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Joint Prayer Held for the Souls of Syria’s Martyrs… Patriarch Laham: Syria is Strong and Resilient

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – A joint prayer was held on Wednesday in Kyrillos Church in al-Qassa neighborhood in Damascus for the souls of Syria’s martyrs and the martyrs of the two terrorist bombings that targeted Damascus last Saturday.

In a speech, Patriarch Gregorios III Laham of Antioch and All The East said that this prayer is held for the sake of Syria, which is strong and resilient, noting that this cycle of violence must not persist and calling on Syrians to resort to dialogue, reconciliation, repentance and calm to preserve unity and vanquish enmity.

He called upon Syrians to pray to God to preserve Syria and its people, stressing that Syria can continue the process of renewal and change and emerge from violence through dialogue.

Patriarch Laham also stressed the importance of heeding the calls for reforms, noting that this has already begun as the new constitution is a step forward, voicing confidence in the Syrians’ ability to lead reform on their own so that they make their own democracy, freedom and dignity with the participation of all groups.

He denounced the heinous and barbaric terrorist bombings that took place in Damascus, calling for praying for those who were wounded and are now lying in hospitals.

“Despite what happened, we affirm from our churches and mosques that Syria will remain strong, resilient and united… we pray for our President Bashar al-Assad whose heart bears love for all Syrians” he said.

Patriarch Laham noted that he informed the Pope, heads Episcopal councils in Europe and some European officials of some ideas to eliminate violence, informing them of the elements that are aggravating it in the regions, adding that he told the Pope and Europeans who claim to fear for Christians that Christians are Syrians, and what happens to other Syrians affects them as well.

He stressed that the role of Christians in Syria and the region during these difficult circumstances isn’t neutral, as they are working diligently to preserve the unity of Syria and the Arab world, since the preservation of Syria’s unity will restore the Arab world’s well-being and unity.

Patriarch Laham saluted all mothers, particularly who lost husbands, children or relatives, on occasion of Mother’s Day, in addition to congratulating teachers on occasion of Teachers’ Day.

After the prayers, participants marched bearing candles from the church to the site of the terrorist bombing which took place in al-Qassa neighborhood, where they laid wreaths in honor of the martyrs.

The march was led by Patriarch Laham, the Papal Ambassador in Damascus Monsignor Mario Zenari, and several Muslim and Christian religious figures.

During the march, Muslim preacher and scholar Ahmad Sheikho said that Syria always has and always will be the home of all religions and coexistence, and that the prayer and march aim at instilling the values of love and peace, not hatred and violence which some are trying to spread in Syria.

Sheikho called on those who were led astray to come to their senses so that violence may come to an end, stressing that religion rejects murder and calls for amity, peace and cooperation.

Other participants in the march voiced support for reforms and saluted the Syrian Arab Army and law-enforcement sources for their sacrifices for the sake of preserving Syria’s security and stability.

They also denounced the Arab and western regimes that support terrorists and provide them with money and weapons to kill Syrians and employ misleading channels to help them in shedding Syrian blood.

Bogdanov: No Draft Resolutions on Syria at Security Council Agenda

MOSCOW, (SANA) – Russian President’s Special Representative for Middle East Affairs, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, announced on Thursday that the UN Security Council is currently focusing on discussing the mission of the UN Special Envoy, Kofi Annan, to Syria, adding that there are no draft resolutions on Syria at this time.

In a statement, Bogdanov said that all sides are waiting for the outcome of Annan’s mission, pointing out that Annan will visit Moscow within the coming two days to hold consultations on the Syrian issue.

Margelov: Russia satisfied that UN Security members’ listened to its voice

The Russian Special representative to Africa Mikhail Margelov announced today that Russia is satisfied over the UN Security members’ listening to its voice regarding the crisis in Syria.

” We are satisfied over listening to our correct viewpoint because we support the UNSC statement on Syria,” Margelov, also Chairman of the International Relations at  the Russian Federation Council, said in a statement to journalists.

He added that Russia continues its contacts with the Syrian opposition and it is ready to be a linking among sides of the crisis in Syria.

Chekov: Economic sanctions on Syria, Iran and Belarus aim at changing regimes in these states

Russia’s permanent representative to the EU Vladimir Chekov announced that the economic sanctions imposed on Syria, Iran and Belarus aim at changing regimes in these counties at last.

“I believe that the final target of those sanctions is changing regimes, but the sanctions by themselves didn’t change regimes,” Chekov said during an interview with Vesti 24 TV channel.

Citizens involved in possessing weapons, but didn’t perpetrate crimes give themselves up to authorities

DAMASCUS, (SANA)-A number of citizens who were involved in possessing weapons, but they didn’t perpetrate crimes of killing or sabotage gave themselves up to the competent authorities on Thursday.

In turn, the authorities released them immediately after they pledged not to possess weapons or carrying out any acts against the homeland or citizens.

The citizens said in speeches to the Syrian TV that they were possessing different kinds of rifles in Kfar Batna, Damascus countryside, but when they heard of the presidential amnesty, they gave themselves up to the authorities to make use of this amnesty and return to their normal life.

They admitted that they were wrong, calling on any person who possess any weapon to do so and make use of the amnesty.

Authorities Clash with Terrorists, Seize Weapons in different areas

GOVERNORATES, SANA_ The competent authorities on Thursday seized quantities of weapons, ammunition, drugs and explosives in the house of the killed terrorist, Oday al- Youssef, in the neighborhood of Sheikh Yassin in Deir Ezzor.

The confiscated weapons included six RPG launchers, 50 varied RPG rounds, 20 automatic rifles, bump action guns, mortars, variety of rounds, 8 hand grenades, bombs and explosive belts, a large quantity of ammunition and a machine gun.

Authorities clash with terrorists, kill and arrest several of them in Idleb and Hama

Competent authorities clashed with an armed terrorist group that was attacking families at Dir Sunbul, Kuhof and the surrounding areas in Jabal al-Zawya, Idleb, killing and injuring a number of criminals.

Two members of the law-enforcement were wounded in the clashes.

The Authorities at al-Sheikh Town between Aleppo and Hama also clashed with another terrorist group that was assaulting the passing cars, killing three of the terrorists, arresting others and confiscating their weapons.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Hama confiscated a big quantity of weapons and ammunitions during pursuit of the armed terrorist groups’ remnants in Hama northern countryside, killing a number of terrorists and seizing their weapons.

The weapons included 6 RPGs, five mortars, six bombs, 12 rifles, pistols, computer and communication sets.

Lebanon FM: Lebanese Stance Similar to Russia’s in Rejection of Foreign Interference, Dialogue as Solution for Crisis

BEIRUT, (SANA) – Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour stressed that his country’s stance with regard to Syria is to a large extent similar to Russia’s as the two stances reject foreign interference in Syria’s domestic affairs, refuse the idea of arming the opposition and keen on Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, in addition to considering dialogue as the basis for solving the crisis.

Mansour said in an interview with Lebanese al-Manar TV on Thursday that Lebanon is more committed to its stance than before, whose correctness has been proven after several months of the crisis, particularly after international parties retreated from their stern stances, adding ” there is no way out but through the political solution and dialogue.”

The Lebanese Minister pointed out that the Syrian leadership has responded to reform demands right from the beginning as it is also working on them through approving several legislations and laws, the most prominent of which are the new Constitution, the Parties Law, the Media Law and preparing for the forthcoming legislative elections.

He underlined that Lebanon will never attend the so-called ” Friends of Syria” conference which is due to be held in Istanbul next month, adding “Lebanon’s relationship is with the Syrian state and the events taking place do not mean that we should go so far and act illegally.”

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister pointed out that his country depends on Syria in the economic and trade domains but not the other way round, so it cannot go along with the Arab League’s sanctions against Syria.

Eighteen Army and Law Enforcement Martyrs Laid to Rest

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Eighteen army and law enforcement martyrs on Thursday were escorted from Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus to their final resting place.

Solemn funeral processions were held for the martyrs who were targeted by armed terrorist groups while they were in the line of duty in Daraa, Homs and Hama.

The martyrs are:

­           Conscript Joma Okeidi Sheikho from Aleppo.

­           Sergeant Ali Khaled Ibrahim from Idleb.

­           Corporal Conscript Wael Ahmad Awad from Hasaka.

­           Conscript Rashid Qassem Rashid from Deir-Ezzour.

­           Conscript Mohammad Kheir Mohammad al-Ahmad from Raqqa.

­           Conscript Abboud al-Hamadi al-Mani from Deir Ezzour.

­           Corporal Conscript Salaman Abd al-Salem from Raqqa.

­           Conscript Ahmad Saleh al-Ali from Hasaka.

­           Conscript Salah Seido Mohammad from Aleppo.

­           Sergeant Ahmad Ali al-Mohammad from Hama.

­           Conscript Alaa-Eddin Ali al-Ali from Aleppo Countryside.

­           Sergeant Rabie Ali Othman from Lattakia.

­           Sergeant Khalil Ahmad al-Zaal from Deir-Ezzour.

­           Sergeant Farouq Bozan Bakr from Raqqa.

­           Conscript Abdul-Baset Abdullah al-Naasan from Aleppo.

­           Conscript Yahem Mahmoud Khalouf from Hama.

­           Conscript Ahmad Hamed al-Khodr from Raqqa.

­           Chief Warrant Officer Rami Abbas Mohammad from Tartous.

The martyrs’ families called for confronting the terrorists in order to restore Syria’s security and stability, expressing confidence in the ability of the Syrian people to overcome the crisis through adhering to national unity.

They condemned the criminal acts perpetrated by the armed terrorist groups backed by some Arab and Western countries.

Russia Concerned over Human Rights Violations Committed by Syrian Opposition’s Armed Groups

MOSCOW, (SANA)- Russia expressed deep concern over human rights violations committed by armed groups affiliated to the Syrian opposition against the civilian citizens in Syria, violations which were recently highlighted in an open letter recently published by Human Rights Watch (HRW), stressing the necessity to investigate into these abuses and implement tougher penalties against the perpetrators.

“This letter comprises a wide range of verified facts on serious human rights crimes perpetrated by the armed groups in Syria including those of kidnappings, acts of torture, arbitrary detentions and killings of civilians,” Russian Foreign Ministry’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, Konstantin Dolgov, said in a press statement on Thursday.

