[Midden-Oosten] ALL the International Powers Want to Crush the Syrian Uprising | Joseph Daher
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Di Feb 16 00:18:18 CET 2016
http://peacenews.org/2016/02/12/all-the-international-powers-want-to-crush-the-syrian-uprising-joseph-daher/
ALL the International Powers Want to Crush the Syrian Uprising | Joseph Daher
About The Author
Dr. Joseph Daher is an assistant teacher in the
university of Lausanne, Switzerland and has a
PhD in Development of the university of (School
of Oriental and African Studies), SOAS, London,
UK. He is the founder of the blog Syria Freedom
Forever. He is a Swiss/Syrian leftist activist.
We are currently witnessing at different levels, politically and military,
another attempt to put an end to the uprising in Syria. Military advances of
the regime forces assisted by ground forces of Hezbollah and Shi’a sectarian
militias directed by Iran and Russian airstrikes are occurring with the
collaboration of Western imperialist powers, despite some rhetorical
condemnations while Syrian opposition is pushed into diplomatic negotiations
by these same international forces to basically kneel to the conditions of
the Assad regime.
* Russian airstrikes are now leading to ground gains by Assad forces
* The Geneva talks were a failure and the U.S. blames the victims
* Our duty is to support the goals and forces of the democratic uprising
Military offensives throughout Syria of the regime forces backed by Russian
airstrikes
For the past two weeks, Assad regime forces, Hezbollah and Shi’a sectarian
militias directed by Iran, all backed by massive Russian bombing raids and
using cluster munitions and vacuum missiles, have made unprecedented gains
in the northern Aleppo countryside and encircled the liberated areas of
Aleppo, which has been divided between regime and opposition control since
autumn 2012. The advances of regime forces assisted by its allies broke the
siege imposed by Jaysh al Fath, a coalition of armed forces dominated by
Jabhat al Nusra and Ahrar Sham, on the Shi’a towns of Nubl and Zahraa. The
result of these maneuvers is that the regime has cut off supply lines to the
free areas of Aleppo city, which populated of around 350,000 civilians and
isolated different armed groups opposed to the Assad regime in the northern
countryside, while tens of thousands, of civilians, estimates goes as far as
more than 50,000, are fleeing the forces of the regime and its allies were
seeking refuge at the Bab al-Salama border crossing or also in the city of
Afrin, which is under the control of the Kurdish force, the Democratic Union
Party (PYD). At the same time massive destructions of civilian
infrastructures occurred with Russian airstrikes, such as the bombing of the
last major hospital, the Andan charitable hospital established in 2013, in a
liberated areas of northern Aleppo.
Turkey has kept the Bab al-Salama crossing closed until today, while Turkish
humanitarian groups sent in truckloads of aid for the tens of thousands of
Syrians stranded on the border, but in insufficient quantity according to
various Syrian activists at the border.
Following the military offensive of the regime and its allies, armed
opposition groups operating in the northern countryside of Aleppo proclaimed
the formation of the “unified military council” . In the liberated areas of
Aleppo, the local council has formed a crisis center to provide and preserve
the essential needs of food and fuel at affordable prices. The council has
spent most of its funds to secure fuel to support bakery furnaces,
hospitals, civil defense groups and water pumps, but expressed doubts the
available amount would be enough. Massive popular protests also occurred
throughout districts under opposition control in the city of Aleppo
demanding that the province’s armed factions to unite under the “Army of
Aleppo” and for a free Syria.
At the same time in the past few days, tens of thousands of Daraa
inhabitants are fleeing a combination of regime ground advances and aerial
bombardments by Russian and regime forces, with one estimate of up to 80,000
people displaced. Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) also
reported on February 9 that one of their hospitals in the Daraa province,
has been hit by a Russian airstrike. The elected opposition Daraa Provincial
Council wrote in a statement published on February 7 about the “difficulty
to find shelter for them” and adding that “the lack of food and medicine and
closure of the Jordanian border has exacerbated the suffering.” This
followed the seizure of the town of Ataman, 3 km north of Daraa city, last
week securing a section of the old Daraa-Damascus highway and extending
defensive lines for regime forces in the provincial capital. Before this,
the strategic city of Sheikh Miskeen, around 75km south of Damascus and sits
on a crossroads connecting Suwaida, Quneitra and Damascus provinces, was
captured by regime forces. In both cases, Russian airstrikes were key in the
advances of the Assad regime forces.
