Reform party of Syria
www.reformsyria.net
U.S. TIGHTENS EXPORTS FOR SYRIA
Iranian President to visit Syria
Syria 'holding hostages' to punish France
Syria cracks down on democracy dissidents
Australian Foreign Minister Endorses Resolution 1559
Washington DC, October 7, 2004/MENL News/ -- The United States has launched an effort to tighten weapons and dual-use exports for Syria.
The Bush administration ordered a tightening of exports to Syria in May in wake of the signing of the Syrian Accountability Act. Officials said the State Department has increased restrictions on exports to Syria because of its harboring of and support to groups deemed terrorist as well as the missile and weapons of mass destruction programs sponsored by the regime of President Baschar Assad.
This situation will not change unless and until Syria decides to make fundamental modifications in its national policy," Commerce Under Secretary Kenneth Juster said.
Officials said the tightened export restrictions on Syria was in line with the latest U.S. sanctions imposed on Damascus. They said the new regulations have ended the export of so-called EAR-99 items to Syria.
Reform Party of Syria
Iranian President to Visit Syria
Washington DC, October 7, 2004 /The Independent - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who is currently in Oman on an official visit, will fly to Damascus on an unscheduled visit to Syria, according to the official IRNA news agency.
"President Khatami will wrap up a two-day visit to Oman and is scheduled to pay a short visit to Syria Thursday evening," the IRNA said.
Khatami is expected to hold meetings with senior Syrian officials, including Baschar al-Assad, to discuss bilateral ties as well as the latest developments in the region. This surprise visit comes on the heels of further erosion of support of Syrian policies by its Arab neighbors in light of its defiance to stay in Lebanon as well as opening several tracks with the U.S. on issues important to the international community.
Washington DC, October 6, 2004 /The Independent - By John Lichfield in Paris and Kim Sengupta in Baghdad/ -- The French government believes that two French journalists taken hostage in Iraq may have been taken to Syria with the connivance of authorities in Damascus. French officials would not comment officially yesterday but suspicions were confirmed by a senior politician and reported by the newspaper, Le Figaro, which employs one of the missing men.
The paper suggested Syria's intervention was "cynical" and even hostile but could lead, paradoxically, to the release of Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, captured by a mysterious opposition group in Iraq 49 days ago.
The men are said to have been repeatedly moved around, with a final stop near Ramadi, in western Iraq before crossing into Syria, say sources in Muslim clerical circles in Baghdad.
It might now be easier for Paris to negotiate "state to state" with Syria than with small groups of hostage-takers with "changeable moods", the newspaper said.
François Bayrou, head of the centrist UDF party, said after a briefing on the hostage situation by the Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin: "The government has not excluded the possibility [that the hostages are in Syria] but it's not up to me to comment on that."
Le Figaro, in a front-page article signed by its deputy editor, Charles Lambroschoini, said intelligence sources in France and in the Arab world suspected Syria had intervened in the hostage crisis to "punish" Paris for supporting an anti-Syrian resolution in the UN Security Council. The newspaper suggested Damascus has been largely responsible for the near-farcical events at the weekend in which a maverick member of the French parliament claimed he had succeeded in an independent mission to free the two and their Syrian driver-interpreter.
The claims of the parliamentarian - Didier Julia, of President Jacques Chirac's UMP party - came to nothing amid a blizzard of recriminations. M. Julia said the official French attempts to release the hostages were "lost in the wilderness". He described the French diplomatic service as "a bunch of penguins".
Paris disowned M. Julia's efforts. The government accused him of ruining its own patient negotiations with the hostage-takers, then admitted it had opened some diplomatic doors for M. Julia's bizarre team of negotiators, which included former Saddam Hussein sympathisers, close to the French far right.
The fiasco came close to shattering the mood of national unity which has existed in France since the journalists were captured. To calm criticism by the press and opposition parties, M. Raffarin called in party leaders on Tuesday and revealed that the government had been given a video tape showing the two men were alive on 18 September.