He added that HRW confirmed that the Syrian opposition has kidnapped civilian and military citizens in order to get ransom or money for buying arms in return or to exchange them with detainees from the opposition.

Dolgov pointed out that the international body has posted on YouTube no less than 25 videos recording scenes of torturing and killing people who showed signs of battery and bone fractures to be later forced by the opposition to confess to having killed civilians and opponents to the Syrian government.

“This open letter to human rights advocates stresses the correctness of Russia’s principled stance that is committed to not allowing human rights violations in light of the events taking place in Syria,” said the Russian diplomat.

He voiced concern over the emergence of representatives from al-Qaeda and other extremist terrorist organizations among the Syrian opposition.

Dolgov affirmed that Russia stresses the necessity of using information provided by human rights advocates by all the international fellows concerned to contribute to widening the scope of stability, quickly normalizing the situation with regard to human rights in Syria and starting an effective political process, including supporting the mission of UN envoy Kofi Annan without outside interference.

Human Rights Watch confirmed in a statement last Tuesday that some Syrian opposition’s armed groups have committed serious human rights abuses that included kidnapping, torture and execution of Syrian civilians and security force members.

HRW stressed that it has received reports of executions by armed opposition groups of Syrian forces members and civilians.

UNSC Adopts Statement Backing Annan’s Mission to Syria..Lavrov: No Warnings or Signals in the Statement

NEW YORK, (SANA)- The UN Security Council on Wednesday endorsed a presidential statement, which does not have the character of a resolution, that backs the mission of UN envoy to Syria Kofi Annan.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced at a press conference in Berlin that the Security Council statement does not include any warnings or signals to whom it may be held more responsible.

He was satisfied as western sides prevented from sending final ultimatums, threats or try to solve the problem through proposing unilateral demands.

“In light of the fact that there are armed sides that are fighting the government, it is not probable to rely on the UNSC to ask the governmental forces to withdraw from the main cities without taking similar steps by the opposition,” Lavrov said.

On the UNSC previous resolutions rejected by Russia, Lavrov said “Russia has defended the UNSC, not the Syrian government because Security Council shouldn’t adopt unrealistic resolutions.”

Security Council Strongly Condemns Latest Terrorist Bombings in Damascus and Aleppo

In another context, the Security Council condemned in a press statement today the latest terrorist bombings which took place in Damascus and Aleppo.

“The Security Council members condemn in the strongest of terms the terrorist attacks which happened in Damascus and Aleppo in March 17 and 18 and caused tens of deaths and injuries,” said the Russia-proposed statement.

It added that the Security Council members express their deepest condolences to the families of the victims of these heinous acts.

“UNSC members reiterate that terrorism, with all its forms, represents one of the most dangerous threats on world peace and security… any terror acts wouldn’t be justified regardless of their goals at any time and whatsoever the side that perpetrates it would be,” the statement added.

It said that the Council member countries renew expression of their determination to combat all forms of terror in line with the UNSC responsibilities and the UN Charter.

Churkin: Russia’s Stance on Crisis in Syria didn’t change

The Russian Permanent Envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin underlined that Russia’s stance on the crisis in Syria didn’t change, saying that this stance reflects his country’s vision and understanding to the need of halting all forms of violence, bringing all Syrians together to dialogue and supporting the political process which is led by the Syrians.

ITARTASS news agency quoted Churkin as saying in a statement following the UNSC meeting that the talks of experts’ group sent by Annan to Syria to monitor a mechanism for the cease-fire are running in a good manner.

He was worried about the smuggling of weapons into Syria, saying this matter wouldn’t contribute to making Annan’s mission a success.

AFP: Extremist Islamist Terrorist Group Calling Itself Jabhet al-Nasra Claims Responsibility for Recent Terrorist Bombings in Damascus

BEIRUT, (SANA) – An extremist Islamist terrorist group calling itself “Jabhet al-Nasra” claimed responsibility for the two terrorist bombings that took place in Damascus on Saturday.

AFP (Agence France Presse) published a statement by this group which said that these so-called “Jabhet al-Nasra soldiers” carried out the two bombings that took place in al-Jamarak rotary and al-Qassa neighborhoods.

The aforementioned bombings claimed 26 lives and wounded dozens of civilians and law-enforcement personnel, in addition to causing massive damage to buildings, homes and private properties in the blast sites.

Earlier, US Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said at the US Senate that the bombings that have been taking place in Damascus and Aleppo since December 2011 have the marks of al-Qaeda all over them, noting that al-Qaeda members and extremist have infiltrated the divided Syrian opposition.

Vatican’s Agenzia Fedis: Armed Groups Affiliated with al-Qaeda Carrying Out Ethnic Cleansing of Christians in Homs

VATICAN, (SANA) – Agenzia Fides, the Vatican’s information service, said on Wednesday that armed terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda are carrying out ethnic cleansing of Christians in Homs.

The report said that a note sent from the Syrian Orthodox Church, a militia calling itself “al-Faruq Brigade” expeled 90% of Christians in Homs and confiscated their homes by force, noting that members of this group broke into houses in the neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan, forcing Christians to flee, without giving them the chance to take their belongings.

The note added that this group is run by armed elements of al-Qaeda and various Wahhabi groups and includes mercenaries from Libya and Iraq.

In addition, the Vicar Apostolic of Aleppo, Monsignor Giuseppe Nazzaro told Fides that these reports are beginning to break down the wall of silence built up to now by the press worldwide, while extremist and terrorist movements are making headway.

Nazzaro also recalled the recent bombing which took place in Aleppo on Sunday, saying “By a miracle a massacre of children was avoided, at the Center of catechesis of the Church of St. Bonaventure: only because the Franciscan, sensing danger, made the children leave 15 minutes before the usual time.”

 

President al-Assad: Restoring Security, Safety, Imposing Rule of Law a Must

 HOMS, (SANA)_President Bashar al-Assad paid an inspection field visit Tuesday to Baba Amr Quarter in Homs Governorate.

President al-Assad met the inhabitants of the Quarter, earlier agonized by heavily-armed terrorist groups which terrorized the inhabitants, asserting that the State would never hesitate to carry out its duty and responsibilities in protecting its citizens.

“The State has given those who deviated from the path of right the best of possible opportunities to backtrack and return to the Homeland, and to put down their arms; they ,however, rejected seizing these opportunities and further increased their terrorism. So, there was a must as to work for restoring security, safety, and for imposing the rule of law,” underscored President al-Assad to hundreds of the citizens who gathered around him and complained from the heinous acts perpetrated by the armed terrorist groups.

President al-Assad, during his field visit and inspection of the destruction inflicted upon the Quarter by the armed terrorist groups, called for the rallying of efforts and redoubling work as to quickly reconstruct destroyed buildings and rehabilitate the infrastructure, especially schools, electricity grids, and medical establishments.

President al-Assad, during his meeting with some army and police force members, lauded the sacrifices and efforts exerted by the Syrian Army and Police members in defense of the Homeland and its stability and security.

The inhabitants of the Quarter, who chanted slogans of loyalty, and amity to president al-Assad, asserted that the terrorist acts by the armed terrorist groups have but increased the inhabitants’ commitment to their Homeland, and care about its security and stability, highly appreciating the Syrian Arab Army, which restored safety and security to their Quarter and City.

14 Martyrs at the Hands of  Terrorist Groups Escorted to Final Resting Places

DAMASCUS, LATTAKIA, (SANA)_ 14 martyrs of the Syrian Army and Police Force, who were martyred by the armed terrorist groups, were escorted to their final resting places.

Solemn funerals were held for the martyrs, who sacrificed their souls in defense of the beloved homeland :

• Brigadier General Ali Ahmad Jamahiri from Lattakia.
• Colonel Mahir Nadim Issa from Lattakia.
• Major Alaa Arif Al-Ali from Lattakia.
• First Lieutenant Ihab Fhassan al-Khatib from Lattakia.
• Sergeant Rabi Abdullah Ramadan from Homs.
• Sergeant Amar loui Shalah from Damascus Governorate.
• Conscript Omar Moussa al-Hassan from Quneitra.
• Conscript Mamoun Mohamad Taha from Aleppo.
• Conscript Abdulrahman Hassan Abdulrahman from Aleppo.
• Conscript Mohanad Zouheir Jouma from Deir Azzour.
• Conscript Swar Salahaldin Qaddour from Aleppo.
• Conscript Youssef Abdulhamid Oubid from Damascus.
• Conscript Mohamad Ramadan Alal from Homs.
• Conscript Mahmoud Mohamad Dojan from Hama.

The family members of the martyred reiterated their pledge to stand united in the face of foreign schemes and terrorist attacks targeting Syria.

In press statements, the family members underlined their willingness to sacrifice the more in defense of stability and security .

Gatilov: Russia Awaiting Syrian Opposition’s Acceptance of Annan’s Plan

MOSCOW, (SANA)- Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov on Tuesday said Moscow is waiting for the Syrian opposition to accept the plan of UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria Kofi Annan to settle the crisis.

The Russian ITAR-TASS news agency quoted Gatilov as saying on his Twitter page that the Syrian authorities have accepted Annan’s plan and that the envoy expressed cautious optimism over this, adding “this is a step forward…now it’s the opposition’s turn.”

The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister earlier mentioned that a Syrian opposition delegation representing the Coordination Commission will visit Moscow soon.

Russia Is Not Participating in Next ‘Friends of Syria’ Meeting

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich announced that his country is not participating in the meeting of the so-called ‘Friends of Syria’ due to be held on April 1st in the Turkish city of Istanbul, saying such activities have a politicized character and unilateral approach.

“The participants in Istanbul meeting are preparing for foreign intervention and they are not seeking solution for national dialogue or a peaceful settlement to the crisis in Syria,” Lukashevich was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS agency.

He added that Russia considers that such groups are not able to unite the stance of the international community, but rather work destructively contrary to the mode of the positive changes related to the UN envoy’s mission to Syria.

Lukashevich said the chances of success are available for Annan’s mission as long as all the parties in Syria halt dialogue and sit at the dialogue table, noting that his country has from the beginning supported the envoy’s mission.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman added that Russia is using all its capabilities and continuing contacts with many of the Syrian groups inside and outside Syria, stressing the necessity for more effective participation by the West in the peaceful settlement to the situation in the country.

He added that Moscow is awaiting specific signals from the Syrian opposition.