In the opposition-controlled areas in the Homs countryside, regime aircraft
dropped leaflets, threatening the use of new highly destructive weapons and
claiming that residents would not be safe from harm inside their shelters.
The regime wants to spread and increase the state of fear among inhabitants
as a result of the raids, in which Russian aircraft also participate.
Russian warplanes carried out 50 air raids targeting the town of Telbeesa
over two consecutive nights (February 8 and 9), causing a number of deaths
and wide damage to local infrastructure. In rural Idlib province, on
February 9, at least 15 people were killed by Russian air-bombing that hit a
camp for internally-displaced-persons, IDPs, or internal refugees.
We have to remember that these new military gains by regime forces would
have been impossible without the military assistance of Russia, Iran,
Hezbollah and various Shi’a sectarian militias. The Syrian army has been
weakened considerably, various estimation pointing out that its numbers fell
from 300,000 to as little as between 60,000 and 80,000 and had suffered
various important defeats before the summer 2015, notably after the fall of
the northern towns of Idlib and nearby Jisr al-Shughour in May 2015 falling
in the hands of the coalition of the Jaysh al-Fath, led by Jabhat Al Nusra
and Ahrar Sham.
Desertions and lack of will from the Syrian youth to die for a corrupt and
authoritarian regime explain mainly the impossibility of the regime’s army
to recruit new soldiers. A lot of young men have actually been fleeing for
Europe often after having received their call-up papers or being ordered to
report for reserve duty. In the same time, the weakness of the regime’s army
has led to the creation of a 125,000-strong locally based National Defence
Force, which has been mostly trained and paid by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This is why opposing these foreign imperialist interventions, are so
important, because without them the regime would not have been able to
continue and deepen its war against the Syrian population.
Geneva III, Munich, etc… pushing the Syrians to kneel…
The Geneva III conference was a another failure, as regime forces and its
allies continued its military offensives on various areas of Syria
controlled by opposition armed groups, pushing the High Negotiations
Committee of the Syrian opposition to withdraw form the negotiation. UN
special envoy, De Mistura set a new target date of February 25 to reconvene
talks between the Syrian regime and opposition in Geneva.
In the meantime, the various imperialist powers met for the International
Syria Support Group in Munich, Germany, on February 11, 2016 in a bid to
revive “peace efforts”. Trying to prevent a collapse of diplomatic efforts
to pursue the “peace negociations”, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had
pushed before this meeting for a ceasefire and more humanitarian aid access
ahead of the meeting. Despite the formal agreement of Russian officials to
Kerry’s diplomatic efforts, Russia continued its airstrikes campaign from
Aleppo up north to Deraa down south as we have seen above.
Regime officials have on their side made clear that they are unwilling to
stop any military advances. Syrian Foreign Minister Waleed al-Muallem
declared last weekend that there will be “no ceasefire until the Turkish
border is secured,” referring to Bab al-Salama, while Bouthaina Shaaban,
senior adviser to dictator Assad, actually declared on February 9, that
“there would be no let-up in the army advance, which aimed to recapture the
city of Aleppo from various opposition armed forces and secure Syria’s
border with Turkey”.
On their side, the High Negotiations Committee of the Syrian opposition
declared their readiness as well to attend the talks in Germany in an
attempt to revive Syria peace efforts. In the same time, the High
Negotiations Committee urged U.S. President Barack Obama to do more to stop
Russian bombing raids in Syria and to provide weaponry to able armed
opposition groups to defend them.
The delivery of arms and weapons with no political conditions attached from
the West or any state to democratic sections of the Free Syrian Army to
fight and struggle against the Assad regime and Islamic fundamentalist
forces have been a key demand of democratic and progressive section of
supporters of the Syrian revolution without success.
