Syria Will Send 5 to Vienna. Will Asef be among them?
At 6:00 this evening, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Muallem announced on a much awaited TV briefing that the questioning of five officials would be carried out at UN offices in Vienna. Everyone in Damascus is very relieved. Many believed that Syria and Mehlis would not come to an agreement and that Syria would be facing sanctions. Business men had been complaining that the Syrian pound had fallen to 59 to the dollar, its lowest rate, and was impossible to buy on the markets. Tomorrow, it should be strengthened and merchants who were holding back their dollars will now sell.
The big question of the evening was why only 5 and not 6 would be going. At least six reporters asked who the missing person was - all believing it was Asef Shawkat, the President's brother-in-law. None had the guts to ask directly or use his name. When Muallem responded by denying that 6 had ever been demanded, but only 5, everyone laughed. The following BBC story suggests that Asef will be going, but everyone in Damascus assumes he will not be among the five, and that the president was able to avoid sending anyone from his family, the "red-line," which everyone has been talking about here. Syrians are feeling relieved that their government is cooperating and has protected the people from sanctions. Undoubtedly, the security forces will be peeved if Asef has been saved from questioning, but they have not been. Now we must wait to see if Mehlis will be satisfied with their testimony. In all probability, he will accuse Syria of planning the murder. Then the government will be back to square one and will have to decide whether to give them up to a court. The crisis is far from over. All the same, Syria did well to reduce the number being questioned from 6 to 5, and to get a lawyer for each of those being questioned. Bolton said he was pleased.
UN probe to quiz Syrian officials
Syria has agreed to allow UN investigators to quiz its officials over the assassination of ex-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the questioning of five officials would be carried out at UN offices in Vienna.
He said Syria had been given "reassurances" on its sovereignty. The announcement follows weeks of deadlock between the UN investigation and Syria on the issue.
Syria had refused a request by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who is heading the inquiry, to carry out the interviews in Lebanon. Mr Mehlis was unwilling to accept a Syrian offer to allow questioning either in Syria itself or at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.
"The [Syrian] leadership has decided to inform Mehlis that it accepts his suggestion, as a compromise, that the venue to listen to the five Syrian officials be the UN headquarters in Vienna," Mr Muallem said.
UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Mr Mehlis confirmed the agreement in a telephone call to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
One potential sticking point remains, says the BBC's Jon Leyne in neighbouring Jordan.
The UN originally said it wanted to speak to six Syrian officials, but Syria is talking of five officials travelling to Vienna, he says.
Mr Muallem told reporters: "Me, I know that the number is five. I don't know where you get the sixth from."
He also said Damascus was not worried that the officials, who are travelling with their lawyers, would be arrested in Vienna.
"Mr Mehlis doesn't have the authority to arrest [them]. He must ask the Lebanese judicial authorities who will then ask Syria," he said.
Mr Muallem would not identify the officials involved, saying it was a matter of the "secrecy of the investigation", or say when the interviews might take place.
Reports from Lebanon suggest the officials include the head of Syrian military intelligence, Assef Shawkat, a brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
posted by Joshua Landis @ 11/25/2005 04:04:00 PM
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Were Bashar to survive this episode and keep his regime intact after this U.N. probe is concluded, one must start to wonder if modern Syria will ever have a none-Assad to rise to lead it. This can only happen if:
1-Bashar’s inner circle is either innocent (unlikely) or that they are guilty but that evidence to convict them lacks the substance or weight to stand in a court of law.
2-The U.S. concludes that Bashar has been a taught a lesson and that this chapter will serve as a deterrence for any similar action form him or others in the future. In effect, the U.S. may in the end conclude, that Syria without Bashar and the regime is a scenario fraught with dangers that they and Israel would not be willing to tolerate.
All we can do now is wait and see. This is an incredibly important moment in the history of this country. Either we start to be prepared for Hafez junior as the next president or this country will finally close this nightmarish chapter in its modern history. What if the future proves to be even worse? In spite of the risks (and I think they are not insignificant), I for one would take my chances. After all, by shying away from the risks now, one would only be postponing the inevitable.