Medvedev: Syrians Alone Decide Their Country’s Destiny

SEOUL, (SANA)- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday said the Syrians alone decide Syria’s destiny and not other countries’ leaders, describing the calls for President Bashar al-Assad to step aside as “a short-sighted view”.

Speaking at a press conference in Seoul, President Medvedev considered the UN envoy’s mission is a last chance to avoid civil war in Syria.

Authorities Seize a car loaded of weapons in Dir Ezzor, Kill Terrorists in Sarakeb

Dir Ezzor, (SANA)-Competent authorities in Dir Ezzor on Tuesday seized a pickup Chevrolet automobile loaded with a big quantity of weapons at al-Mayaden semi-desert on the Syrian-Iraqi borders.

An official source in Dir Ezzor told SANA reporter that the seized weapons included 267 Russian rifles, machine guns, mortars, RPGs, and a number of bombs.

Authorities Clash with terrorists in Sarakeb, kill a number of them

In response to the citizens’ appeals in Sarakeb, Idleb, the competent authorities pursued the armed terrorist groups which attacked the private and public properties and practiced acts of kidnapping, killing, looting and rape, burning houses and shops.

The authorities clashed with the terrorists, killing the most dangerous leaders of those groups, including Abdullah al-Haji, Osama al-Hammoud, Eyad al-Zer, Ibrahim Baker, Imad Shaaban and Mohammad Parish, known as Mohammad al-Hafi.

Security members also clashed  with another terrorist group near Jisr al-shoughour, killing a number of the armed men and confiscating their weapons.

An official source in Idleb told SANA reporter that two of the arrested terrorists were Fadi Mohammad al-Ahmad and Deib Latif Mohammad.

Iranian President: Relations’ Development with Syria has no Limits

TEHRAN, (SANA)-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday underlined that development of bilateral relations between Iran and Syria has no limits, saying that his country will spare no effort to achieve this purpose.

“The Syrian leadership carries out the reforms in a correct manner, depending on the Syrian people who have foiled the enemies’ conspiracies which achieved nothing,” President Ahmadinejad said during a meeting with Deputy Foreign and Expatriates’ Minister Fayssal Mikdad in Tehran.

He added that the Syrian leadership is not only confronting armed terrorist groups, but a global project against the country, pointing out that the enemies of the region seek to strike Iran, Syria and the resistance to rescue Israel under the pretext of protecting the freedoms and human rights.

The Iranian President criticized the Arab League’s dealing with the crisis in Syria, referring to proposals by some countries to Syria to adhere to democracy while they didn’t run any elections.

Al-Mikdad, for his part, briefed the Iranian President on the situation, events and latest developments in Syria, and the consultations, contacts made so far to reach a solution that protects Syria’s territorial integrity and ends the terrorist acts perpetrated by the armed terrorist groups.

Later, al-Mikdad completed talks with the Iranian National Security Advisor Saeed Jalili who hailed Syria’s resistant role against the western-Zionist schemes.

Al-Mikdad also reviewed with Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salihi the situation in the region, particularly in Syria.

Salihi hailed Syria’s steadfastness, as people and leadership, to foil the conspiracy to which it is exposed. Salihi underlined the importance of coordination between the two countries in all fields, saying that Syria’s stances and its support to the Palestinian Cause made it a target to the attacks of terrorists and their supporters.

China Calls All Syrian Sides to Cooperate with Annan

BEIJING, (SANA)- Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, discussed with UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan in Beijing his plan on the situation in Syria.

AFP quoted Jiabao as saying during his meeting with Annan on Tuesday that the UN Security Council presidential statement which called for ending violence reflects the high level of concern and important consensus reached by the international community on the situation in Syria.

For his part, Annan described the response of the Syrian Government to his plan as “positive”, expressing hope to work with it as to translate this response into action.

Earlier, China called on all the Syrian sides to participate in the efforts exerted by Annan.

In a press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Hung Li, said “We hope that all the Syrian sides will be able to join the mediation efforts exerted by  Annan to ensure the conditions for a political settlement for the situation in Syria.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed determination on continuing work with all sides through playing an active and constructive role in reaching a peaceful and appropriate solution to the Syrian crisis.

Economy Ministry Permits Importing  All Materials and Products Originating from Iran

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Minister of Economy and Trade Mohammad Nidal al-Shaar issued a decision on Tuesday permitting the import of all materials and products originating from Iran.

The decision also ratifies the Free Trade Agreement between Syria and Iran which was put into effect on March 21st.

Only items that are prohibited from being imported due to health, environmental or such reasons are exempt from this decision, in addition to materials that are restricted to the public sector which the private sector isn’t allowed to import.

Five Army and Law-Enforcement Martyrs Laid to Rest

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- Five army and law-enforcement martyrs on Monday were escorted from Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus to their final resting place.

Solemn funeral processions were held for the martyrs who were targeted by armed terrorist groups while they were in the line of duty in Daraa Province.

The martyrs are:

• Sergeant Ismael al-Ammouri, from Aleppo.
• Sergeant Hamzeh Ramadan al-Ali, from Tartous.
• sergeant Mohsen Majed al-Hassan, from Homs.
• Corporal Ali Hani Hmaidoush from Lattakia.
• Conscript Nayef Abdul-Rahman al-Owayid, from Aleppo.

The martyrs’ families expressed pride in the martyrdom of their sons to protect the security, safety and dignity of their homeland in the face of the conspiracy and the foreign interference.

They called for confronting the terrorists in order to restore Syria’s security and stability, expressing confidence in the ability of the Syrian people to overcome the crisis through adhering to national unity.

People’s Assembly Appeals to the President for Delaying Legislative Elections until Comprehensive Reforms Consolidated

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – In a session chaired by Speaker Mahmoud al-Abrash, the People’s Assembly discussed on Monday the date for parliamentary elections set to be on May 7,2012 according to Decree No. 113.

The Assembly appealed to the President of the Republic, H.E. Bashar al-Assad, as to consider delaying the elections so that the comprehensive reforms are consolidated, waiting for the outcome of the comprehensive national dialogue and empowering the licensed parties in light of the new parties law.

Mikdad: Terrorists Destroyed a number of developmental projects carried out with the UN

DAMASCUS, (SANA)-Deputy Foreign and Expatriates Minister Fayssal Mikdad said that cooperation between Syria and the UN programs has been good during the latest years which gave fruits to many development projects in Syria, but the terrorists have destroyed a number of these projects with billions of SYP losses.

Al-Mikdad, meeting the UN Development Program (UNDP) Representative in Syria Ismael Wild al-Sheikh Ahmed who has ended his mission in Syria Monday, regretted that the UN didn’t condemn the sabotage acts of the terrorists, saying “A lot of information which the UN receives are taken from several sources, but they don’t reflect what is really happening in Syria.”

He added ” while Syria steps with quick strides towards stability and gets rid of the terrorist members who brought chaos into the country, we are going ahead with our people towards more developed Syria with democracy, pluralism and respecting freedoms.”

For his part, Wild al-Sheikh regretted the latest events in Syria, underlining that the peaceful solution and dialogue is the only way to come out of the crisis.

Mikdad: Syria Keen on Continuing Efforts Regarding Population

Mikdad said that Syria is bent on continuing efforts as regards the population despite the exceptional circumstances it is going through.

During his meeting on Monday with Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) ,Laila Bakr, on the occasion of assuming her mission in Syria, Dr. Mikdad expressed Syria’s appreciation for the standing cooperation with the UNFPA, wishing her success in her missions.

Dr. Mikdad underlined Syria’s desire to carry out the programs that will address population-related problems and find the appropriate solutions.

He added that any UNFPA program should be based on the real needs of the population, the nature of the Syrian society and the standing challenges to yield the hoped-for results.

Bakr expressed happiness over assuming her new mission , indicating that the UNFPA is willing to cooperate with the Syrian government and continue the programs it started in Syria.

She voiced appreciation for the progress achieved in Syria, attributing it to its cooperation and support to the UN Population Fund.

National Council of Media Grants Licenses to Six Newspapers, 13 Magazines

Earlier, the council held several meetings in which it set the future plans of media work according to the media law.

China’s Foreign Ministry: Beijing Will Continue Work with All Sides to Reach Peaceful Solution to Syria’s Issue

BEIJING, (SANA) – Spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hong Li, on Monday said that China will continue playing a constructive role and working with all sides with the aim of reaching a peaceful solution to Syria’s issue.

The Chinese News Agency, Xinhua, quoted Li as saying at a press conference that solving Syria’s issue demands participation and dialogue among all main sides, adding that the international community should provide the appropriate circumstances for such dialogue.

He outlined that the procedures taken by the international community should help alleviate the situation and enhance political dialogue.

He added that in the current situation, China didn’t consider the possibility of participating at ‘Friends of Syria’ conference, which is due to be held in Istanbul in April.

Syria, Belarus Sign Executive Protocol on Cooperation in Health Field

MINSK, (SANA) – Syrian and Belarusian Ministries of health on Saturday evening signed an executive protocol in Minsk.

According to the protocol, the Belarusian side will facilitate procedures of registering the Syrian medicine after presenting a full package of documents and implementing all requirements with regard to registering medicine in Belarus.

The protocol also encourages the Syrian investors to produce wide range of medicine in Belarus, as the Syrian registered drugs could take part in tenders held by Belarusian Ministry of health, in addition to importing medicine and cosmetics made in Syria.

The Ministries of the two countries will provide the required facilities for establishing a mutual firm in Belarus to produce a list of agreed upon drugs.

The Belarusian side pledges to provide appropriate environment to import the Syrian medicine to Belarus according to the protocol, as the two sides will set joint training programs for medical cadres, particularly for the Syrian doctors at the Belarusian Medical Academy of post-graduate qualification in different specializations.

” The Syrian-Belarusian health relations are characterized by understanding and the mutual desire of constructive cooperation in different medical domains, particularly in pharmacology.” Minister of Health Wael al-Halaqi said after signing the protocol.

Archbishop Mansour: Syrians’ Unity will Foil Conspiracies of Enemies

BRAZILIA, (SANA)_ Archbishop of Orthodox Church in Brazil, Damaskinos Mansour, said that Syria will remain the land of amity against all attempts to undermine its unity, adding that the bonds binding the Syrians will foil the conspiracies.

In a speech during a religious mass held in the Brazilian city of Cordoba in honor of the Syrian martyrs, Archbishop Mansour said “The Muslims and Christians  are praying for reforms to be consummated in peace and for dialogue to be marked with transparency and respect.”

