Syria

This weekend’s massacre in Houla, Syria, is one of those stories that invites but doesn’t require hyperbole. 108 people killed, 32 of them children. 300 more injured, in an attack that included shelling, guns, and knives.

This took place during a ceasefire, while Syria is subject to the scrutiny of United Nations observers.

Kofi Annan is trying to hold together with duct tape a “six point peace plan”, and is headed for Damascus in the wake of the latest atrocity under the Bashar al-Assad regime. This plan was signed off by Assad on March 27.

Today there are reports gunmen in the town have been positioned with orders to shoot civilians who try to talk with the UN Observers.

Annan and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon today released this:

Continue reading "Fighting Assad one strongly worded statement at a time" »

In October 2010, Syria’s heavy-weight ambassador Tammam Sulaiman left Australia a disappointed man. He had failed to convince Australia to reopen our embassy in Damascus.

In 2008-10 Syrians were very anxious that Australia bolster its credibility building exercise with the United States. Just before the beginning of the Arab Spring, President Obama had very unwisely reopened an American diplomatic post in Syria. 

Looking back it’s hard to re-imagine the Middle East before the successful revolutions against authoritarian leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Then, the received wisdom in Western foreign policy circles was that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad was a “man we could do business with”. Democrats would now be horrified to recall the prevailing view in Western chanceries that this “London” ophthalmologist and his glamorous wife (who subsequently appeared in Vogue magazine) was a closet democrat.

Continue reading "Reaching out to Syria was a delusional miscalculation" »

When Vogue published its February 2011 profile on Asma Al-Assad, the English-born first lady of Syria, her husband’s totalitarian regime already had blood on its hands. 

President Bashar al-Assad has ruled Syria since the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad. They are members of the Baath Party, Arab nationalists who have ruled Syria under “emergency law” since 1971. Under emergency law the government can arrest people without warning, launch police operations against suspicious citizens and jail them without trial.

Yet Vogue, the glossy bible of all things fabulous and fashionable turned a blind eye. Describing the regime as “not as secular as we might like” while salivating over Asma Al-Assad’s long-limbed and analytic beauty. A “desert rose” in the heart of Syria. It’s the safest country in the Middle East, they cooed.

Continue reading "Glossy PR exposed on the road to Damascus" »

Why has the western media provided only a biased, incomplete view of what is going in Syria? Why have the steps taken by the Syrian government to answer the concerns raised by its citizens been ignored? 

I am not a Syrian government apologist (more on that later). I just want to read the whole story. If I can find a variety of news sources including the official statements made by government officials and pro-Syrian government supporters why can’t the BBC or ABC or any other well-resourced western media?

And I am not only talking about the bizarre twists in the Syrian conflict such as “Damascus Girl”. If you missed that one, a young Syrian lesbian blogger created an international outcry when she suddenly disappeared. The Syrian government was suspected of abducting and maybe even killing her. One of her great supporters – fellow lesbian blogger Lez Get Real was particularly upset.

Continue reading "Western media ‘disappeared’ half the Syrian story" »

The Presidents of Tunisia and Egypt have gone, the President of Yemen is going. The dictator of Libya has lost control of half of his country and is being bombed out of the other half.

But the revolutionary tidal wave of the Arab Spring has now come up against a tougher opponent – the 40-year-old dictatorship of the Assad family in Syria.

It’s clear that President Bashar al-Assad and his security forces have no intention of giving up power, and are now engaged in a violent and bloody crackdown on dissent.

Continue reading "Syria: the dictator fights back" »

Any relief we may have had when Libya was finally suspended from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March has certainly been short-lived. It appears Syria, another terror state, is set to take its place.

Syria is one of four candidates vying for four seats on the 47-member body that will go to Asian nations when the General Assembly votes on new members on 20 May.

Unless another Asian country nominates, which seems unlikely at this stage, Syria will win a three-year term on the UN body charged with strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the world.

Continue reading "Human rights? Surely you can’t be Syria" »