Of course there are the other alternatives.
As in the 5 suspects accidentaly killing themselves in a variety of accidents and suicides. Of course after writing confessions to prove that they did it alone without knowledge from the Dktor.
haha or the plane carrying all the 'suspects' could 'accidently' go down on the way back from Vienna! Yes there is much drama ahead for sure.
And you know what? The one thing that promotes me to trust in Bashar--as the majority of the Syrian population from Sunnis to Kurds to Christians and Allawis--more than anything--and you have to trust his intentions because his actual actions have so far been lacking. That one thing is that he was never raised to be a leader. He never grew up being mentally cultivated to be Supreme Leader. The man followed in his father's would-be occupation and became a doctor. He could have done a lot of things--being an Assad he could have been a party boy, a military thug, a Rami Makhlouf. But the man chose to be a doctor. He went to England to study, and from all accounts very seriously studied and the Presidency was thrust upon him upon his brother's death.
Now these real facts lead me to believe a couple of things.
1. I could see him walking away from the Presidency if he thought it was in the best interests of his country. Call him clumsy, call him sometimes out of place, but this is not some intrinsically power hungry man, or else he would have been Bassel's right hand-man from the start. No he decided to study to learn how to heal people. That is fact.
2. As a result, the chances in my mind of Hafez Jr being handed the presidency are really null. I could see him popularly elected in large part of name recognition a la George W Bush. But the easing of the political atmosphere since Bashar's arrival combined with what we can tell of his nature lead me to believe that one day Bashar will win a presidency by popular vote and that one day he will decide not to run as Mahathir (another doctor) in Malaysia did. That is my prediction.
Now I am sure people will dismiss my opinion as nonsense. People will say it is all a ploy to trick me and trick Syrians into believing Bashar is different. Maybe it is--I at least aknowledge that. But I am not a brain-washed result of Baathist propaganda and I just don't think Bashar's whole life is one big ploy. I believe my interpretation of the facts is the correct one.
what make you think they are out of the woods!! READ this
Guardian International Pages
Syria backs down and allows UN to question officials
Rory McCarthy Beirut
218 words
26 November 2005
The Guardian
17
English
© Copyright 2005. The Guardian. All rights reserved.
Syria agreed last night to let five senior security officials face UN questioning in Vienna as part of the inquiry into the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
The decision is a significant concession by Syria in its standoff with Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor leading the inquiry into the February killing. The men to be questioned could include President Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher, the head of Syria's Republican Guard, and his powerful brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, head of military intelligence.
"The [Syrian] leadership has decided to inform Mehlis that it accepts his suggestion, as a compromise, that the venue to listen to the five Syrian officials be the UN headquarters in Vienna," Walid Moallem, Syria's deputy foreign minister, said , adding that Damascus had agreed to the interviews after being given "assurances" that its sovereignty would be respected.
Damascus was reluctant to let the men leave the country for fear they would be arrested by UN investigators. Last month, in an interim report, Mr Mehlis said it was likely Syrian intelligence was involved in the killing. Since then Mr Assad has come under pressure to cooperate and faces UN security council sanctions if he refuses.
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two of the five men can be Assef and Maher...
The men to be questioned could include President Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher, the head of Syria's Republican Guard, and his powerful brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, head of military intelligence
A wintry wind blows in Damascus
Ed O'Loughlin
847 words
26 November 2005
The Sydney Morning Herald
First
20
English
© 2005 Copyright John Fairfax Holdings Limited. www.smh.com.au Not available for re-distribution.
Syria is still feeling the fallout from the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, writes Ed O'Loughlin.
IF STREET protests are signs of freedom on the march then right now you could be forgiven for thinking that Syria is going through a revolution.
Little convoys of cars pass at intervals along Damascus's broad, traffic-clogged arterial highways, honking horns and waving flags, just as they did in Lebanon when people-power rallies brought down an unpopular government this year. Protest tents have sprung up in key public spaces, just as they did in Beirut following the murder in February of the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, so that people have somewhere to make their views heard.