He added that no religion allows killing, indicating that those who are using weapons are not interested in reforms.

Burial Chamber Dating Back to Byzantine and Ayyubid Eras Uncovered in Cavern in Sweida

SWEIDA, (SANA) – A national archeological expedition working in Tel Ara in Sweida governorate uncovered an ancient burial chamber dating back to the Byzantine and Ayyubid eras in a cavern.

Hussein Zeineddin, head of the expedition, said that the volcanic cave is located north of al-Hesha volcanic hill, east of Ara mountain, and that it has an arch-like entrance with a roof consisting of handmade arches.

He said that excavations uncovered four semicircular tombs, the first located in the eastern part of the cave and consisting of an oval alcove serving as a grave for an individual or a family, while the second is located in the center of the cavern and is raised from the floor, containing small bone fragments that could have belonged to a young person.

The third tomb is similar to the first one and contains a small grave in the floor, while the fourth is in the western part of the cavern and consists of an alcove full of debris.

Expedition member Yasser al-Sahaar said that it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact date of the burial chamber due to the damage it sustained over the ages and the lack of bones, noting that pottery fragments and remains of funerary wares imply that it dates back to either the Ayyubid or the Byzantine era.

In ancient times, the nearby Ara village was located on an important route connecting Basra and Sweida. It contains remains of an ancient Roman wall and church, in addition to a number of ancient ruins and two keeps, one ancient and one built in 1879.

Ara village is located 15 kilometers southwest of Sweida city. Its name means “expansive land” or “strong bond.”

Two Officers Assassinated by Terrorists in Aleppo and Damascus Countryside, Terrorists Blow Up Teacher’s Car

PROVINCES, (SANA) – A brigadier general was assassinated on Wednesday by a terrorist armed group in Aleppo when he was on his way to work.

SANA correspondent was informed that Martyr General Khleif al-Abdullah from the Air Forces was targeted by four terrorists in a Cerato car who shot the General dead near to al-Bassel Mosque in al-Hamadaniyeh neighborhood.

The Martyr left behind three children; two sons and a daughter.

Armed Terrorist Group Assassinates Colonel in Damascus Countryside

An armed terrorist group assassinated Colonel Tarek Mahmoud al-Houshi outside his home in Jobar in Damascus countryside.

SANA correspondent said that the terrorist group shot dead Colonel al-Houshi as he was leaving his house.

Terrorists Blow Up Teacher’s Car in Hama, Teacher Severely Wounded

An explosive device planted by a terrorist group in the car of teacher Wafa’a Ibrahim al-Bunni was detonated in al-Sabouniyeh neighborhood in Hama, severely wounding al-Bunni who was rushed to Hama National Hospital.

An official source told SANA that the bomb was detonated near al-Sabouniyeh rotary while the teacher was driving from work to Abi al-Fida’a quarter, causing extensive damage to the car, a Chery.

Another terrorist group murdered citizen Mehdi Ali Asfar. Mehdi, who was born in Hama in 1982, was abducted from Homs city three months ago. His body showed signs of extensive torture.

In the town of Mork, an armed terrorist group broke into a garage and stole a state-owned car, a Cham, which belongs to the Agricultural Bank branch in Soran.

Foreign Ministry: Syria Won’t Deal with Any Arab League Initiative in Its Absence

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry on Wednesday stressed that Syria would not deal with any initiative by the Arab League at any level in its absence.

The Ministry spokesman, Dr. Jihad Maqdisi, mentioned that the attendees at Baghdad Summit are discussing a certain Arab initiative towards Syria.

He said that Syria, since the suspension of its membership in the Arab League, has had its relations with the Arab countries based on a state-to-state level only, “therefore it won’t deal with any Arab League initiative at any level in its absence.”

Russia, China Welcome Syria’s Acceptance of Annan’s Plan

MOSCOW/ BEIJING, (SANA)- Russia has welcomed Syria’s acceptance of the plan of UN special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, to find a peaceful solution in the country.

A statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said Annan’s plan, that was supported in the Security Council presidential statement issued on March 21st, provides for ending violence by all the parties in Syria under effective monitoring through a UN special mechanism, launching internal political dialogue and delivering humanitarian aid to the affected.

“We are convinced that this will provide an actual possibility for realizing the legitimate aspirations of all the Syrians with respecting the country’s sovereignty and independence and under collaborative support by the entire international community to Annan’s mission,” the statement added, stressing that this opportunity should not be wasted.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it is of a great importance that the Syrian opposition groups follow in the government’s footsteps and accurately announce their acceptance of the Security Council-backed UN envoy’s proposal to resolve the crisis peacefully.

“It goes without saying,” the Ministry added, “that many things now hinge on the foreign players, particularly those able to practice a positive influence on the opposition figures.”

The statement continued that rather than dissenting and armed confrontation, a responsible stance seeking acceptable solutions for all in the course of an inclusive political process under Annan’s mediation is the thing to allow a halt to the bloodshed and violence, an end to the humanitarian agonies of the civilian citizens and ensuring the development of Syria in a democratic and stable manner.

China Hails Syrian Government’s Acceptance of Annan’s Plan

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Wednesday hailed the Syrian government’s acceptance of the six-point plan of the UN special envoy to Syria Kofi Annan.

The Chinese Xinhua news agency quoted Hong as saying in a press conference that his country had knowledge of the reports about the Syrian government’s writing to Annan on its acceptance of his six-point plan to halt the violence in the country.

He added that China believes the acceptance of the UN envoy’s plan will help enhance a political solution to the Syrian issue, noting that Beijing hopes the Syrian government and all the parties concerned will seize this important opportunity and support and cooperate with Annan’s mediation efforts so as to ensure effective implementation of the plan and boost the political solution process.

Iranian Foreign Minister Confirms Disagreement between Iran and Turkey on Syria

TEHRAN, (SANA) – Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi expressed confidence that there are means for Syria to get out of crisis, calling for dealing patiently with the Syrian issue.

In a press statement on the sidelines of a meeting between Iranian and Turkish officials, Salehi said that Iran is optimistic about the mission of the UN Envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, adding that Iran believes that supporting the mission by the Arab states, Turkey and the UN would help solve the issue.

He pointed out that Iran and Turkey are not in agreement on Syria, warning of the repercussions of any hasty act towards Syria, stressing continued consultation to remove the difference in viewpoints.

Period of Accepting Compensation Claims for Damages by Terrorist Groups Extended 15 Days

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- The Local Administration Ministry extended the period of accepting compensation claims by citizens whose private properties were damaged by armed terrorist groups another 15 days in all the provinces.

In a circular issued on Wednesday, the Ministry announced the formation of a central committee chaired by the Local Administration Minister and comprised of the ministers of Finance, the Interior and the Justice and the governors in a measure to compensate the affected citizens for the damages caused to their uninsured properties by the sabotage acts of terrorist groups.

The circular indicated that sub-committees were also formed in the provinces for this purpose that are chaired by the governor of each province.

Source: The Embassy of Syrian Arab Republican in Kuala Lumpur.

What the London based Channel 4 is showing the World again on Sri Lanka is not a new phenomenon for this country. This kind of barbaric knavery has a long history. At that time those victims were alone, no one had seen them. The guardian turned away for the time. As this writer pointed out last week; our culture and rule of law did not overlap each other but always tried to apagoge each other. This cultural contradiction has been used as a strategy by regimes to ‘undermine peoples’ rights for a long time. They play with human beings to gain absolute power. And we lost thousands of people in the cause of nothing but kept in power particular selected families. The long term game was and is still, being played by those families, perhaps the present regime to a worse degree. We did not see ability to adaptation to law and order or society based on equal opportunity for all. As a result those families that manipulated absolute power motivated the public to kill other members of the public.

Meanwhile, a draft resolution on Sri Lanka by the United States of America has been submitted to the United Nations HRC in Geneva . ( click here to read full text of the Resolution ). In less than 330 words, this resolution has pointed the finger at the Government of Sri Lanka and its half cooked proposal of reconciliation and accountability. Instead of understanding the context and dealing with it diplomatically, the ruling party has divided the public into two sections to get political advantage from the nightmare thus causing a stalemate at government level. As some of the commentators pointed out, it is not the US that has divided our society again but the ruling government and their cunning strategies have divided the public into two. The Rajapakse regime already has failed to deal with political-economic matters and there is no more Bell Pottinger to rescue their mission under million dollar contracts.

Meanwhile one of the Ministers in the Cabinet urged people to boycott American products. He called on people to boycott American brands such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, KFC, McDonalds and Google’s email service Gmail. “Let’s create a country that boycotts American brands and then show the US that we are prepared to fight with them if they want to fight with us,” he said in Colombo yesterday. The minister is also using a gmail address and he promised the people that he will soon quit gmail. This is laughable and is more than a joke when we compare it with his infamous death unto death drama against the UN few months ago in Colombo . The interesting point is the web site which he is maintaining and using to attack opponents is also hosted from the USA .

Let’s start afresh and ask the question that if there was genuine anger against the US , would the Minister not ask the question from the two people within the Government who are holding US citizenship? If those self-acclaimed “patriots” were so proud of the Nation and were therefore against the USA , why have they not surrendered their US citizenship or permanent residency (green card) to fight on the basis of an international conspiracy against Sri Lanka ? If they are this much angry about the US policy on Sri Lanka , why don’t they just take away their other hand and put it somewhere in Iran , China , or Russia ? To surrender their Green Card (permanent residence status) they must meet with and fill out the appropriate forms with the Office of Homeland Security and also file the appropriate forms with the IRS to end your obligation to continue to pay US income taxes as citizens/permanent residents. There is normally a charge of $450 for this process. Thus two Rajapakses and their relations can come out of the US the following day and fight against the “international conspiracy” that is urging the Nation to restore Rule of Law not by given chances to collude at exams in Law Collage to become an attorney at law but the proper system to implement rule of law where every citizen has Equal Opportunity to access common facilities. This is a major difference between the Citizen who submits to the King and the Citizen who believes in the Rule of Law. Today, the problem in Sri Lanka is centralization of core powers around those close to the self-proclaimed King who is killing the real value of the Rule of Law, as interpreted independently by the Citizen. When there is the King, there are no citizens of the Country who can enjoy real value of independent interpretation of the Rule of Law, but gradually become the blind subjects of that King.