At this meeting, M. Raffarin also appears to have revealed the suspected Syrian connection. France supported a US-sponsored resolution in the UN last month which criticised the continued presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon. Le Figaro said yesterday that Syrian interference in the hostage crisis would be a "typical piece of vengeance of the kind often used, to the point of cynicism, by Damascus".
The French government is now said to suspect that the hostage-takers were not, as first thought, radical Islamists but former Baath party members, still loyal to Saddam. The hostage-takers are believed to be either under the influence of Damascus or to have actually transferred the hostages to Syrian control.
Syria Cracks Down on Democracy Dissidents
Washington DC, October 5, 2004 /RPS News/ -- As expected, Syria has started a new campaign of cracking down on Syrian dissidents who, in the last few weeks, raised their voices to object to the lack of freedom and transparency in their own country.
Such is the case of Jihad Nasra and Nabil Fayad who were reported to have been detained in the last few days. Both writers are well known to the Syrian public and the Syrian Diaspora for writing about liberalism and democracy. In fact, they founded, with other writers and intellectuals, the Syrian Liberal Forum on September 13. As a result, more are expected to be arrested in the coming days. When reached by phone, Mrs. Nasra said that her husband has been moved to Damascus. No one knows what became of him or when he will be released.
Why now?
Syrian Ba'athists tend to loosen their grip in regard to abuse and oppressive measures when under tremendous pressure and tighten it when they sense that the international community is praising them publicly. With all the pressure being yielded by the international community through such acts as UN Resolution 1559 and the Syria Accountability Act, lately, certain public statements made by U.S. Officials have all but erased all the pressure that was meticulously worked out between U.S. departments and nations. One such statement was made by Secretary Colin Powell that praised Syria's cooperation on September 22 after he met with foreign minister al-Shara'a in New York. "I sensed a new attitude from the Syrians," Powell told reporters in New York. After which Syria's Ba'athists became bold enough to jail dissidents and will continue, in the near future, to abuse human rights in Syria.
A public praise by the U.S. State Department has consequences. People of Syria view it as sanctioning the regime of Assad in support of their policies in the region. They do not see it as narrowly and in the same diplomatic terms as the rest of us do. Why do Syrians view the praise this way? Because the Ba'athists interpret any statement praising the regime as Carte Blanche to continue oppressing the people of Syria. The direct correlation between U.S. statements and human rights abuse in Syria have never been so clear in the past but they are today.
If a praise helps the U.S. interests, then it should be done in private. In fact, the Ba'athists sometimes demand a public praise in order to show the world that they are supported by the U.S. when in fact, the U.S. should do everything to avoid being used as a tool to help perpetuate a regime whose agenda is the bashing of what the U.S. stands for in the Middle East and whose deeds exemplify the very same terrorism we are combating with all our resources. This is morally wrong.
If the U.S. State Department is serious about helping dissidents and democracy advocates in Syria as they claim they are, then they should maintain the tough language no matter what Syria does. Any public praise by Powell or others brings more misery for the people of Syria, which inevitably turns back the clock on the very democratic goals the U.S. is trying to promote in that region.
Washington DC, October 2, 2004 /RPS News/ -- Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer sent a letter to the Lebanese community in Australia supporting their work for freedom and endorsing U.N. Resolution 1559.
"The Australian Government shares the commitment of Lebanese Australians to supporting Lebanon's sovereignty, independence and national unity. It is matter of principle that the Government fully supports the withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon" said Downer. The letter was addressed to the Australian Lebanese Sovereignty Board in Sydney.
The letter went on to laud the Lebanese community in her contribution to peaceful and dynamic Lebanon.
U.N. Resolution 1559 asked that all foreign troops vacate Lebanon. It was meant to send a strong signal to Syria's Ba'athists for their hegemony over Lebanon.
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