But in Damascus, the only views that can be aired are those in favour of the Government. And while hundreds of thousands of people flooded the squares of Beirut, here the demonstrations are small and half-hearted, usually just a score or two of dutiful Baath party supporters showing the flag.
In the evening rush hour, with the chill wind blowing down off the Golan Heights, most ordinary Damascenes just hurry past without sparing the demonstrators more than a glance or two. Beirut enjoyed its spring this year; Syrians worry about the winter to come.
The source of their unease is the continuing fall-out from the assassination of Mr Hariri, who died with 22 others when a massive bomb destroyed a Beirut city block on February 14. Two separate United Nations investigations have since suggested that the killing was the work of Syrian agents, angered by Mr Hariri's leading role in a campaign to end Syria's military domination of Lebanon.
If so, the attack failed spectacularly, creating a rare alliance at the United Nations between the US and France - the colonial power in Syria and Lebanon between the first and second world wars - that quickly forced Damascus to end its lucrative control of wealthier Lebanon.
Humiliatingly forced to comply with a UN resolution ordering withdrawal, President Bashar al-Assad's government was then faced with a second resolution requiring it to co-operate - on pain of international sanctions - with an inquiry by the German investigator Detlev Mehlis to find Mr Hariri's killers.
Last month Mr Mehlis's interim report concluded there was reason to believe that Syrian agents were responsible, and he demanded to be allowed to question six unnamed Syrian security officials before making his final report on December 15.
Mr Assad - an initially reluctant autocrat whose succession in 2000 led to short-lived hopes for a reformist "Damascus Spring" - is showing signs of reverting to the older and more confrontational school of Arabist politics of his late father, Hafez.
In a key televised speech two weeks ago Mr Assad threatened to crack down on those who raise their voices against the Government while it is under foreign attack. He taunted Lebanon's new Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, as "a slave who takes orders from a slave who takes orders" - referring to Mr Siniora's main sponsor, Mr Hariri's son and political heir, Saad.
So who in turn does Mr Hariri take his orders from? Ask any Baath supporter.
"The killing of Hariri is part of an American plan," explains Moutaz Hassan, 28, one of a group of fresh-faced youngsters and watchful men manning the Beirut-style protest tent sponsored by the Syrian Public Relations Association in the heart of Damascus's diplomatic district.
"They started with Afghanistan, continued in Iraq and now it's Syria. They want all our countries to be small cantons controlled by Israel, but the American people don't know what their government is doing."
"Hariri was a big businessman so it was either some business mafia or some radical fundamentalists [who killed him]," says Elias Murad, editor in chief of the ruling party's newspaper, Al-Baath.
"But of course these groups may have been linked to foreign powers or a strong state that has the ability and the facilities ... there was an Israeli surveillance plane on the day Hariri was assassinated, the same day and the same hour. We are only certain that Syria is not the country that carried it out. It is one of the countries harmed the most by it."
In recent months human rights and democracy activists have reported an upsurge in surveillance, harassment, assaults and detentions.
"Everyone is worried now," says Anwar al-Bounni, a leading human rights lawyer who was beaten up by pro-regime thugs last month. "They don't know if this regime will stay and fight, what the future will be. Maybe war, maybe sanctions. And if the regime changes they are worried about what will replace it."
With American forces now floundering in Iraq a US invasion - which to many seemed imminent only two years ago - is now almost out of the question. But the more likely prospect of international sanctions is threat enough for most.
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The oxford research group report thinks they will be there for decades. No country has ever built an embassy structure like the U.S. has just started to build in Baghdad. The recently approved budget is for $650 million for the main building as well as units that will house the entire staff and their dependents on a 99-year leased land.
Eng.Ch, Believe me this is a very long term project
A comment I had not noticed before:
(fixed link)
Iraqi Kurds will proclaim independence in case of civil war
Barzani says Iraqi Kurds would be forced to declare indepndence if civil war breaks out. Now if I was a Kurdish leader, this is a chance of a lifetime to declare a Kurdish state to protect my people like Armenia. So if it means creating some bloodshed as an excuse to create my Kurdish state I would doubtless do it. It would be my responibility to my Kurdish people.