There are many issues that people who are attached to the ruling party are raising against the US — from the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , Japan at the end of WWII to Guantanamo Bay detention camp where hundreds of terrorist suspects have been detained without trial. Does it mean that if the US did bad things then we also can do the same, provided no one can raises the question whenever we do so? This is a question about our own conscience regarding our State Agencies committing crimes against humanity against our own people. What this ruling party needs to do now, instead of provoking people to come out to the streets is to deal with crimes against humanity that occurred not only in last period of the War but over the last three decades in various parts of the Country. This needs to be addressed in such a manner that people can find justice and peace by identifying with the Government’s actions. One could ignore the issues, by using victory in the battlefield, or one could be transparent about the process that brought them that victory and address other outcomes that tarnish that victory to the point of negation.

Now if we focus on the US draft resolution regarding Sri Lanka , we see nothing in it to indicate division of our people or as our permanent representatives in Geneva highlighted that the US wants regime change in the Country. As far as the Resolution is concerned there is nothing to indicate that the US is planning against territorial integrity or that they are conspiring against the Sri Lankan sovereignty. Is urging for the implementation of the recommendations of the LLRC (appointed by President Rajapakse to counteract the UN report on Sri Lanka ) wrong or appropriate? The LLRC report is a product of the Regime; it’s not a result of so called ‘Western Conspiracy’. Other countries of the UN are also asking the Government to implement the recommendations.

We experienced through a similar political typhoon, the loss of US$1.56 billion annually, when the European Union terminated the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) plus for our apparel products which eventually benefited Bangladesh . This is the cost we paid to maintain the ego of our politicians. The alarming message sent by the EU before their termination of the GSP plus is, “We very much regret the choice of Sri Lanka not to take up an offer made in good faith and in line with the EU commitment to a global human rights agenda. We will however keep the door open for Sri Lanka to return to talks.” But the government chose to interpret this basic principle as a conspiracy against the people and then they were motivated the people into anger against the West. At the end of that vapid drama we got a result that we can see in every kitchen in Sri Lanka , now. If the Regime has a proper plan to make this country the ‘Wonder of Asia’ they need to act in time without telling tale of the dragon for development work and playing hide and seek games with the basic rights of the people.

The Government of Sri Lanka is again showing before the people their ignorance on how to restore the rule of law in the Country. They are spending in the name of public expenditure to emotionally rouse the public which would eventually change the bad political climate of the President and his regime. Now those who follow the Government of Sri Lanka, are using excessive control over power and most of crimes are happening just for personal revenge. This is the real problem that we are facing — not only killing awareness of the people to make them ignorant but also spreading deadly stupidity in society. As Martin Luther King, Jr., once pointed out, nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

16 March 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Nilantha llangamuwa is the journalist and theeditor of the Sri Lanka Guardian, an online daily news paper based in Colombo Sri Lanka. He can be reached at ilangamuwa@gmail.com or editor@srilankaguardian.org

 

 

The sun had not risen. In the dark, a man walked into homes of people and killed nine children, four women, three men. This is what criminals do, what terrorists do. But the western mainstream media has found a nice term: “rogue US soldier”.

Think about a rakish guy in a Western, disguised as an ornery chap, to expose the evil and get rid of those who eye the holy land he represents. The great white hopes that make the world aware, send their reporters to ‘war-torn areas’ at much risk – a risk that is created by their countries’ overlords – portray what often suits the administration. They are the PR men.

The man who killed 16 people without provocation has not been named. No journalist has tried to find out, despite the varying versions of whether he was arrested or gave himself in. They will be on first-name basis with members of the Taliban and even the victims of the atrocities of the jihadis. They will give you the despicable faces, the helpless faces. If they can do this to their own people, they suggest, can you imagine what they will do when they land up at our door?

The killings of civilians in Afghanistan, shocking as it is, only embolden the viewpoint that the US administration has used self-righteousness to attack the country and it is using a similar superior attitude to exit. Such an attitude affects the forces that have been indoctrinated. It makes every drone strike into a crusade.

The murders by a terrorist soldier are being explained against the background of the burning of the Quran by the US forces. The violence had resulted in protests; six US servicemen were killed. In a theory that serves to prop up political opportunism, this makes it look like the Sunday, March 11 killings were a reaction. That ‘rogue’ was also a moralist.

The two villages of southern Kandahar where he struck are about 500 yards away from a US base. Did no honourable officer of the US armed forces hear any sounds? Weren’t they alerted? Don’t they jumpstart their defence strategies the moment such threat perceptions hover anywhere close to them?

Did he act alone? The question is irrelevant. The West arrests lone people who bomb places, but hold organisations accountable and in their search for them occupy territories they assume they will be hiding in.

It is despicable to read that “NATO officials apologized for the shootings but did not confirm that anyone was killed, referring instead to reports of deaths”.

Does the NATO function on its own? Will this be a convenient front for the US administration to keep its political and military wings separate, making the Barack Obama administration invincible and yet stain-proof? What respect has been shown to the Afghan people?

Some reports have mentioned earlier instances of “kill team”. Recently we saw US soldiers urinating on corpses. That these villagers were shot at and their bodies are charred is a tactic to make it seem that one man could not have done it. He moved to three houses. No one expected it. This is not the Taliban way of doing things – they shoot in the open.

Lt Gen Adrian Bradshaw of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said: “I cannot explain the motivation behind such callous acts, but they were in no way part of authorized ISAF military activity.”

These are the people who appear to have ready theories for all kinds of motivations, and now they are dumbstruck. Besides, the very fact that a ‘motivation’ is being imputed suggests some rationale. Even when people use the jihadi idea as motivation they are reasoning about it. The soldier had walked off his base, heavily armed. The reaction, besides the few words of condolences, is paranoid to say the least. The US embassy in Kabul has sent out an alert to its citizens in Afghanistan warning that as a result of the shooting “there is a risk of anti-American feelings and protests in coming days”.

It makes one wonder whether one man did it. It makes one wonder whether the administration is covertly drumming up the negative sentiment. Under regular circumstances it would have been one form of terror against another, two enemies fighting each other. But anti-Americanism, a reality in those parts, gets enshrined as an ideology that will wreak havoc upon those who serve the nation, the world. The killers become the martyrs.

The American administration has been on its own jihad.

It is important to note that two days prior to this rampage, the United States and Afghanistan signed a memorandum of understanding which would facilitate the transfer of Afghans captured by US forces to the local government. This would be a fitting preamble to the return of control of the nation to the people to whom it belongs. The date has been set for end of 2014, but it seems that the US is not going to end the 10 years without squabbling over the spoils of ‘Samaritanism’.

From the consistently flawed behaviour of its troops and its lack of diplomatic initiatives, it appears that rather than transform the Taliban the American forces have learned how to behave like them.

Those who have consistently damned the tribesmen and their repressiveness do not possess the courage and insight to question not just the killings but the attitude of the occupiers. Only because the Taliban are the bad ones does not make anyone opposing them good. There are different kinds of brutality and merely reporting one as an expected paradigm and the other as ‘motivational’ gives the latter the subterfuge and sanctity it seeks.

Prince Ali Seraj, head of the National Coalition for Dialogue with the Tribes of Afghanistan, has said this incident will play into the hands of the Taliban. “They are really going to milk this for all it’s worth. This is playing right into their program of psychological warfare against the Afghan people.”

The psychogical warfare is being enacted by the outsiders and those who imagine they can hold a dialogue with “friends” of the Afghans are easily taken in by such notions of false peace. While Mr. Seraj does say, “We cannot whitewash this and get this young man out of Afghanistan and send him back to the United States. That is the worst thing we can do at this time”, he seems to want to bail out the US or else the implications for the saviours and the saved would come to naught.

It is Afghan president Hamid Karzai who has been more forthright: “When Afghan people are killed deliberately by US forces this action is murder and terror and an unforgivable action. The government and the people of Afghanistan demand an explanation from the US government of this incident.”

He knows that when there is a power shift, he will need to appeal to the civilians, not the Taliban.

It is indeed a pity that the liberal media in those parts too falls for the westernised idea of taming of the shrew. After all, they say, these mullah types are murdering our own, they are targeting mosques, they have entered our cities.

Indeed, they do and they have. Has anyone considered when this started? Why has it snowballed into a state where Pakistan too is now terrorised by Afghanistan? Why would the hill tribes want to visit the plains? Capture power? How is it, then, that Afghanistan has a government that is not dictated to by the Taliban but the Americans?

It is quite fantastical to read stories of how Mullah Omar was born in the village and ran an Islamic school in the area, and this is where the Taliban movement was born. It is wonderful to see such a wide-eyed look at history. Does anyone remember the Russians? The CIA?

Do not be surprised if someone comes up with the theory that this shoot-out was done to stop some militants who were planning to hit at a US base.

This counter-tragic machinery will be at full steam. It has already brought in a villager who said that Karzai should punish the killer, “Otherwise we will make a decision. He should be handed over to us.”

This will be enough to make the US establishment concerned. This is how the poor Afghans will be treated when we leave, they will imply. The Afghan tribals have been living with the ‘jirga’ form of justice for years. It lacks the finesse of democracy, and follows rudimentary laws of honour. But it is restricted to the tribes; such is the extent of its importance that the mujahideen that had crossed over to Pakistan during the war with Russia would return only to take revenge for a slight suffered by their own even if the perpetrator was one among them.

It worked as a federal structure within the democratic Afghan system, which itself frittered away its wealth and rights to outsiders in the best feudal manner of the elite.

This gives ballast to the men at the helm of the US army to state: “As tragic as this incident is, it would be a larger tragedy to affect the mission at large and what we’re trying to do for the country. We’re going to continue to be out there among the populace. We’re going to continue to try to beat back this insurgency.”

The man who went on a killing mission was an American. Sure, you are right there, the first among the insurgents.

By Farzana Versey

14 March 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Farzana Versey is a Mumbai-based writer. She can be reached at http://farzana-versey.blogspot.in/

 

Is it a response to sanctions on Iran or just business?

Saudi Arabia has booked very large crude carriers, like this one, to carry more oil to the United States.

NEW YORK — Saudi Arabia is preparing to extend this year’s unexpected jump in oil sales to the United States, adding to speculation about the response of the world’s top oil exporter to sanctions against Iran and a rally in prices.