The outcome of the Munich conference was that the international powers
agreed on February 12 to a cessation of hostilities in Syria set to begin
week after and to provide rapid humanitarian access to besieged Syrian
towns, but they failed to secure a complete ceasefire or an end to Russian
bombing. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that Russia would
not stop air attacks in Syria, saying the cessation of hostilities did not
apply to Daech and Jabhat al Nusra. The Russian state propaganda has made
similar declarations in the framework of the so called “war against terror”
throughout its bombing campaigns in Syria that started on September 30, 2015
to justify its military intervention in the country on the side of the Assad
regime, but as we have shown in this article and in the previous one (see
http://peacenews.org/2016/01/26/33329/) the targets are mostly not Daech and
Jabhat al Nusra, but FSA groups and other Islamist forces as well as
civilians and civilians infrastructure. As a reminder, on January 20, 2016,
the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that Russian airstrikes,
which started on 30 September 2015, have killed 1,015 civilians, including
more than 200 children, while hundreds of thousands of civilians had to flee
their areas because of the Russian airstrikes, in addition to the
destruction of neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, etc…
The major powers also reaffirmed their commitment to a political transition
when conditions on the ground improved… Moreover than ever we can see that
regime change is not in the agenda of the various international imperialist
powers in Syria, quite on the opposite as we said before.
Conclusion
The objectives of the Russian military intervention and massive airstrikes
campaigns were clear since September 30, 2015: save and consolidate the
political and military power of the Assad regime. Russian President Vladimir
Putin actually said on September 28, before the beginning of the Russian
airstrikes: “There is no other way to settle the Syrian conflict other than
by strengthening the existing legitimate government agencies, support them
in their fight against terrorism”. In other words crush all forms of
opposition, whether democratic or reactionary, to the Assad regime under the
so called “war on terror”. All authoritarian regimes have used this same
kind of propaganda to repress popular movements and/ or opposition groups to
their powers: Assad against the popular movement since day 1 of the popular
uprising, Sissi in Egypt to repress particularly the Muslim Brotherhoods,
but also progressive left and democratic movements, Erdogan against the PKK
and various leftist movements, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia against the
protesters and popular movements challenging their power, etc…
This also has severe consequences on civilians as we saw above.
Is the USA not aware of the objectives of the Russian state? It is hardly
believable that they were not, on the opposite they probably saw it as an
opportunity to pressure the opposition to negotiate with the Assad regime,
as actually occurred these past few weeks and still is. US Secretary of
State John Kerry actually told Syrian aid workers on the sidelines of the
‘Supporting Syria’ donor conference in London that Syrian ‘opposition will
be decimated’ and to expect 3 months of bombing. Kerry actually blamed the
Syrian opposition for leaving the talks in Geneva III conference and paving
the way for a joint offensive by the Syrian regime and Russia on Aleppo.
This behaviour should not be seen as a surprise or a treason of the USA as
some have put it. This would indeed have meant that Washington had had even
for a second a political will for regime change in Syria, which was never
case as I showed in a previous article in peacenews.
http://peacenews.org/2016/01/26/33329/
Despite their rivalry, imperialist and sub imperialist interventions share a
common purpose today: to liquidate the revolutionary popular movement
initiated in March 2011, stabilize the regime in Damascus in keeping at the
head its criminal dictator (for a short and medium term at least), and try
to militarily defeat Daech. For example, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel
al-Jubeir declared on February 8 that Riyad held out the possibility of
sending Saudi special forces into Syria as part of a U.S.-led coalition
against Daech. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain also joined the movement
saying its willingness to send troops to train and support a U.S.-led
coalition against Daech, while Kuwait said it supported the alliance against
Daech but that it would no send troops. At the same time, the King of
Bahrain Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, welcomed and offered Russian president
Putin a damascene sword and told him that they called it the sword of
victory, and victory will be your ally… Russian Presidential Aide announced
on February 10 that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman is scheduled to visit Russia
in mid-March.
