights organizations have claimed that three Egyptians from Cairo and one from Fayoum have been brutalized by security forces since May.

In a statement, the Cairo-based Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Torture Victims said Egypt is about “to drown in a wave of torture, death resulting from police brutality and random firing at citizens.”

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Bahrain opposition rally draws more than 10,000

The Associated Press reports:

More than 10,000 demonstrators joined Bahrain’s first public rally in months Saturday as the leader of the Gulf nation’s main Shiite political party urged backers to press ahead with peaceful protests for greater political rights after fierce crackdowns by security forces.

The event carried twin messages in a nation wracked by unrest since February when protesters took to the streets, inspired by successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

The Sunni monarchy controlling Bahrain allowed the rally in a bid to ease tensions and open dialogue with Shiite-led groups. For opposition forces, the gathering was a chance to voice their demands and show resolve after facing relentless pressure from the Western-backed government, including martial law-style rules removed earlier this month.

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DC law firm defends Bahrain on human rights crackdown

Justin Elliot reports:

The Bahraini government’s brutal crackdown on a Shiite protest movement has shifted from the public scenes of police attacking protesters in the streets to the detention and prosecution of opposition figures and doctors.

And now the Bahraini regime has inked a contract with a high-priced Washington law firm to help fight a labor complaint filed by the AFL-CIO about an under-reported aspect of the crackdown: the firing of hundreds of workers and union leaders for participating in strikes and other pro-democracy actions. Sorini, Samet & Associates will be paid at a rate as high as $550 per hour, plus expenses, to help Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs lobby against the April complaint submitted by the AFL-CIO under the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement.

The firm will help Bahrain craft a response to the allegations of human rights violations, support the regime’s “engagement of U.S. administration officials and members of Congress,” and help reach out to “think tanks and scholars … and the media,” according to a foreign agents registration filing from late last month.

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Time to disband the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet

Toby Jones writes:

After months of popular protests against the regime, Bahraini officials are desperate to convince anyone who will listen, and most importantly to their long time allies in Washington, that the Persian Gulf island nation is returning to normal. On Tuesday Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa visited the White House, where he offered assurances that the regime is serious about political reform and engaging in a “national dialogue” with the country’s beleaguered opposition. Although it has directed muted criticism toward the Bahraini government, the Obama administration has offered repeated reassurances that it intends to stand by the ruling family. The White House appears to believe, or is banking on hope, that the Crown Prince is both willing and able to shepherd the country through the current crisis. But it may be time for the U.S. to reconsider its largest commitment to the Bahraini monarchy — the massive U.S. Fifth Fleet docked on the island — and the complicated relationship of mutual dependency that got us here in the first place.

Whatever opening there was for real dialogue in Bahrain, it appears to have closed. While the Crown Prince is busy touring Europe and the U.S. promoting himself as a force for moderation, it’s the hardliners in the royal family who currently hold power. Rather than reconciliation, their priority continues to be to oppressing — and often punishing – the protesters calling for a more representative government. The regime has taken extreme, frequently violent measures to destroy the country’s political opposition and defeat the forces of democracy.

Over the last few months, as the regime’s security forces have cracked down ever more brutally, the prospects for meaningful reform may well have passed. Since mid-March, when Saudi Arabia sent a contingent of its National Guard into Bahrain to help violently clear the streets of protesters, Bahrain has been the scene of terrible suffering. Hundreds languish in the country’s dungeons, where they are subject to horrifying torture and the humiliation of being paraded in front of military tribunals. Thousands of others have been sacked from their jobs.

The island’s Shiite majority, long politically marginalized and discriminated against, is paying the heaviest price. They have been stunned into silence by the vicious behavior of the Sunni regime. Bahraini politics have been polarized by sectarianism and the country’s rulers are systematically creating an apartheid state. Reconciliation, let alone accountability for those responsible for the violence, is a remote possibility. So deeply ingrained are mutual antagonisms that, if this conflict continues, the most likely outcome may be an enduring hostility and the potential for perennial violence.

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Syria in turmoil as resistance turns to insurrection

Robert Fisk writes:

Syria’s revolt against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad is turning into an armed insurrection, with previously peaceful demonstrators taking up arms to fight their own army and the “shabiha” – meaning “the ghosts”, in English – of Alawi militiamen who have been killing and torturing those resisting the regime’s rule.

Even more serious for Assad’s still-powerful supporters, there is growing evidence that individual Syrian soldiers are revolting against his forces. The whole edifice of Assad’s Alawi dictatorship is now in the gravest of danger.

In 1980, Assad’s father, Hafez, faced an armed uprising in the central city of Hama, which was put down by the Special Forces of Hafez’s brother Rifaat – who is currently living, for the benefit of war crimes investigators, in central London – at a cost of up to 20,000 lives. But the armed revolt today is now spreading across all of Syria, a far-mightier crisis and one infinitely more difficult to suppress. No wonder Syrian state television has been showing the funerals of up to 120 members of the security services from just one location, the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour.

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