The kingdom’s shipments to the United States have quietly risen 25 per cent to the highest level since mid-2008, according to preliminary U.S. government data, a sizable leap that appears at least partly related to the imminent completion of a major expansion at its joint-venture Motiva refinery in Texas.

But some say the scale of the increase, plus other U.S. data showing Gulf Coast inventories are still subdued, suggest the potential for a political dimension as well, evoking comparisons to 2008 when the OPEC kingpin was driving up production to knock oil prices off record highs near $150 a barrel.

The surge appears set to continue. Vela, Saudi Arabia’s state oil tanker company, has booked at least nine very large crude carriers (VLCCs) capable of carrying 2 million barrels of crude each from the Middle East Gulf to the U.S. Gulf since the start of March, the biggest such wave of fixtures in years, analysts say.

The pivot to the U.S. market, which bore the brunt of Saudi output curbs after 2008, is a surprise for two reasons.

For one, many analysts had believed that the kingdom’s modest output increase in recent months was bound for fast-growing Asian markets, particularly given the pressure on refiners there to reduce their imports from Iran.

Plus, it comes after a year in which U.S. crude oil imports shrank to their lowest since 1999 thanks to a dramatic boom in shale oil production and tepid demand from consumers who are making every effort to cut back as gasoline prices rise.

The White House has been scrambling for options to bring down gasoline prices — at a seasonal record high — during an election year, after concerns over an Iranian supply disruption launched benchmark Brent crude to over $120 a barrel not seen since the record price run of 2008.

Washington has urged ally Saudi Arabia to cover potential shortages when new U.S. and European Union sanctions are expected to reduce Iranian oil exports from July. The Obama administration has considered releasing strategic oil inventories, potentially as part of a bilateral deal with Britain.

The kingdom has stepped up efforts this week to assure edgy markets that it will make up for any oil supply disruptions at a time when Iran’s standoff with the West has begun to intensify.

“Beyond the expansion at Motiva, there has been a major public shift by the Saudis since the Iran tensions started to raise the price of oil,” said Amy Jaffe, an energy policy expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston.

“Saudi Arabia and the United States are trying to show the Iranians they (the Iranians) will have little flexibility, and they shouldn’t count on the world needing all the oil that Iran produces.”

Saudi output in February was up 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) from October at its highest since August. PRODN-SA

The build appears related, at least in part, to a massive expansion project at Saudi Arabia’s 285,000-bpd Motiva Port Arthur, Texas joint-venture refinery with Shell Oil, the U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell.

All expansion units are expected to be in production by the end of the second quarter of this year, with the expanded refinery reaching, by the end of the year, a maximum capacity of 660,000 bpd. Motiva Enterprises began circulating feedstocks through some of the expansion units in January

Motiva declined to comment. The expansion project, budgeted at $5 billion, began in 2007, and when complete will make the refinery the largest in the United States.

“I suspect there is some seasonality to it, U.S. refiners build inventories in the first quarter and U.S. refiners start up Gulf Coast plants out of maintenance,” said Jan Stuart, head of energy research at Credit Suisse in New York City.

“In addition, this year you have the Motiva expansion, which will buy a lot of crude,” he said, adding the building up of 20 days worth of inventory could account for part of the increased Saudi shipments.

That would be equivalent to building up inventories of 7.5 million barrels, by a Reuters calculation, implying a need to build 100,000 bpd of stock over the first 10 weeks of the year.

Still, crude inventories in the Gulf Coast region have not grown as much as they traditionally do during the first quarter when refiners build up stocks.

Gulf Coast stocks have risen by only 10.3 million barrels — or roughly 140,000 bpd — over the 10 week period, compared with 14.2 million barrels on average for the past five years, according to EIA data. The weekly data are preliminary, and more comprehensive monthly data for January is not yet available.

While the rise in Saudi output has been well charted, the fact that the lion’s share of it appears destined for U.S. refiners will come as a surprise to many. Overall U.S. demand for foreign crude has ebbed this year as a boom in domestic and Canadian production reduces the need for imports.

The reversal of the key Seaway pipeline — which will begin running from Oklahoma to Texas by July — was expected further to temper demand for imports by helping bring more cheap crude from the Midwest to the U.S. Gulf Coast refining hub.

“We were all expecting to see U.S. imports fall for Vela, so it’s a jump at a time when we are preparing for a reversal given the Seaway pipeline,” one shipping source said. “It raises the question why would they need more imports?”

Omar Nokta, managing director with investment bank Dahlman Rose & Co, said in a note on Friday that it was the first time in “several years” for Vela to book so many tankers in such a short time.

Provisional weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that the rise in supplies began several months ago, and outpaced gains to other consumers such as China.

U.S. imports of Saudi oil hit 1.5 million bpd in the first 10 weeks of 2012, up 300,000 bpd from the fourth quarter of 2011 and marking the largest rise in shipments since the second quarter of 2003. Saudi shipments to China in January rose only 14 per cent from the year before.

Total U.S. crude imports are up only 165,000 bpd in the first 10 weeks of the year versus the fourth quarter. The EIA was not immediately able to respond to requests for an explanation of the data.

The shift also could simply be the result of restoring supplies to U.S. customers whose shipments had been cut much more deeply after prices crashed four years ago.

“Up to 2008, there was definitely a much larger rise in shipments to Asia, that’s where the demand was growing. The cuts that followed that were not proportionate,” said a senior executive at a major Saudi oil customer.

“Now there’s a degree of rebalancing.” The rise in bookings to the U.S. Gulf has also tightened tanker availabilities, helping push the average earnings for VLCCs on the benchmark Middle Gulf to Japan route — the major market barometer — to their highest level in over a year to $33,205 a day, Baltic Exchange data showed.

Data shows that the Saudi crude has been priced advantageously for U.S. buyers. Official selling prices (OSPs) for U.S. buyers, which are set by the state oil firm Saudi Aramco, have fallen to a deep discount versus Asian and European refiners, according to Reuters data.

The bargain rates may have encouraged a bit more crude to move West, although industry sources say the kingdom’s largest customers with global refining systems have less flexibility to shift supplies between different regions than they have in the past.

Edward Morse, global head of commodities research at Citigroup, said that while the higher U.S. volumes could be due to Motiva, it may come as part of efforts to build up global inventories.

“I think that if you look over a longer term, the Saudis are increasing their exports to the whole world right now and not just the U.S.,” Morse said.

“The Saudis are getting oil onto the market to encourage inventory building, and to show their customers they can deliver whatever is needed.”

By MATTHEW ROBINSON AND JONATHAN SAU,

18 March 2012

@ The Vancouver Sun

A Hero Respected By Both Muslims & Christians

Both Christians and Muslims admire Saladin.

Saladin’s traits and virtues were purely a reflection of the teachings of his faith.

He defeated the Crusaders, known to Muslims as the Franks, and recaptured Jerusalem in 1187.

The experience of the Crusaders with the Muslims demonstrates that Muslims and Christians are in no civilization clash, but rather in civilization bondage.

In 1099 Jerusalem  fell to the First Crusaders.  They slaughtered its Christian, Muslim and Jewish inhabitants, after promising them safety.  In 1187  Saladin destroyed King Guy’s army at the Horns of Hettin and  recovered Jerusalem. In stark contrast to the Crusades 88 years earlier, Saladin, adhering to the teachings of Islam, did not slaughter the city’s Christian inhabitants. Saladin’s noble act won him the respect of his opponents throughout the world including Richard the Lion heart. Saladin’s generosity and sense of honor in negotiating the peace treaty that ended the Crusade won him the lasting admiration and gratitude of the Christian world.

Saladin’s Birth and Lineage

Saladin was born in Tikrite (a city on the Tigris River), Iraq in 1137, of Kurdish ancestry. The Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, al Mustarshid, had appointed his father Ayyub, skilled in administration and diplomacy, as the governor of the town.

Childhood and Education

Saladin received his early childhood education in Baalbek and Damascus, Syria. In 1143, when Saladin was six years old, Sultan Zengi of Musel appointed his father Ayyub as the governor of Baalbek. When Zengi died in 1146, his son Nur al Din succeeded him. Nur al-Din was a respected devout leader. After few years, Nur al Din appointed Ayyub as the Head of Damascus Militia. Saladin grew up where political decisions regarding the Crusades were made. His cultural and religious education was typical of the environments surrounding Baalbek and Damascus. Like his peers, Saladin learned Arabic, poetry, the formal prayers and memorization of the Quran and the Hadith.

Saladin in Early Adulthood

In the Middle Ages the youth were given responsibilities of manhood early.  He was sent to his uncle Shirkuh in Aleppo on a career that would lead him to become one of Nur al Din’s emirs. The devout Nur al-Din soon became a mentor for the young Saladin.  He built and funded schools and hospitals. He promoted the divine values of Islam and governed in the light of the Quran.

Nur al-Din set up the Court of Appeals. Saladin regularly attended the Court of Appeals as a student.  Saladin learned to appreciate the wisdom and justice of the Islamic law. Nur al Din was the first Muslim ruler who saw the need for Muslim states to be united.  Saladin respected him tremendously and followed Nur al-Din’s example in uniting the ummah.

Saladin in His Adulthood

Saladin, who learned his military lessons in Nur al-Din’s militia at the hands of his uncle Shirkuh, soon began to stand out among Nur al-Din’s leaders. In 1164, at the age of 26 he was an assistant to his uncle Shirkuh in an expedition to rescue Egypt from an invasion by Amalric, king of Jerusalem. Saladin made a lasting impression on his peers during this expedition.

Saladin used diplomacy and the administrative skills in piecing together this badly divided region. Saladin’s scope of vision was that he gave each situation its due attention and weight, and he never broke a bridge of diplomacy or peace initiative with his opponents. The power or wealth he acquired never spoiled him. Power and position did not mean anything to him. Despite his advisor’s request to keep some of the revenues he received from Egypt and Syria, he never kept any of it. When he died, his wealth was only few dinars.

The Decisive Battle of Hettin

In return for an attack made by the Crusaders of the Kerak on Muslim pilgrims in 1187, Saladin moved his army to northern Palestine and defeated the much larger Crusader army in the decisive battle of Hettin (July 4, 1187). Three months after this battle, Saladin captured Jerusalem., Saladin did not loot, murder or seek revenge for the Muslims. He spared the lives of 100,000 Christians and allowed Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem after it’s fall. In this benevolent act, Saladin was simply emulating Prophet Muhammad when  the Prophet re-entered his birth-city of Makkah, with ten thousand people. There was no bloodshed.