We must not imagine that the imperialist rivalries at the global level
between the United States, China and Russia would be insurmountable for
these powers, to the extent that these powers are in reality in relations of
interdependence on many issues. All these regimes are bourgeois regimes that
are and always will be the enemies of the popular revolutions, seeking to
impose or strengthen a stable political context allowing them to accumulate
and develop their political and economic capital in defiance of the popular
classes. It does not matter that the detainees held by the Syrian regime are
being killed on a massive scale amounting to a state policy of
“extermination” of the civilian population, a crime against humanity, United
Nations investigators declared few days ago.
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A-HRC-31-CRP1_en.pdf
No regional or international power is a friend of the Syrian revolution as
we have shown repeatedly.
In this framework, the United Nations acts as an institution at the service
of these various imperialist powers. Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky’s
described the UN ancestor the League of Nation the following way: “The
League in its defence of the status quo is not an organization of ‘peace’,
but an organization of the violence of the imperialist minority over the
overwhelming majority of mankind”. This perfectly applies today to the
United Nations and De Mistura’s plan of so called “peace negotiation” for
Syria, as the previous one. This was also witnessed in the UN silence for
months on the blockade of the city of Madaya which started as early of end
of June / beginning of July 2015 and key aspects of the blockade for months,
or the statement of Carla Del Ponte, current member of the UN commission of
enquiry on Syria, declaring that generally speaking the Russian intervention
in Syria was positive, because it attacked terrorists groups such as Daech
and Al Qaeda, while adding that there was nevertheless still a small
problem: the lack of distinction of Russian airstrikes between civilians and
terrorist groups.
The role of the progressive forces is to oppose and condemn all the
imperialist schemes to put an end to the Syrian popular uprising, condemn
the continuous war of the Assad criminal regime against the population of
Syria and the assistance given by foreign forces of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah
and various other Shi’a sectarian militias in this murderous campaign. The
intervention of these foreign powers and groups resulted in new and
increasing civilian casualties and suffering. In the same time, even though
less important, we also oppose the interventions of Gulf monarchies and
Turkey in the past, which were to advance their own selfish political
interests and not the ones of the Syrian people and to change the nature of
the revolution into a sectarian war or increasing sectarian animosities,
following a similar behaviour therefore of the Assad regime and its allies.
We have to support today crucial demands of the Syrian people, which are
peace, the end of the war, end of the bombings, end of blockades, the
release of political prisoners and the return of refugees and internal
displaced populations, while in the same time maintaining the initial
objectives of the revolution in our struggle: freedom, social justice,
equality and no to sectarianism and to racism.
We can still find examples of pockets of hope within Syria supporting these
initial objectives. The town of Zamalka, in rural Damascus, witnessed new
experiences of local democracy with the election by the inhabitants of a new
local council. The popular organisation “The Day After” (TDA)’s launched in
the past few weeks a Women Empowerment campaign inside Douma, focusing on
women’s participation and leadership in Syrian society and the challenges
they face, including the effects of siege and war on their life and their
ability to work. Another campaign of TDA called “Complain so that you don’t
lose your rights,” was led in Daraa, in which TDA activists put ‘complaints
box in streets’ to encourage citizens to express any concerns they may have
about armed groups in their areas, and initiate action and dialogue to
improve interactions between civilians and armed group members. The campaign
has previously been launched in Idlib and Douma. Sit ins in Douma, Kafranbel
and Saraqeb in solidarity with Kurdish people with slogans such as “From
Douma to ‘Amouda Peace (Salutation) and respect” and “The Kurds are a part
of the Syrian Revolution” and to reactivate the civil popular movement; the
Sarareq Youth gathering in the Idlib Governorate launched a campaign to
promote respect for basic freedom of expression called “that’s your
opinion”, but had to stop after threats from the local armed groups.
We need to support these pockets of hope and the popular (armed and
civilian) resistance still existing in Syria and composed of various
democratic and progressive groups and movements opposing all sides of the
counter-revolution, the Assad regime and Islamic fundamentalist groups.
Joseph Daher
10/02/2016
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