But would Turkey prevent this from happening? I don't know.
So this goes away from my rosy scenerio of Iraq intact and the Americans out very soon and does lead me to give more credence to Ehsani's view that the US will be there longer than I originally thought.
But I stand by my thoughts that even if the US plans to be there a long time--the Iraqi people can be provoked to taking over that embassy at any time, given the right stimulus.
Americans will no doubt beef up security, but there is nothing they can do short of housing a military base in the embassy to prevent its storming by thousands of say Muqtada supporters after Sistani passes away.
Witness in Hariri Murder Perishes in Mysterious Road Accident
November 26, 2005
Naharnet.com
A witness in the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has died in a mysterious road accident that raised suspicions of murder.
Nowar Donna, owner of a mobile telephone trading business in Tripoli, was killed when his car plunged into a valley on the road to Bteghrine in Metn. An unidentified pillion also was killed, An Nahar reported Saturday.
Internal Security Forces have launched an investigation into Friday's accident "amid suspicions it was a premeditated murder," according to the paper.
Donna had been questioned by both Detlev Mehlis' International Independent Investigation Commission and the Lebanese judicial authorities after he was identified as the vendor of five mobile telephone sets out of eight that were used in the car bomb assassination of Hariri on Feb. 14.
Assad Bows to U.N., Agreeing to Deliver 5 Officers to Mehlis, Excluding Shawkat
Syria agreed Friday to allow U.N. investigators to question five of its officials over Rafik Hariri's assassination in Vienna, ending a deadlock with the U.N. that threatened the Assad regime with an international financial blockade.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told a news conference that the breakthrough in negotiations with the United Nations came after Syria received "reassurances" about respect for its sovereignty and "guarantees concerning the rights of the individuals" to be questioned. He did not elaborate.
"The (Syrian) leadership has decided to inform (chief U.N. investigator Detlev) Mehlis that it accepts his suggestion, as a compromise, that the venue to listen to the five Syrian officials be the U.N. headquarters in Vienna," Moallem said.
His announcement came a day after Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa criticized Mehlis for refusing Syrian offers on where and how to question the six senior intelligence officers that the commission wishes to see.
Syria had rejected Mehlis' request to interview the officials in Beirut, claiming its civil servants would not be safe on Lebanese soil.
Moallem did not say when the Vienna hearing would take place. "We will contact the (U.N.) commission very soon to specify dates and agree on the procedures and all that is necessary," he said.
Moallem refused to identify the Syrian officials, saying it was a matter related to the "secrecy of the investigation."
Earlier U.N. reports said Mehlis wished to interview six officers, and that they included the chief of Syria's military intelligence, Brig. Gen. Assef Shawkat, who is the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
There is a widespread conviction that Shawkat would not be delivered to the U.N. commission.
"As far as I know the number of those wanted (for questioning) are five," Moallem said Friday. "I don't know where you got the sixth name."
Mehlis confirmed he has reached a deal with Damascus for the Vienna questioning of five Syrian officials, a U.N. spokeswoman said Friday.
"The secretary general (Kofi Annan) spoke with Mr. Mehlis who confirmed that he had reached agreement with Syrian officials" for conducting the interrogation in U.N. offices in the Austrian capital, spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
Commenting on Friday's deal, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said: "the Syrian decision to cooperate is a direct result of the unambiguous, unanimous decision of the Security Council in Resolution 1636."
"We hope this Syrian cooperation continues and grows," he added.
Last month, the U.N. Security Council passed resolution 1636 which demands full Syrian cooperation with the Mehlis probe and warned of possible sanctions if Damascus failed to do so.
The London-based Al Hayat newspaper reported Thursday that Mehlis had proposed a compromise of questioning the Syrian officials in Vienna or Geneva, and had given the Syrians until Friday to respond.(AP-Naharnet-AFP)
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