Recapturing Jerusalem shocked the West, and as such it brought about the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lion heart, King of England in 1189. Saladin’s army checked the massive Frankish armies and weakened them in a war of attrition on the land of Palestine. It was during this period Richard negotiated peace with Saladin.   Third Crusade army was exhausted. It was Saladin’s generosity  in  this treaty, which ended the Crusades and established his legendery status.. .

Magnanimity and Benevolence at Work

Some of the stories  that  help the reader to understand why Saladin became a legendary figure in the Western world follow:

a- Preventing a Bloodbath

After capturing Jerusalem in October 1187, Saladin’s act in signing the peace treaty and saving Christian blood was indeed a pious act. He not only spared the lives of 100,000 Christians, but also guaranteed their safe departure along with their property and belongings. They were given forty days to prepare for departure. In this way eighty four thousand of them left the city in perfect safety. What is important to understand is that Saladin was in a  position to seek revenge for his people. However he did not , because his faith taught him  to be merciful and forgiving.

b- Foregoing ransom

Part of the condition of the surrender of Jerusalem, was that each Christian pays her or his ransom. Thousands of Christians, mainly women, were not able to pay their ransom.Al-Adel, Saladin’s brother, Geukburi, Saladin’s brother-in law and Saladin  instead paid their ransom out of their own pockets.

This act was done in spite of the fact that there were some rich Christians such as the Patriarch, Heraclius and Madame la Patriarchesse of Jerusalem.   Saladin was advised to confiscate  that  wealth to use it as ransom for the poor Christians.  He refused to go back on his word.  He allowed the wealthy Christians to depart with all their wealth intact.

c- Excellence Beyond Justice

During the forty days respite that was given to the Westerners to leave Jerusalem, several Christian women approached Saladin asking for  their missing men. They had no one to look after them.  Saladin ordered his soldiers to find their missing guardians, and/or given compensation if they were killed.

This  act is  one of the many.  Having a Muslim paying a ransom to a family of a soldier killed fighting other Muslims is excellence beyond justice

d- “Victory Is Changing the Hearts of Your Opponents by Gentleness and Kindness.”- Saladin

In September 1192, during the siege of Acre,when Richard fell sick, Saladin sent him his own physician to treat him. Along with this health care, he frequently sent him ice to cool down his fever and plum fruits that were necessary for his recovery.

e-  Pure Chivalry

During an offense made by Richard against a Muslim squadron  Richard’s horse was killed and he was down on the ground.  Saladin sent him two mounts so that he would not be at a disadvantage.

f- Returning a child

During the siege of Acre, a Christian woman came to Saladin’s camp weeping and wailing insisting that her child was snatched away by his soldiers. He himself returned the child to his mother and had them mount on the back of a mare to be returned safely to their camp.

g- Libert of faith

During the siege of Acre several soldiers were captured. Among them was an old man who was so old that he was toothless and could hardly walk. Saladin asked him  why he was there. The old man said that he wanted  to make a pilgrimage to the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. Saladin provided a horse for him and had him escorted to Jerusalem to fulfill his  dream.

By Faysal Burhan

Onislam,19 September 2011

Conclusion

Saladin was an honorable leader. His character and charitable deeds demonstrates that Muslims were no “infidels”. The Crusaders discovered that Muslims  had  values they consider Christian.  Saladan’s chivalry became the source of many plays and used in literature.   .

Source: This is a summary of an article titled (Saladin: a Benevolent Man, Respected by both Muslims and Christians), from The Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies web site – http://www.islamic-study.org/

Pax Christi International clearly and unequivocally rejects the possibility of military action against Iran as immoral, highly dangerous and counter-productive. Rather, we support continued diplomatic efforts based on mutual respect and dignity. We encourage discussions to bring all states into compliance with their Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations and we support including the Additional Protocol as the non-proliferation verification standard. All countries have a responsibility to encourage definitive movement toward a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East, as well as a treaty banning nuclear weapons.

Catholic social teaching clearly rejects preventive war. Military action against Iran to preclude further development of its nuclear program would fail the very restrictive conditions set by Catholic moral theology for the use of military force for at least three reasons:

 military action would clearly not be a last resort, as negotiations continue with ample room for success;

 the probability of successful military action is not high in a region that is as volatile as the Middle East; and

 imposing sanctions and threatening military action is a disproportional response to a situation wherein neither US nor Israeli intelligence has produced evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program and enrichment for peaceful purposes is legal under the NPT.

Pax Christi International insists that the military option be taken off the table and strongly supports continued diplomacy. The goal of negotiations, however, should not be an end to Iran’s enrichment program, which is legal within the NPT. Rather, the goal should be strict adherence to the NPT on all sides and Iran’s ratification and implementation of the Additional Protocol to the NPT. This would allow for more intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and verification that there is no diversion of enriched fuel to nuclear weapons.

The extraordinary sanctions imposed on Iran are likely to be devastating in the lives of ordinary people. For that reason, they should be lifted as promptly as possible – in exchange, for example, for greater transparency. The ratification and full implementation of the Additional Protocol should result in a complete lifting of all nuclear program related sanctions on Iran.

NPT obligations regarding nuclear disarmament by nuclear weapons states parties must also be fulfilled in return for compliance with non-proliferation obligations. Every effort must be made to bring Israel, India and Pakistan into the NPT or into other discussions about nuclear disarmament, including negotiating a nuclear weapons convention. Pax Christi International strongly supports creation of a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free

Zone in the Middle East, which will be advanced at a conference in Finland toward the end of 2012, and prompt negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention.

A decree by Iran’s religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, makes clear his condemnation of nuclear weapons: “the production, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is illegitimate, futile, harmful, dangerous and prohibited as a great sin.” Our own Catholic tradition and most other major religious traditions have been similarly emphatic.

Pax Christi International urges religious leaders, including Catholic religious leaders around the world, to reject resoundingly the possibility of military action in response to Iran’s nuclear program and to make clear our collective, urgent responsibility to rid the world of nuclear weapons, which are at the root of the current crisis. Pax Christi International likewise urges people of faith and conscience to withdraw personal and financial support from these weapons and to encourage the immediate negotiation of a binding international treaty that would definitively abolish them from the face of the earth.

By Pax Christi International

22 March 2012

@www.paxchristi.net

2012-0106-en-gl-SD

Delhi, Patna, Chennai & Bangalore: Electorate in Uttar Pradesh have rejected the proposal of the Indian National Congress to allow themselves to be identified with their biometric data like iris scan and thumb impressions. Rahul Gandhi campaigned in UP using the Aadhaar as an election agenda. Now that he has taken responsibility of his party’s defeat, he should call for stopping Aadhaar project because the verdict is against it.

Supporting Home Ministry and Planning Commission’s scheme of uniqueidentity, the party had showcased aadhaar and related National Population Register (NPR) for Multipurpose Identity Card (MNIC), voters in general and poor have given their verdict against it. The party had claimed that the Aadhaar/NPR card will also address the discrepancies in controversial Below Poverty Line (BPL) list by hiding violation of the provisions of Census Act with ulterior motives. It was used like a fish bait to entrap citizens against democratic and legislative mandate. The message for P Chidambaram, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Nandan Nilekani is that UP electorate who were promised Aadhaar/NPR/MNIC has rejected it. This project is applicable to vehicles and animals too through Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in later phases.

In our country, a surveillance regime has been proposed by Indian National Congress led United Progressive Alliance for the people but not for biometric and other intrusive technologies. Besides India’s Parliamentary Standing on Finance, countries like UK, Australia, Philippines and China have rejected aadhaar/NPR/MNIC like projects respecting people’s mandate.

It has reliably been learnt that officials from Infosys company have been giving leadership training to leaders of Indian National

Congress. This may have impacted decision making with regard to aadhaar/NPR/MNIC but it has clearly not worked in UP elections.

Recent reports of efforts to put Union Finance Minister and Defence Minister under surveillance reveal that there is paucity of capacity to monitor or regulate these technologies. If this is the plight of the ministers and technologically challenged political class, the threat for citizens can easily be understood.

Post UP elections, government must review its capacity to regulate an emerging technology regime that is undermining democracy and sovereignty and should not be misled by unelected cabinet ranked officials who say, “Technology has no history and no bias, it treats everyone the same way.”History of technologies reveals that it is their owners who are true beneficiaries especially when it is used for social control. There is a compelling need to urgently assess the claims and risks of biometric and surveillance technology and how some companies made UID/NPR/MNIC politically persuasive for the ruling party and intertwined the systems of technology with crying need for governance.

UP verdict is also a mandate against diluting federal structure of the country, FDI in the retail sector, free trade agreements (FTAs) that were aimed at turning India into a market democracy where executive and legislative decisions are driven by profit mongers not by public interest.

By Gopal Krishna , Vinay Baindur & Anivar Aravind

7 March 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

For Details: Gopal Krishna, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL), New Delhi,

E-mail-krishna1715@gmail.com

Vinay Baindur, Bangalore, Email:yanivbin@gmail.com

Anivar Aravind, Chennai, E-mail-anivar.aravind@gmail.com

Viewing the Russian election as a classical standoff between repression and liberty distorts more than it clarifies.

Berkeley, CA – If the tropes peddled by the Western media are to be believed, the Kremlin is faced with unprecedented challenges, from plummeting popularity to grassroots middle-class revolt. A “Russian Spring” is in the air, with Putin on the verge of being swept away by the same upswell of Twittering youth that unseated his Arab counterparts Ben Ali and Mubarak (provided, of course, that he doesn’t imitate Assad by shelling his own people).

Maybe it’s a new perestroika. Or perhaps the right comparison is to the US civil rights movement, with the Russian middle class providing the moral clarity and drive that will inexorably undermine and topple Putinism.

Overwhelmingly, commentary on the forthcoming presidential elections is filtered through the above narrative prisms. This is unsurprising, because a classical standoff between Repression and Liberty is both easily comprehensible, and ties in neatly with today’s – if, perhaps, not tomorrow’s – fashionable “springtime of peoples” narrative used to explain the Arab revolts. But forcing Russian politics onto this Procrustean bed distorts far more than it elucidates, because at its heart it is based on flawed – in many cases, I daresay mythical – foundations.

Teflon Putin and his silent majority

The first inconvenient truth, rarely mentioned, is that Putin is simply popular. Even most of his critics do not dispute that if free and fair elections were to be held tomorrow, he would win by a landslide. All the opinion pollsters give him a first-round win: state-owned VCIOM and FOM, and independent Levada, all predict a first-round victory with about 58 per cent to 60 per cent of the vote. He has a threefold lead over the Communists’ candidate Zyuganov, the perennial second-place man of Russian politics.

Nor are Putin’s ratings in freefall. They did slump to a “local minimum” in mid-December 2011, to use a mathematical term, but have since recovered, despite – or because of? – the protests.

Putin’s consistently high popularity may be unexpected, and attributed to nefarious factors like his control over the media – in reality, far more fictitious than real, as anyone who reads Russian newspapers or browses online will quickly find – but it shouldn’t be. Whether Putin, oil prices, natural recovery from the Soviet collapse, or some combination of all these factors is responsible, Russians undeniably live far better today than a decade ago: GDP (in purchasing power parity terms) has doubled, salaries have risen nearly tenfold (in US dollar terms) to $800 per month, and even many blue-collar workers can now afford the occasional holiday to Turkey or Thailand. Rightly or wrongly, Putin is associated with these improvements, and the stability that enabled it.

This largely rules out any useful comparison with countries such as Tunisia or Egypt, which were growing much more slowly in per capita terms, and from far lower starting bases. Furthermore, they are major grain importers, while Russia is a net exporter, so they are adversely affected by food price shocks to a much greater extent than Russia. (On a slight tangent, I suspect that Chinese adopting meatier diets played a greater role in the “Arab Spring” than any other factor). Needless to say, the late USSR isn’t a good comparison either, the word zastoi (“stagnation”) being practically synonymous with it.

Whereas pro-United Russia fraud in 2011 – probably on the scale of 5 percent to 7 percent – was what unleashed the protest genie in the first place, it did enable it to retain a slight Duma majority. In that case, there was at least a perverse logic to the falsifications. But since Putin is virtually assured of a first-round win, it becomes clear that the last person to benefit from falsifications would be Putin himself, because it would be a threat to his legitimacy. In contrast, truly clean and honest elections would at a single stroke remove the single issue keeping the disparate protest movement together.

It is not surprising, therefore, that these elections will be under heavy scrutiny – not only by official monitors, but also through a nationwide system of 200,000 web cameras, installed on Putin’s initiative in the past three months (you will be able to access video feeds from the polling station of your choice at http://webvybory2012.ru/). The new measures will hopefully eliminate the most common type of fraud: massively inflated turnouts that exclusively benefit the pro-Kremlin party or candidate.

That said, I think it is too much to hope for that a deep problem like election fraud, prevalent since at least 1996 – and with its own set of perverse incentives, as United Russia functionaries are rewarded for good electoral results, be they obtained by fair means or foul – will be completely solved in one election cycle. But I think its magnitude can be reasonably expected to decline.

Partisans and their crowd wars

Dismissing the conspiracy theories that all Russia’s opinion pollsters are controlled by the Kremlin, let us move on to a more sophisticated argument: Whereas Putin may have a stranglehold on the “silent majority”, it is apathetic, unprogressive, and hence fragile and historically doomed.

“You had bribes, blackmail, and buses,” the liberal critic says. “Yet even so, a mere 20,000 people went to your Anti-Orange Meeting, most of them state workers cajoled into coming by their bosses. Our Meetings For Fair Elections attract 100,000 to 200,000 people, including the best of Russia’s ‘creative class’. We grow stronger with every passing month. Come spring – Putler kaput!”

Many Russian liberals would agree with the above argument, invocation of Godwin’s Law included. It is also by and large the narrative that the Western media has adopted, if – at least in formal publications – with less invective. But that argument suffers from several basic flaws.

Whereas the opposition’s 100,000+ attendance figures are mostly taken at face value, the same favour is rarely extended to pro-Kremlin ones, on the few occasions they are mentioned at all. For instance, the Anti-Orange Meeting on February 4 at Poklonnaya had a densely packed crowd about 200-300 meters wide, and stretching more than half a kilometer into the distance; according to calculations by the geodesic engineer Nikolai Pomeshchenko, there were around 80,000 people there. But the most quoted figure in the Western press was 20,000, which Patrick Armstrong tracked down to a single AP article which was shamelessly copied by outlets as diverse as The Guardian, FOX, and Salon. Does this photo look like 20,000 to you? Who are you going to believe, AP or your lying eyes? (But I guess that’s still marginally better than Le Parisien, which tried to pass off Poklonnaya as an anti-Putin rally).

In contrast, there is a distinct lack of any critical questioning of figures issued by the opposition. Again, let’s ask Pomeshchenko: Using spatio-mathematical methods, he estimated opposition protests of 60,000 on December 10 (at Bolotnaya), 56,000+ on December 24 (at Prospekt Sakharova), and 62,000 on February 4 (again, at Bolotnaya). They are intuitively reliable, being halfway between the estimates of the police and the opposition, both of which have a dog in the fight.

But what would be truly discouraging to an oppositionist looking at these figures is that they aren’t increasing over time. The stability of these figures is furthermore supported by opinion polls; more than half the people at the latest rally also said they participated in the previous two, which strongly implies that it is largely the same “hard core” that goes to each opposition meeting.

One can quibble with the precise attendance figures – there are huge margins of error – but it is clear that momentum is failing to build. At Prospekt Sakharova, opposition star Navalny promised a million protesters at the next rally; in the event, he overshot by more than 900,000. With none of these meetings drawing more than 1 per cent of Moscow’s population, an “Arab Spring”-type revolution would appear to be a distant prospect.

The last objection is that people are unwillingly bussed into pro-Putin protests. There are probably a few genuine cases, but again, it’s better to go by concrete numbers. How many buses were there in the photos from Poklonnaya? Forty. Let’s arbitrarily double it to eighty. Let’s assume all the passengers on them were coerced into going, i.e. that by definition, one simply cannot willingly step into a bus, and let’s also assume that they were all at their maximum capacity of 50 people. So even under patently unrealistic conditions, that’s 4,000 people, or no more than 5 per cent of the protesters at Poklonnaya.

This view of the rallies as evenly matched, with the pro-Putin ones perhaps enjoying a slight numerical edge, are backed by polling evidence. According to VCIOM, Putin has less electoral support in Moscow, at 44 per cent, than in the rest of Russia, at 59 per cent; in contrast, Prokhorov – whose electorate largely consists of aggrieved liberals who sympathise with the anti-Putin protests – has 17 per cent of Muscovites on his side, compared to 9 per cent of Russians. Add in a sprinkling of social democrats, Communists, and nationalists from the camps of the three other candidates, and it turns out that the pro-Putin and anti-Putin are, give or take, about evenly matched in Moscow (if not in the rest of Russia, where opposition protests have largely flopped). By Occam’s Razor, their respective rallies should also then be about evenly matched.

The lesson is, beware of the tricks partisans on all sides – liberals, pro-Kremlin, Western journalists – use to fight their “crowd wars”.

 

A disunited Russia (and why that isn’t a bad thing)

While thus far I have treated the opposition as monolithic, the reality is that – demands for fair elections excepted – it is not. They are composed of several distinct ideological currents: The Communists, who will support Zyuganov in these elections; the nationalists, who will support Zhirinovsky; the pro-Western liberals, who will support Prokhorov; and the social democrats, who will support Mironov.

The largest of these opposition blocs by far, with the support of about 20 per cent of Russia’s electorate, are the Communists. While the Western media tends to treat them as the only “real” opposition (whatever that is supposed to mean), the liberal bloc nationwide has no more than 10 percent at most, and is matched by anti-Putin social democrats and exceeded by the nationalists. The only part of the country where the liberals match the Communists in numbers is Moscow.

This is likely due to Moscow being the traditional seat of Russia’s liberal intelligentsia, like the writer Boris Akunin and journalist Leonid Parfyonov. This intelligentsia has traditionally opposed power, be it Tsarist, Soviet, or Putinist; it is in its blood. That said, it should not be confused with the “creative classes”, who are more anti-Putin than the average Russian but are very far from exclusively so. For instance, the writer Sergey Lukyanenko, whom you may know from the movie adaptation of his “Night Watch” series – a work that is notable for its moral ambiguity – wrote about how ironically, it was the liberals themselves and what he perceived as their anti-democratic rhetoric that moved him to support Putin in these elections.

This is not a lone phenomenon. To the contrary, there are active arguments between liberal and pro-Putin intellectuals via LJ blogs, Twitter, and the wider Runet that have received a big stimulus from the recent charging of the political atmosphere. To the extent that culture wars like this – fought through words and cyberspace, not prisons and repressions – are integral parts of liberal democracies, Russia isn’t doing too bad on this score.

Apart from this intensified discussion, another good point about the outburst of protest activity is that it has forced Putin to up his game. He wrote seven very detailed articles on his proposed policies, as opposed to just one in 2000; unlike in previous elections, this time he campaigned actively, and addressed a crowd of 75,000 supporters in Luzhniki Stadium. There is pending legislation to substantially liberalise the political space, such as reducing the entry barrier into the Duma from 7 per cent to 5 per cent, restoring direct elections of governors,  and reducing the amount of signatures needed for party registration.

These, however, probably shouldn’t be interpreted as concessions to the liberal opposition, but as a restoration that would have happened in any case. That is because the original rollbacks were responses to the general crisis of the Russian state by the late 1990s which have now largely receded. Furthermore, at the time these rollbacks had broad support; ironically, what the liberals of today now decry, and blame Putin for, many of them once supported. Case in point: there is a video of Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition activist today, essentially arguing that Russia needs a Tsar while serving under Yeltsin in 1997. And there is another video in which Putin argues the precise opposite way back in 1996, while serving under the liberal St Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak.

So who is the liberal here? Neither and both. Politics is a dynamic process, and it is very rare that you get clear demarcations between black and white. Certainly not in Russia, at any rate. This I consider one of the most important points to bear in mind when reading Russia’s forthcoming elections.

By Anatoly Karlin

4 March 2012

@ Al Jazzera

Anatoly Karlin is finishing a degree in Political Economy at University of California-Berkeley. He runs the blog Sublime Oblivion about Russia, geopolitics, and peak oil.

Source: Al Jazeera